Seetheworld2: May 2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 1 part 1

Pat looking at lion Rock, west coast town of Piha

Kitekite Falls

Maori Carving

Gannett colony at Muriwai Beach

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 1 part 2

Maori Meeting House at Auckland Museum

King Penguins at Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter

Bus to Kelly's

Downtown Auckland

We left our RV in storage in Albuquerque and flew to Maui to break up the long flight. We decided to drive the Hana Highway instead of going whale watching. (Big mistake - whale watching was at its peak!). We were surprised to find most of the waterfalls along the route were dry - not what we expected during Hawaii’s rainy season. We explored some of our favorite parks along the way and had lunch in Hana. We returned in time to catch a flight to Honolulu and from there to Auckland, New Zealand.
We checked in to the Airport Holiday Inn Express and I was excited to see that they had breakfast out. The only problem was that breakfast was an additional $20! It was clear we had definitely left the good old USA. We crashed for a few hours after the all night flight. Later we started exploring the coast on the west side of Auckland. The west coast was hilly and remote. The roads reminded me of the mountain roads in West Virginia. In addition to the beautiful scenery we saw a rare colony of gannets and the beach were “The Piano” was filmed.
We were able to trade time at our vacation property in British Columbia for a house in Auckland for a week. It was a great location where we could use public transportation to explore the sights around town. We toured the Winter Gardens and the nearby Auckland Museum. When we toured Kelly Tarleton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World we were surprised to find out that his Underwater World was previously sewage holding tanks. We took a ferry to Devonport and hiked to the military structures and gun placements on North Head.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 2 part 1

Universal problem

A one man built RR

Shakespeare Cliffs

Hope its a two seater

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 2 part 2

Hamilton Gardens

Maori war canoe

Maori warrior

Their women are scary too!

We left Auckland and a taxi dropped us off at the depot of United, an RV rental company. I thought back to those days in PA a few months earlier when I was running between Ford and other service centers trying to get work done on my RV. I could not wait until we had a rental RV and RV maintenance would be someone else’s problem. That day had come. Our rental RV was here.
There is always a period of adjustment when you try to figure out how everything works in a new RV. After we loaded the refrigerator with food for the week, we noticed that the refrigerator was not working properly. We determine the problem was with the coach battery which was not charging. After we spend a good part of the first week running to service centers in three different cities, we got the battery charger replaced and the connection with the engine battery reconnected.
In spite of these problems we managed to keep busy touring the Coromandel Peninsula. On the west coast, we walked though the Water Works Museum where water powered each exhibit. Next we took a train ride up a mountain on a track that one man laid over the course of 26 years. It was quite a remarkable achievement. On the east coast we wanted to hike to Cathedral Cove, but a recent cyclone has destroyed the staircase, so we did a scenic hike to the Shakespeare Cliffs instead. After an enjoyable hike to Wentworth Falls, we visited an active pit open gold mine. We entered several abandoned gold mine tunnels in the Waitawhete Gorge; we found no gold, but the glow worms were in residence.
In Hamilton, we spent several hours touring the majestic gardens. The 500 foot Wairere Falls should not be missed on the way to Rotorua. Rotorua is a tourist town surrounded by geothermal activity. There is a geyser there that erupts the same time every day. I was curious how this could be possible. I found out that the ranger dumps a surfactant down into the geyser, which changes the water tension and causes the geyser to explode. I can’t imagine a ranger in Yellowstone NP ever doing that. Later we went to a Maori hangi (feast) where we were fed pork, chicken and lot of other foods that were cooked in an underground pit. Their performance was both educational and entertaining.

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 3 part 1

Rotorua Museum

Linda and Pat

Cascade Falls

Don and Pat on Lake Taupo

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 3 part 2

Glow worms

NZ Pigeon

Pat and Don at Tawhai Falls

Wellington

We connected with Linda Erby, who had been touring NZ by bus. We spent several days exploring the area around Rotorua together. We visited a village buried by a volcano, hiked in a Redwood forest, and toured the Rotorua Museum. Further south, in Taupo, we hiked to Huku Falls and the Crater of the Moon. We saw Maori rock carvings while boating on Lake Taupo. We took a raft through a cave in Waitomo and saw thousands of glow worms, enough to illuminate the cave. At a nearby bird center, we saw kiwi birds and other native birds. In Tongariro NP we hiked to several waterfalls and drove to “Mount Doom” (a ski hill used as a set in Lord of the Rings).
After a week together, Linda resumed her trip to the north, while we continued south to Wellington. We spent half a day in the TePapa Museum and still didn’t see all the “Must See” exhibits. On our second day in town, we took the cable car to the Carter Observatory and the Botanical Gardens. We finished with a drive along Wellington’s scenic south coast.

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 4 part 1

Kayakers looking at seals in Able Tasman National Park

Anchorage Bay

Baby Fur Seal

Sperm Whale going for a dive

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 4 part 2

Baby seal returning from a swim

Pat at Golden Bay

Dusky Dolphins

Nutty Mushrooms

We took the 3 hour ferry ride from Wellington to Picton and started the second half of our trip on the South Island. We drove the narrow, windy Queen Charlotte Drive and were rewarded with excellent coastal views. At Able Tasman NP, we boated the entire length of the park’s coastline and then did a 4 hour coastal hike. We drove to Golden Bay, where Able Tasman first encountered Maoris and lost 4 of his crew. He called the place Murderer’s Bay. We found it quite pleasant and enjoyed many of the sights there including Labyrinth Rocks, a maze of passageways, tunnels and caves - the perfect place to hide.
We crossed over to the north east side of the island and saw baby fur seals playing in the water while their mothers sunned themselves on the rocks. During a whale watching trip we saw three sperm whales and some Dusky dolphins. We left Kaikoura and crossed back to the west coast.

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 5 part 1

Franz Josef Glacier

Franz Josef up close

Mt Cook

Wanka Lake

Feb-April 2011 New Zealand Week 5 part 2

Mt Aspiring

Ship leaving Milford Sound

Milford Sound

Beats Driving!
We drove to Hokitika and set out to see Lake Kaniere and Hokitika Gorge. After doing several hikes near the lake in the rain, we were soaked to the bone. We decided to skip the gorge and drive to Franz Josef Glacier. A clear morning gave us great views and we hiked as close as we could get to the face of the glacier. We tried to get a classic picture of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman and their reflection in Lake Matheson, but the clouds and the wind did not cooperate. We headed down to Fox Glacier and hiked to its face.
We crossed the Southern Alps again at Haast Pass and enjoyed the many falls and hikes in the area. The last time we were in NZ we hiked the Milford Track to Milford Sound. Since it was a 10 hour RT drive to Milford Sound we decided to skip the drive and take a scenic flight to Milford Sound from Wanaka, cruise the sound and fly back. We heard a storm was approaching Fiordland, but it held off long enough for us to do our trip. It was a great way to see the mountains and the sound.