Drive from Picton (ferry arrival town) to our destination, Nelson, was, ah, interesting. Okay, it was crazy busy and a white knuckler for a good half of it. Glad to arrive safe and sound in Nelson.
Monday, February 21, 2011
B-bye Wellington, Hello South Island!
Friday, Feb. 18th
Forgot to mention we visited the Te Papa museum in Wellington yesterday. Good museum, but absolutely huge! We didn't see all of it, but gave it a good 3 hours. Highlights were an "earthquake house" that simulated what an earthquake would feel like indoors - very freaky; and dioramas of animals that have lived or still live on New Zealand including the flightless kiwi bird, which is only found in a few spots in NZ now. Today we left Wellington for Picton via the infamous Cook Strait ferry crossing. Alot of folks who have visited New Zealand warned us that this crossing can be really fun - if fun for you means a really rough boat ride that lasts over 3 hours!! Thankfully, Mother Nature smiled down on us on Friday and we had sunny skies and calm breezes, so no seasickness problems! As we waited in the passenger vehicle line up to load the 10:30am ferry, we chatted up a local couple who were heading to Abel Tasman park for the weekend. Gave us some ideas on other places to visit and hike on the South Island, including Arrowtown near Queenstown. We've come to realize that alot of people down here have never heard of Calgary before, so it's kind of fun filling them in - this middle aged couple had never visited Canada before.
Drive from Picton (ferry arrival town) to our destination, Nelson, was, ah, interesting. Okay, it was crazy busy and a white knuckler for a good half of it. Glad to arrive safe and sound in Nelson.
Drive from Picton (ferry arrival town) to our destination, Nelson, was, ah, interesting. Okay, it was crazy busy and a white knuckler for a good half of it. Glad to arrive safe and sound in Nelson.
Wellington, Hutt City and the search for Rivendell
Wed & Thurs, February 16-17th:
Wednesday was pretty much a travel day as we made our way south from Tongariro down to Wellington, on the southern tip of the North Island. We chose a route that kept us on the main highways as much as possible to speed up the driving. However, we ran into lots of traffic and more road construction. And the first third of the drive was one of the worst roads I've ever driven - more on that on a future post about our ratings of the roads here! Interesting note: We've noticed the road crews are often made up of older men, not just the young punks we use in Canada - wonder why? We left Tongariro before 9 am and didn't arrive in Wellington until around 3pm. Long driving day that's for sure. Even better was that there was no accommodation left in Wellington that night, so we had to stay in Lower Hutt (or Hutt City), a bedroom community outside of Wellington, AND, we booked our hotel through an I-Site visitor centre (there's one in every town/city), and discovered they charge a booking fee to the hotel (and then to the customer) of 10-20%. So we payed $130NZD for a dumpy hotel in Hutt City, that is $110 if you book directly. Oh well, at least we know that now. The lady there did call around to a lot of hotels to find us something so I guess she earned it, and she booked our next night's motel in Wellington. Walked along the river through Lower Hutt in the evening, and lots of people were out jogging (everybody runs here) or walking their dogs off leash.
Thursday was a better day. This was our search for Lord of the Rings (LOTR) sites and in the afternoon, a visit to the Te Papa museum in Wellington. Wellington and surrounding areas were used extensively in the filming of LOTR movies, and they're at it again with The Hobbit now starting up. Everyone's just waiting for the director, Peter Jackson, to get over his ulcer.
Here's our independent tour of some LOTR sites:
- Helm's Deep (now a dry gravel quarry with limited access). Doesn't look like much now.
- The Great River Anduin (part of a Hutt City park that runs along the Hutt River). The river is very low right now, so it's a little hard to imagine this scene.
- Isengaard (another Hutt City park). This one stumped us - seriously looks like a lovely open space for a picnic, and there's a big playground with a zip line. Ummm, think they used a few computer graphics to make this look like a fortress for Saromen.
- Rivendell - Forest of the Elves. Definitely the best LOTR site of the bunch. This forest actually looked like it could be used in the movies, and is signmarked with info on the filming location. Only a 10 minute walk from the carpark at Kaitoke Regional Park, you're in the middle of a forest that was used for Rivendell. Even better, there was a film crew set up in a nearby parking lot, and we saw some actors dressed as medieval warriors. We also saw a production crew setting up tents and props along the river. When we asked a crew member what film they were working on, he joked and said it was a little movie called The Hobbit, then he said it was actually a small scale movie about zombies or something. Hmmmm, I wonder.
Wednesday was pretty much a travel day as we made our way south from Tongariro down to Wellington, on the southern tip of the North Island. We chose a route that kept us on the main highways as much as possible to speed up the driving. However, we ran into lots of traffic and more road construction. And the first third of the drive was one of the worst roads I've ever driven - more on that on a future post about our ratings of the roads here! Interesting note: We've noticed the road crews are often made up of older men, not just the young punks we use in Canada - wonder why? We left Tongariro before 9 am and didn't arrive in Wellington until around 3pm. Long driving day that's for sure. Even better was that there was no accommodation left in Wellington that night, so we had to stay in Lower Hutt (or Hutt City), a bedroom community outside of Wellington, AND, we booked our hotel through an I-Site visitor centre (there's one in every town/city), and discovered they charge a booking fee to the hotel (and then to the customer) of 10-20%. So we payed $130NZD for a dumpy hotel in Hutt City, that is $110 if you book directly. Oh well, at least we know that now. The lady there did call around to a lot of hotels to find us something so I guess she earned it, and she booked our next night's motel in Wellington. Walked along the river through Lower Hutt in the evening, and lots of people were out jogging (everybody runs here) or walking their dogs off leash.
Thursday was a better day. This was our search for Lord of the Rings (LOTR) sites and in the afternoon, a visit to the Te Papa museum in Wellington. Wellington and surrounding areas were used extensively in the filming of LOTR movies, and they're at it again with The Hobbit now starting up. Everyone's just waiting for the director, Peter Jackson, to get over his ulcer.
Here's our independent tour of some LOTR sites:
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| Helm's Deep - Gravel Quarry outside Lower Hutt |
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| River Anduin location |
- Isengaard (another Hutt City park). This one stumped us - seriously looks like a lovely open space for a picnic, and there's a big playground with a zip line. Ummm, think they used a few computer graphics to make this look like a fortress for Saromen.
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| Rivendell in Kaitohe Park |
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Tongariro Crossing (aka Tongue-Out Crossing/Up the Ant Hill we go)
Tuesday, Feb. 15th.
Crossing distance: 19.4km
Additional roundtrip hike to the Mt Tongariro summit: 3km
Difficulty: Stiff climb up, and up, and up, and then non stop down, down, down. Only a couple km of flats.
Start time: 8:05am Finish time:3:45pm Duration: 7 h 40 min
Can't say enough about how pleasant the owners are at Adventure Lodge, Ron and Lorraine. Gave us great advice about the hikes in the Park and never tried to push any extras on us. Lorraine drove 10 of us to the start of the Crossing - about a 25 min drive from the Lodge. Met some really nice people on the bus - 1 young couple from England, and 3 couples from the U.S., two travelling together from Florida and the other couple from Boston (Peter and Dee). Peter and Dee had visited Lake Louise before and loved it but never spent time in Calgary. Besides these Americans we met, there are visitors in the Park from all over the world as we heard people speaking German, French, Italian, Scandinavian languages, lots of British (is that a different language?) and others.
There's not much in the way of parking at the Mangatepopo trail start, almost like they are discouraging people from taking their own cars. Costs only $30pp for a return shuttle - well worth it as the buses pick you up from the end of the trail at Ketetahi Car Park. However, both Barry and I thought that the best part of this hike was the first half (about the 9K mark), and you could actually turn back and hike back to the start. The second half was not as dramatic or scenic, and is quite a long slog for less payoff (10.5 km). I guess we're spoiled getting to hike in the mountains by Calgary - the scenery at home is hard to beat.
The first 2 or 3 kilometres to the Mangatepopo (sp?) hut is fairly flat, a slight uphill grade. Run into lineups at the 2 porto-potties at this stop however, since we were following a few groups of girls. Seems like they should have more facilities considering how busy this trail is, and this was mid-week! After this hut, the trail began to climb. Sometimes you had to climb over rocks, which would be a challenge for less mobile types. They've built lots of stairs, and when you look up or back, you see a row of ants, which are the hundreds of other hikers sharing the trail with you. Thankfully it was not a hot day, but you still are drenched in sweat as you climb the track towards the Southern Crater.
When you walk across the flat floor of the Southern Crater, you feel like you're on the moon. No vegetation, just a mud floor, and lava rock surrounding you on all sides. And you look up at Mt Ngauruhoe, and you can understand why they used in Lord of the Rings as Mt Doom. It's the perfect volcanic cone shape, and enticed a few hikers up it's summit trail. This trail is difficult as you have to climb across loose scree on a steep slope - no thanks, looks good from the bottom!!
As you climb out of the Southern Crater, you eventually get to a ridge where lots of us stopped for a bit of lunch. You also get a glimpse over the edge of the Red Crater below. At this point, Barry and I debated whether we wanted to do the Tongariro Summit, another 3 km. We'd already hiked about 9 k, and our legs were tired. But, being this close to the summit, why not? It looked pretty cloudy up there, which would wreck the views, but what the heck. You should not tackle this unless you're sure you have enough energy left to finish the Crossing. It is more climbing, not just a flat 3 k. It adds another 1.5 to 2 hours to the hike. Unfortunately, at the top, the mist came in and we couldn't see to the north, but could see Mt Doom to the south. Basically we tried to jog it back to gain some time as our bus was coming at 4pm.
Climbing yet another ridge we got a fantastic view of the Red Crater, now vivid in the mid afternoon. Then we got to have some fun, almost skiing down the loose sandy scree towards the Emerald Lakes below. It helped that we've dealt with scree before, and you just dig your heels in and go with the flow. We passed alot of hikers here who were fighting the scree and were getting really frightened.
After this, there weren't as many highlights for us. We stopped to eat our lunch at the larger Blue Lake, which became swallowed up in the mist right in front of us. The rest of the hike was just trying to get down as fast as possible, and the views were obscured on this side of the pass because of the low cloud. The last 3 km or so is in a lovely forest like Taranaki Falls, but I was too tired to enjoy it. At last, we reached the car park and thought our legs would never recover. Amazingly, we weren't that sore the next couple of days - who has time to be sore in New Zealand!!
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| Mt. Ngauruhoe (last eruption 1975) |
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| Crossing the South Crater |
Additional roundtrip hike to the Mt Tongariro summit: 3km
Difficulty: Stiff climb up, and up, and up, and then non stop down, down, down. Only a couple km of flats.
Start time: 8:05am Finish time:3:45pm Duration: 7 h 40 min
Can't say enough about how pleasant the owners are at Adventure Lodge, Ron and Lorraine. Gave us great advice about the hikes in the Park and never tried to push any extras on us. Lorraine drove 10 of us to the start of the Crossing - about a 25 min drive from the Lodge. Met some really nice people on the bus - 1 young couple from England, and 3 couples from the U.S., two travelling together from Florida and the other couple from Boston (Peter and Dee). Peter and Dee had visited Lake Louise before and loved it but never spent time in Calgary. Besides these Americans we met, there are visitors in the Park from all over the world as we heard people speaking German, French, Italian, Scandinavian languages, lots of British (is that a different language?) and others.
There's not much in the way of parking at the Mangatepopo trail start, almost like they are discouraging people from taking their own cars. Costs only $30pp for a return shuttle - well worth it as the buses pick you up from the end of the trail at Ketetahi Car Park. However, both Barry and I thought that the best part of this hike was the first half (about the 9K mark), and you could actually turn back and hike back to the start. The second half was not as dramatic or scenic, and is quite a long slog for less payoff (10.5 km). I guess we're spoiled getting to hike in the mountains by Calgary - the scenery at home is hard to beat.
The first 2 or 3 kilometres to the Mangatepopo (sp?) hut is fairly flat, a slight uphill grade. Run into lineups at the 2 porto-potties at this stop however, since we were following a few groups of girls. Seems like they should have more facilities considering how busy this trail is, and this was mid-week! After this hut, the trail began to climb. Sometimes you had to climb over rocks, which would be a challenge for less mobile types. They've built lots of stairs, and when you look up or back, you see a row of ants, which are the hundreds of other hikers sharing the trail with you. Thankfully it was not a hot day, but you still are drenched in sweat as you climb the track towards the Southern Crater.
 |
| Panoramic view within the South Crater |
As you climb out of the Southern Crater, you eventually get to a ridge where lots of us stopped for a bit of lunch. You also get a glimpse over the edge of the Red Crater below. At this point, Barry and I debated whether we wanted to do the Tongariro Summit, another 3 km. We'd already hiked about 9 k, and our legs were tired. But, being this close to the summit, why not? It looked pretty cloudy up there, which would wreck the views, but what the heck. You should not tackle this unless you're sure you have enough energy left to finish the Crossing. It is more climbing, not just a flat 3 k. It adds another 1.5 to 2 hours to the hike. Unfortunately, at the top, the mist came in and we couldn't see to the north, but could see Mt Doom to the south. Basically we tried to jog it back to gain some time as our bus was coming at 4pm.
 |
| Red Crater |
After this, there weren't as many highlights for us. We stopped to eat our lunch at the larger Blue Lake, which became swallowed up in the mist right in front of us. The rest of the hike was just trying to get down as fast as possible, and the views were obscured on this side of the pass because of the low cloud. The last 3 km or so is in a lovely forest like Taranaki Falls, but I was too tired to enjoy it. At last, we reached the car park and thought our legs would never recover. Amazingly, we weren't that sore the next couple of days - who has time to be sore in New Zealand!!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Gollum and Mordor
Monday, February 14th. Drove from Taupo to the Tongariro National Park. We were pretty excited as we were heading to the infamous Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings films.
After checking into our Adventure Lodge motel, we chatted with the friendly motel owner and he gave us some tips for some short hikes for the rest of the afternoon. And, for you LOTR fans, we finally met one of the stars from the movies! Here's his picture as proof. (The owner said it was portrait of his mother in law, but I think he was just kidding!!)
In the afternoon, we visited Meads Wall in Whakapapa ski Village. Don't remember this from the LOTR movies, but the rock wall involved an important scene with Gollum, apparently.
Will add more to this post later...
Sorry for the delay folks, we've been on the road alot lately and little time to blog or get internet access.
Starting after 4 pm, we hiked the Taranaki Falls trail, a 6K loop that starts near the Chateau Tongariro in Whakapapa Village. Overall, a pretty easy hike that took us about 1.5 hours. The start of the trail crossed a scrubby, bushy open area that reminded me of scenery in the Okanagan of BC. Then we suddenly entered this oasis of lush ferny forest that followed the creek. Most of the trail to the Falls remained in the forest, which gave us some breaks from the hot late afternoon sun. When we arrived at the Falls, we realized this was a happening place!
A huge school group of high school age boys had already settled in to the pool at the bottom of the falls, some going for dips. Needless to say, it was too crowded for us to go down there, but the view of the falls was nice. To prove that there are stupid people everywhere, a young couple hung out on the rocks just above the falls - it would be easy to slip and fall there - ah, Darwin's law at work. Ironically we saw this same couple among the hundreds on the Tongariro Crossing the next day, AND we saw them a few days later on the ferry from Wellington to Picton!
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| Meads Wall |
Will add more to this post later...
Sorry for the delay folks, we've been on the road alot lately and little time to blog or get internet access.
A huge school group of high school age boys had already settled in to the pool at the bottom of the falls, some going for dips. Needless to say, it was too crowded for us to go down there, but the view of the falls was nice. To prove that there are stupid people everywhere, a young couple hung out on the rocks just above the falls - it would be easy to slip and fall there - ah, Darwin's law at work. Ironically we saw this same couple among the hundreds on the Tongariro Crossing the next day, AND we saw them a few days later on the ferry from Wellington to Picton!
Rotorua & Lake Taupo: Bubbly things and intro to Maori culture
Sunday, February 13th:
It's been a few days since I've blogged so I'm trying to remember what we've done the last few days - it's been action-packed! On Sunday we explored the Rotorua/Lake Taupo geothermal region. We were kinda choosy about what we did as we've already been to Yellowstone and the geysers and pools there are pretty amazing.
In the morning we toured an art market held in the Government Gardens area in Rotorua, watched some lawn bowlers, and strolled a bit around Lake Rotorua. They have very friendly black swans there, and some large white birds that look like fat geese to us, have no idea what they actually are (sorry to the birders out there, maybe you can help identify them?)
Back on the road heading south to Lake Taupo, we stopped at another geothermal hotspot, the Waimangu Volcano Valley. From here, we got a spot on view of Mt Tarawera, which erupted in 1886 and created the Waimangu Volcanic Valley - the youngest geothermal spot in the world. The largest geyser in the world, the Waimangu Geyser also erupted in 1900 and killed a few visitors in 1904. Barry and I both felt a little uneasy as we walked through this steaming, bubbling valley, as we had witnessed a rare major eruption of the Steamboat geyser in Yellowstone in about 2005. It hadn't erupted for several years and freaked us all out!
Anyway, nothing like that happened on this day, thankfully! On to Lake Taupo, a huge caldera lake created after a giant volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. Man, you just can't escape volcanos in New Zealand!
Had a great supper in Taupo, looking out over the lake. It is as big as an inland sea, and we watched a beautiful sunset there. Our suppers were delicious - had steak grilled on a super heated lava stone - yum!
It's been a few days since I've blogged so I'm trying to remember what we've done the last few days - it's been action-packed! On Sunday we explored the Rotorua/Lake Taupo geothermal region. We were kinda choosy about what we did as we've already been to Yellowstone and the geysers and pools there are pretty amazing.
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| The unidentified white birds! |
Then we headed to a living Maori village called (and make sure you say this out loud and replace "Wh" with a "f" sound to say it properly!) - "Whakarewarewa". Check out their website here:
http://www.whakarewarewa.com. Our Maori guide, nicknamed Annie, was excellent, and told us about the residents' everyday life. The steam cooking methods are really interesting - they just place their roasts and vegetables, even puddings, inside their geothermal cook ovens outside their homes, and the ovens work like slow cookers, almost never overcooking the food! Annie said that the villagers share the ovens and often the meals as well. They also bathe in some of the warm pools there, which are steaming all around their homes. Some of their relatives lived through the Mt Tarawera eruption in the late 1880's, which destroyed several villages closer to the volcano. We also checked out their cultural performance in the afternoon, and saw our first "Haka" dance, the warrior dance, where the guys stick out their tongues and try to look threatening. Our performers were more funny than scary though :)
Anyway, nothing like that happened on this day, thankfully! On to Lake Taupo, a huge caldera lake created after a giant volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. Man, you just can't escape volcanos in New Zealand!
Had a great supper in Taupo, looking out over the lake. It is as big as an inland sea, and we watched a beautiful sunset there. Our suppers were delicious - had steak grilled on a super heated lava stone - yum!
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