Yes, New Zealand Really is THAT Beautiful!
New Zealand – The Bay of Islands
Wow, New Zealand is gorgeous. Every curve in the road brings another beautiful view. We have spent the majority of this week driving around the north end of the North Island of New Zealand. It is shockingly beautiful with it’s jagged coastline, green hills, white sheep, kauri forests, more green hills, and glowing worms. We have completely worn ourselves out trying to see and do everything this tiny section of this tiny country has to offer.
Ahh, it’s such a relief to once again be speaking English and driving on the left… wait, not that second one. Our first week in New Zealand brought about a whole new set of travel challenges that we had yet to face. The first challenge is probably the most obvious – driving on the left. After some nervous few days and constant reminders from the passenger to stay left, we’ve gotten pretty comfortable. The second challenge was trying to pronounce the names of towns. Some are easy, but giggle-inducing, like Whatawhata. While others left us tongue tied, like Paihia, Ngaruawahia, and Whangarei (pronounced Fang-a-ray?!). The third challenge is moving nearly every night. Through South America we got used to staying in one place for at least three nights and getting to know the area a bit. But since we have a camper van, it makes sense to move most nights.
1. Go
- Bus – 25 km. From airport to hostel in Auckland.
- Car – 1,130 km. We rented a van for our whole month in NZ. It’s painted on both sides, so no one can miss us (good thing since we aren’t used to driving on the left).
- Boat – 70 km. We took a boat tour through the Bay of Islands.
- Ferry – 6 km. We took two ferries this week: one in the Bay of Islands and a car ferry on the west side of the Northland.
- Foot – 62,000 steps in 6 or 7 days (approx. 31 miles). Ok, so this week was low, but the dateline really messed up the total as well. We really only had 6 days this week instead of 7. That and driving in a van does not promote walking!
2. See
We had a busy first week in New Zealand. We left Auckland straight away because we’re still a little burnt out on cities and were itching to get on the open road. We drove north towards slightly warmer weather. Most days were clear in the mornings with scattered clouds in the afternoons with only a few light showers.
On the east coast of the Northland, we stopped at the Bay of Islands for a boat tour. Within the first ten minutes we saw bottlenose dolphins. It was a large pod with two babies. They played around our bow for fifteen minutes before we continued on to the Hole in the Rock. This is a rock formation that is just barely large enough to fit our boat through it. Our last stop was on an island for a short hike.
After leaving the Bay of Islands, we continued north to the tip of the North Island and walked out to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga. From Cape Reinga, we turned around to head south. On the way, we stopped at 90 Mile Beach, which is precisely 54.7 miles long (88 km). We continued south and visited the Kauri forests. Kauri trees are huge, but in a totally different way than redwoods. The largest Kauri alive, named Tane Mahuta, stands at 51.5 meters tall and 13.8 meters in diameter and is 2,000 years old. We stopped at the superb Kauri Museum in Matakohe.
After a long driving day, we made it out of the Northland and into the central part of the North Island. Our first stop was Waitomo to see the glow worm caves. When Lindsey visited New Zealand with her family nearly 20 years ago the caves were a major highlight, so our expectations were high. We were not disappointed! Read more about it in the MOVE section.
New Zealand – Waitomo Caves – Glow worms!
3. Eat
We’ve mostly been cooking in this week and it’s a huge relief to be able to read all the labels in the grocery stores. We know exactly what we are buying. We did have the chance to eat out a few times. We had excellent fish and chips in the Bay of Islands. We’ve also had delicious meat pies and pasties at several locations. A treat we’ve come to love is Bumper Bars. They are basically cookie bars with chocolate and dried fruit. We always carry granola bars with us in the States for a quick bite, and these really fit that need.
4. Drink
Microbrews! Tons of them! So much good beer! It’s a lot like being the States again with the beer selection. One notable difference is that most beers have a low ABV, like 2-4%. We haven’t seen many higher than 5%. At first we were skeptical, but they are really drinkable and you can have a few without getting too tipsy.
5. Sleep
Other than our first night in Auckland, we stayed in the van every night. The van is very basic, but meets our needs. It has a surprisingly large bed with lots of storage underneath. The bed can transform into a table with benches. There’s a spartan kitchen in the back and storage for food.
Our campsites have mostly been at Holiday Parks which are similar to the really nice campgrounds in the States. They have everything from tent sites, to powered sites, to full cabins. They also have full facilities including laundry and kitchen. Many have pools or playgrounds as well. The staff are always super friendly and willing to help us book tours around the area.
We have also stayed at DOC (Department of Conservation) sites, which have little to no services. Most have toilets, but very few have showers, even less have hot showers, and even less have kitchens.
New Zealand – Waitomo Caves – The blue side of the van
6. Move
We both got out on a beautiful run along the shore of the Bay of Islands, but since then we’ve just been too exhausted – driving on the left all day really wears you out!
Our big adventure of the week was our tour through the glow worm caves. We picked a tour that included abseiling, caving, glow worm viewing, blackwater rafting, and climbing. We got lucky and were the only people in our group, so it was basically a private tour. We got to abseil into the cave, explore upstream, see some glow worms, blackwater raft down the river to the section down stream of the opening, see more glow worms, squeeze through many tight places, and climb out of the cave. It was incredible and such a thrill. All photos below taken by Kiwi Cave Rafting, edited by us.
Check out Pat’s CADENCE Week 17 post for details about this week.
7. Etcetera
Fun fact: glow worms aren’t really worms. They are maggots of a fungus gnat (looks like a large mosquito). They hang out on the cave ceiling and let out silk threads to catch insects flying by. They attract them using a bio-luminescent spot on their back end. After nine months they turn into a gnat that has no mouth. They only live for a few days, in which time they need to mate and lay eggs. The females lay around 150 eggs. The first to hatch need food and eat their younger siblings – only about one third make it. I guess they call them “glow worms” because no one wants to pay money to see “cannibalistic maggots with glowing bums.”
Check out our Flickr album to see all our photos from this week.
Nomadic Cadence 
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