Rotten-rua

After Christmas, we moved on towards Rotorua. We spent a night in Kawerau which introduced us to the stench the area is famous for, basically an eggy sulphur smell. They had free thermal heated pools which were a bit too good to be true. But they were true and they were ace! 

We stayed for three nights in Rotorua, the home of our campervan! We had been warned that Rotorua might be a bit rough but we actually had a great time. 

We bit the bullet and bought tickets to the number one attraction - Te Puia. It was good fun. We got to see the largest Geyser in the Southern Hemisphere, some Kiwis, mud pools, a replica Mauri village and lots of geothermal acitivity. 

The next day we visited Ohinemutu - a Mauri village on the edge of Rotorua. It was interesting walking round seeing the steam seaping out of the ground everywhere and there were lots of carvings. 

The lakes in Kuirau Park were super steamy.

Christmas BBQ

Olive was super excited to try surfing in Mount Manganui. We checked that she really fancied it then I won the short straw to take her in. As Olive put it so eloquently - this is one of the crazy things that Daddy ends up doing! The lesson was with Jackomo who ironically was from Cornwall not a local! Unfortunately Olive hated it after one go in the water. So I was left to spend an hour nearly drowning in waves trying to stand on a surf board. It was super fun and a good life lesson! Thanks Olive :-)

I love this photo of Olive surrounded by the dogs from Hairy McClary. The author, Lyndsey Dodds, came from Tauranga. 

We spent Christmas on a campsite near Ohope in Bay of Plenty. It was very chilled. We went into the sea each day and had a BBQ for Christmas Day dinner. We didn’t drive the van once. We made a Christmas tree out of beach sticks and decorated the van. 

A slightly strange Christmas and our second on the trot in hot climates, away from home, having spent last Christmas in Mexico. We agreed next year will be one for in England with family. We miss the snow and cold!

Lots of little hobbit holes!

My sister bought us an early Christmas present to go see the Hobbiton film set which is basically loads of Hobbit holes used in the Lords of the Rings films. It was super fun even though we don’t know loads about the films. 

We took a coach across watching Peter Jackson welcome us followed by some clips from the films to get us in the mood. Boo fell asleep and stayed asleep for the whole tour!

The tour guide was super, full of tales about the filming. We learnt all sorts of daft facts. Someone was recruited to walk up and put the washing out on the little lines in the morning and back in at night to create the natural trampling in the grass. At the start of filming a bunch of bull frogs moved into the newly created pond so someone had to go in each morning to remove them so filming could be done without any croaking in the background!

My favourite bit was that lots of the hobbit holes have a big version and a little version - one for the hobbits and one for the bigger people like Gandalf. I was surprised that there was only 12 days of filming on site which created only 12 minutes of film time across all the films. 

We ended the tour with a pint of pale ale in the Green Dragon pub. Awesome. 

It was super hot for our tour but great fun. A lovely early Christmas present. Thank you Kathryn.

Very glowy glowworms

We headed out of Auckland, stopping for tasty Vietnamese Pho in Hamilton., followed by delicious Duck Island ice-cream. We arrived into Ngarata Lake in torrential rain in the dark, hoping there would be space in the free camping. There was!

We headed on down for our first major stop at the Waitomo Caves. We looked round the little Piri Piri cave and the stunning Marokopa waterfall. 

The plan was to camp overnight and then see the Glowworm Caves in the morning. Unfortunately they were sold out so we went on a super bushwalk instead which had some little tunnels and saw our first glowworms. 

At last we then got to see the glowworms in the proper tourist cave! They were very glowy. You could see hundreds of these larvae with their long strands hanging down waiting to catch a tasty flying morsel. They are interesting things. They glow for a few days, then make a cocoon which hatches into a fly. But the fly has no mouth so they can only live for a few days before they die. Their sole purpose - to reproduce. They looked stunning in the cave as we floated along in the dark.

Last month in Auckland

Having survived our week of car camping, we had another five weeks of term at Olive’s school, staying in a new Airbnb in Mount Albert, before we return to being tourists on the road.

We spent a lot of time adapting the van to be more comfortable including adding in a portaloo and sink so that we could get the holy grail of a blue sticker to show we are self contained and so access loads of free campsites all over NZ. 

We went on a couple of camping trips to Whatipu and Shakespeare Reserve. At Whatipu (pronounced fatty-poo!) we walked to a cave through lots of mud and water and we played for hours on nearby Huia beach. The journey there was quite eventful, it was pouring with rain with mini waterfalls coming into the road and we had to drive through a river!

The harbour at Shakespeare Reserve looked great at sunset. There were some lovely walks with great views and we tried to collect some clams as everyone else was but when we got home they were all just full of sand not clams!

We celebrated Olive’s birthday in the local park, Craigavon, with a few of Olive’s school friends. There was a helium shortage so it was really difficult to get a number six balloon, but we did!

Towards the end of term we had the annual Fundraising Advent fair. There was loads to do and it took lots of organising - we baked cakes and helped out on the day. Olive enjoyed having her face painted, playing a fishing game and potato (not egg!) and spoon game, eating in a kids cafe and sitting in a fire engine. 

We also went to Auckland museum to do a volcano simulator and see some dinosaurs. 

We climbed up the One Tree Hill volcano to see the amazing views right out to other volcanoes and looked into the Wintergarten glass house and fern garden.

There are so many beaches around Auckland which we happily drop by whenever we have a spare moment - French Bay, Titirangi, Cornwallis, Blockhouse Bay, Armour Bay, Kare Kare and Piha to name but a few.

The run up to Christmas is very strange here. I think folk are just not that interested as it is also their long summer holidays so thoughts are more on extended time off and wider holidays. There are not many decorations around and it is hot and rainy(!), but you can still visit Santa at craft fairs and in the shopping malls and there is a street called Franklin Road where everyone has gone to a lot of effort to decorate up!

Now we leave Auckland and start car camping our way round New Zealand….