Today is our 5th day in New Zealand. It’s raining today, so we are hanging out in
the internet and TV lounge at the holiday park (aka campsite), since our plan
to visit the thermal park didn’t seem as enticing in rainy 50 degree weather. We lucked out in finding the Blue Lake
Holiday Park in Rotorua. It’s across the
street from Blue Lake, a deep lake formed 13,500 years ago, and has tons of
hiking options all around. Hopefully the
rain will let up tomorrow so we can get out and see some more of the sites
around here. Later today we are going to
check out a local hot spring spa that was recommended by one of the women who
work at the Blue Lake Holiday Park, she said it’s where the locals go – which
was good enough reason for us to check it out.
The past few days have been crammed with activities. We arrived in Auckland on Thursday rather jet
lagged, but determined to stay up until at least 8:00 p.m. After checking into our hotel it was about
2:00 p.m., which meant we had about 6 hours to find things to keep us awake and
active. First stop – late lunch – we
walked down to the harbor area known as the Quay Viaduct and picked a place on
the water to share some calamari and salad.
After our meal we decided to walk the rest of the viaduct and then
wander our way through the city to the Sky Tower, which is also Auckland’s main
tourist information center. Upon
arriving at the Sky Tower we learned that the Sky Jump, which Charles was
threatening to try, was closed for the remainder of the week. I was secretly relieved. They were still offering the Sky Walk, so we
said we would consider it and headed on our way.
We had only managed to kill about 2 hours, so we were left
trying to find activities to keep us busy.
We picked a park on the map near the art museum and walked over. The park offered beautiful views of the city
and the university and was filled with tulip and palm trees. Finally, we decided we couldn’t fight the jet
lag any longer and we were hungry again, so we began our search for a place to
eat dinner. We walked up and down a few
streets between the park and the hotel and found Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese, and Malaysian restaurants.
We picked a Japanese place that seemed busy, even at the early dinner
hour of 5:45. Unable to fight the jet
lag any longer we went back to our hotel at about 6:45 and I think I was asleep
by 7:30. I was pretty proud of us for
making it that late!
We woke up the next morning and had coffee at a café across
the street, then went to check out the times available for the Sky Walk – they
fit us in with the group at 11:45. The
Sky Walk is a walk on the outside of the Sky Tower on a platform that is 630
feet in the air. Each group consists of
a maximum of 6 people and a guide, the guide fits you with a bright orange suit
and a harness and then takes the group up about 50 stories in the
elevator. We walked out onto a large
platform that was between the door and the walkway, the platform was made of a
large steel grate and when you look down you can see through the grate all the
way to the ground 630 feet below. When
our guide told us to look down, I did, and my stomach dropped. I had a brief moment of thinking maybe this
wasn’t the best idea, but then she moved onto the next step in the process,
which is hooking up your harness to the ropes and safety belt that is attached
to the tower. The other four people in
our group were all together so our group leader asked Charles and me to go at
the front of the group so they could all be together at the end. Sounded fine to me, but then I realized that
meant I was going first. So, I walked up
and was strapped in – a rope is attached to the harness in the front and a
safety belt is attached to the back. The
safety belt operates the same as a seat belt, if there is a sudden jerk or
movement it will lock. Our guide told us
that because of this she didn’t advise jumping or any sudden movements, because
you would be left suspended by the safety belt.
I thought she was crazy for even suggesting the possibility! After she hooked everyone else in she opened
the gate to walk out onto the walkway platform – there are no handrails, just a
walkway that is about 3.5 to 4 feet wide, but I was hugely relieved to see that
the walkway was not a see through grate.
So, we began the walk, I was gripping my safety rope with all my might
as we inched along. She then encouraged
the group to walk to the edge and look down.
I couldn’t bring myself to get my toes all the way to the edge, but did
inch forward to look down. I quickly
decided I preferred the view straight out, not down. Our guide continued to offer more daring
options on our walk – sitting out over the edge, leaning forward over the
edge. I stayed safely on the platform,
enjoying the view – the walk around without railings was enough extreme adventure
for me. We continued to circle around
the tower taking brief stops to get information about the city below from our
guide. She offered once more to try
sitting over the edge, but I politely declined and we ended our walk, returning
to the safety of the gated platform. I
looked down once more, through the see through grate, and felt much more at
ease looking down 630 feet to the ground.
Our whole group commented on how much easier it was to look down after
walking all the way around the tower attached to a rope. We then returned to the ground level and
removed our bright orange suits and harnesses and went to check out the proof
of from our adventure – the pictures and video.
Here is one of the pictures:
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| Sky Walk Auckland |
After an all that adventure we were ready for lunch, we went
down into a “food court” that was filled with different food options – Chinese,
Indian, Brazilian, Thai, and Korean. We
chose the Chinese restaurant and found a table close by to enjoy our meal. Our next stop was the Auckland Art Gallery,
which holds the city’s permanent and visiting art collections. The museum is beautiful and we really enjoyed
seeing some of the Maori portrait paintings in the collection.
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| Auckland Art Gallery |
It was a beautiful afternoon so we went back to the park and
found a spot to hang out and Charles worked on a painting. He finished just as the sun was setting and
we remembered we had passes to go back up to the Sky Tower for a drink, so we
headed there to catch the rest of the sunset.
We made it just in time to see the sun fading away. We sat and had some good New Zealand wine as
we enjoyed seeing the cities lights appear.
We ended the day at an Irish Pub feeling quite happy with our first two
days in New Zealand and looking forward to picking up our camper in the
morning.
We picked up our campervan on Saturday morning from the
Wilderness office near the airport. We
were greeted by Marcel, who I had been communicating with about our trip, and
began signing paperwork. After a brief
tour of the van and some basic instructions we were off. Charles had been slightly concerned eagerly awaiting the opportunity before arriving because about
a month ago we both realized that driving a stick shift in New Zealand meant
the driver sits on the right side of the car with the stick shift at his left
hand, we weren’t sure whether the clutch would still be under his left foot, or
whether it was switched. We were both
quite happy to find out that the clutch is the same as in the U.S. and it was
only the shifter on the left and of course driving on the left side of the road
that we had to deal with. Charles has
done amazingly well at driving, he hasn’t had any trouble figuring out the left
handed shifting and is managing driving on the left side of the road
easily.
Our first stop in the campervan was the grocery store. We picked up supplies for meals and loaded
them into our fridge. Then the hard
part, we had to pick our first stop for the night. We went into a café near the grocery store
and got a snack and used their free internet (the internet situation here is
pretty difficult, you have to pay everywhere you go – about 5 New Zealand
dollars an hour). We had decided on a
general location we just needed a camp site.
After a Google search of a few options we decided on Opal Springs near
Matamata.
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| Grocery shopping for the campervan |
We arrived at the campsite to find that there were three hot
mineral pools on the property and we were free to use them with our fee for the
campsite. So we set up camp, which just
requires us to plug our in our campervan and turn on the gas for the
stove. After that we put on our
swimsuits and headed for the pools. They
were hot, but not quite as hot as I had hoped, but it was still nice to relax
in hot steamy water before attempting to make dinner for the first time in the
camper. The dinner plan was gnocchi and
salad, and all in all, it went pretty well.
Doing the dishes in the camper is a different story – the sink is tiny
and the water is cold, but we made due. After
finishing the task of the dishes we pulled out the bed and settled in to
sleep.
The next morning we had big plans, we were going to
Hobbiton, which is the only remaining film site from the Lord of the Rings
trilogy that still remains intact on the islands of New Zealand. To get to Hobbiton you drive through miles of
beautiful green hillsides spotted with sheep and cows. It truly was like driving through a picture
book. We arrived at Hobbiton, which sits
on a fully operational sheep farm, and signed up for the tour. I was fascinated by the level of detail that
went into creating the mythical place called Middle Earth. There were 45 hobbit holes in the sides of
the hills, real vegetable gardens, and beautiful English gardens. They had recently concluded the filming of
the Hobbit and so there was some work being done tearing out tiny fields of
vegetables so the land could be reclaimed by the sheep. It was all fascinating to me.
After Hobbiton we had to decide where to go next. Our original plan was to head to the coast,
but we decided on the region of Rotorua instead, and ended up at Blue Lake
Holiday Park. We love it here! Tomorrow we will head to the coast, no
destination decided as of now. More to
come….
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| Bilbo's Hobbit Hole |
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