Huai harbour

Our wpork saty wasn’t anything like we expected, it was a really beautiful place overlooking the mountains where king kong was filmed!!

It was a sad thing to take our hire car back as it had been so good to us for the 2 months that we dragged it over most of new zealand.

The Huia Dell Yurts

We stayed with a really nice family that made us feel really welcome in their home and part of their family from the start, they even lent us their car so that we could have time to explore and see the sites around Huia! There were loads of beaches around, we visited one that had a big cave where there is an old dancefloor buried under 5 metres of sand that the sea has washed in, where people used to come to do ballroom dancing years ago, very strange to think that when we saw it!!

Piha beach

On another day out we visited a beach called Piha, where the annual boat race was being held, the waves and the rip were massive and really strong, and the crazy men and women were racing out to a buoi and back to shore, quite often capsizing and having to be saved by lifeguards on speed boats, with a helecopter filming overhead for the t.v.

Crazy Piha boat races

 Teilo had a go at swimming and body boarding in the massive waves but Kaley wimped out. :s  The beach was separated by a big rock in the middle named lion rock, as it is supposed to look like the giant head of a lion from the side, but it took quite a bit of imagination to see it! We visited Auckland museum which was very big and had lots to see, quite interesting, but we had seen alot of it before.

some of the veggie beds we made

On the work side of things it was really nice, they explained to us what they would like to do, and we did what we could and helped them to do it. We built a chicken run, some compost heaps, cleared out a carparking space from the bush and laid down the gravel, built up a garden and veggie beds, and did a bit of planting until Kaley pulled the live tomato plants out of the ground instead of the dead ones!! :s  We did a bit of painting to the baches (little chalet type buildings) and cleaned out others, and lots more bits and bobs, and by the time it came to leave we’d settled in quite nicely and it was pretty sad having to say goodbye!

Us and the Paton family

We carried on going north to the very most northern point of N.Z. After driving  50k down a gravel road we came to a massive tarmac car park that looked lost and really out of place.  From there,  there was a beautiful walk to a lighthouse were you could go no further as the land is sacred to the Mauri and is a no go for people.  Just of sore the swell of the Pacific and the Tazman sea meeting could be seen.

We then drove a little further down another gravel road to some massive sand dunes well sand mountains, were there were a few crazy people spending ages climbing up to the top just to quickly slide down! We did have a go at sand boarding but not  there as we had forgotten our cash and were miles from any were.

We then made our way back down the east coast on our ways to a town named Opononi after a dolphin that use to play in the harbor  with  people. It took us a wile too get there as we got lost or shall I say we took a  long detour down farm tracks coming out of the bush at a dead end on top of a mountain! All thanks to Teilo, hehehe but of course Kaley new exactly where to go with her sense of direction.  It was a lovely little town with some more giant sand dunes over looking it from the other side of the harbor

Dunes accross the harbour and Kaley!

Then we carried on making our way down through the amazing kauri forests. The kauri is the world’s second biggest  tree, they have really straight trunks that shoot upwards and they tower over the rest of the forests. We visited the biggest one in N.Z a very old tree.

Tane Mahuta (father of the forest)

One night we stayed in a kauri park, a camp surrounded by kauri trees which was also a kiwi reserve. That night we went on a board walk through the forest and saw a wild kiwi! And heard a few others. We also got very close to a possum. They are considered pests here but they are very cute animals.

The next morning it was then time to make our way to Huia which is west of Auckland, to start our work stay. We stopped on the way down at this very cool café, it was the shape of a boat and made of lots of tents and little rooms built around each other!

Eutopia (the boat cafe)

The west coast of Northland was really pretty, nice green hills stretching up north and down south! and beautiful long beaches with a relatively calm sea as it is sheltered from the full might of the Pacific ocean By the coromandel peninsula, so for our first few days in Northland we just traveled up the coast admiring the scenery and stopping for a coffee here and there before we met up with Genevieve an old friend of Teilo’s mum,.

On a beach with genevive and her daughter

Genevieve’s ouse was amazing, it was a little oddly shaped green dome in the middle of the bush, she, and her daughter Rachel made us feel really welcome and fed us gorgeous food every night, they even lent us some sheep skins to comfy up our tent, which was amazing!!!!!!

As we had a base we thought we’d splash out and treat ourselves, and we quickly went and booked ourselves a snorkel cruise out to the poor Kinghts island, it was amazing!! and well worth the money! We snorkeled at a site called blue MauMau arch, named so because of the thousands of brightly coloured blue fish that practically live in the arch, it was brilliant there were so many different types of marine life from jelly fish, to sting ray which Kaley was lucky enough to see 2 of, Teilo didn’t, even tho apparently they swam right underneath him!    

poor knights islands!

After a few days of staying with Genevieve, and meeting her son Max who Teilo knew when he was younger and hadn’t seen for about 9 years they worked out! we had to move on, so we went up to the bay of islands, aptly named as it was in fact a massive bay full o little islands jutting out of the sea all over the place, (very creative with their place names over here!) which was really pretty! so we stopped for a coffee and a wander about some galleries and cool shops! 

We then decided to get going and set of for Cape Reinga the tip of the North Isalnd!

Corromandel Peninsula was gorgeous, we went to the world famous hot water beach, which as the name suggests is a beach with hot water springs bubbling up from out of the sand and running into the sea! We passed numerous places renting out spades to dig your on hole and find your own spring, but instead we just went for a walk and paddled about where other people had already dug.

We headed right up to the tip of the peninsula armed with nothing but our car and our tent and a boot full of food! It was beautiful, one of the most isolated places we have been in N.Z. and we camped in a really pretty little campsite for a few nights, and one night we got given two fillets of fish freshly caught from the sea for our supper from the campsite warden and his wife, which was really nice of them, and tasted lovely!!!!!

We were given a beautiful sunset each night we were there as our campsite faced west toward the sea, and shade each morning until a sensible time to actually climb out of our tent as there was a big hill just behind the campsite!

Well Since we last wrote we’ve done quite alot, but we’ll save this post for the thermal highway, So… afetr Hawk’s Bay we followed the thermal highway accross the least populated area in the whole of N.Z. which was basically a huge forest, but it was quite a nice drive nonetheless, and on the otherside of the forest we reached the centre of the north island, in a rich little town called Taupo, which although it was very expensive was beautiful as it is set right on the edge of lake taupo, the largest in N.Z. which according to all the information in the local museum was a volcano a few thousand years ago or so, and the explosin was so big that the sky went red in china and went significantly darker in rome, enough information for you? good. anyway after walking around there for a day or two eating ice cream and generally relaxing we decided to go south on the adjoining volcanic loop highway and took a trip down to three sleeping volcanoes, one of which was mount doom in lord of the rings, which we camped right next to, and the\ next day, although we didnt do the crater walk as the weather was actually a bit dreary that day we did enjoy a few nice walks around the base, where we saw a massive waterfall flowing down off the edge of an old lava flow, which was pretty impressive!

Anyway back up at Taupo we decided to splash out abit and went to see what the geothermal activity in the area had to offer, in the way of the cartyers of the moon, which were huge steaming holes in the ground about 30 metres wide and very deep too! And we also went to a thermal park were we saw the lady knox geyser that spat boiling water 30 ft in the air and a long walk that twisted and turned through loads of brightly coloured pools coloured by various minerals in the ground like calcium, iron oxide and loads of others that we could name, and probably name wrong, but you get the picture, it was all very pretty!!

And then we moved north!

Kaley, hehe!

The ferry was pritty cool on deck with amazing views of the Marlborough sounds and the cook straight ocean. the sun was shining and the wind was blowing a little to much! Below deck was another story , it was cramped full with people sleeping all over the place and  the smell of the  toilets wasn’t pleasant!

We landed in Wellington, which was well busy! so we pretty much just got out of the city straight away, and drove up along the west coast through the hobbit hills, at least thats what we called them, we then cut accross to the other side of some mountains and visited a bird sanctuary where we saw kakas being fed and a kiwi in a nocturnal house, and a cool looking lizard!

On our drive to Hawks bay we saw a huge windmill farm spread across the whole of the horizon, and we got to Hastings and drove up a hill where the landscape around had changed from being lush and green to really barren and dry, but it was well pretty. We got a DOC campsite leaflet telling us where all the free campsites were, so its free camping all the way from then on!

One Stage at Canaan Downs

Just before leaving the West coast we had a choice of driving about 70 KM up a road to the end of it that arrived at a cave full of carnivorous snails and spiders the size of small dinner plates, but as you may have already guessed, we decided not to as neither of us found the thought of crawling into the dark hole full of creepy crawlies very appealing!!!! and plus it would have drained our petrol!! So we headed up toward the north and golden bay, on the way Teilo walked accross n.z.’s longest swingbridge, and zipwired back!!

We spent Christmas on the beach where we went for a nice cold dip in the sea and got sunburnt for the first time ever in december! and then drove over a huge mountain and down into golden bay, we staeyed in a free campsite in a town called takaka, which was lovely as it had a river nearby and it was so hot the only thing that got us out of bed each morning was the thought of jumping into it. from there we vistited some of the biggest fresh water spirngs in N.Z. which were amazing crystal clear water pools about 4mtrs deep bubbling up from up from below the ground that supply the whole area with their water! also we went on a hike up a steep mountain along a winding path getting more and more sweaty and fed up, but it was well worth it as when we got there the mountain had a really eerie massive gaping cavern its side full of thousands of stalactites which we explored for a while it was wicked!!

Back at the campsite we met some really sound people, including a couple who were on their honeymoon, who sold us a really cheap free ticket to cannaan downs new years festi, so we quickly went out and bought another one. We celebrated Sam and Hedd’s birthday on a huge white sandy beach, haha boys!!

We drove back to the top of the massive mountain to the festival, which was wicked, loads of really good music, mainly reggae and dub, and it had a really cool introduction to it where a load of crazy people were dressed as the spirits of earth, air, water, fire and dance and welcomed everyone to the festi by leading a huge procession! and for the countdown there was a big display of firetwirlers and fire poi people dancing about! Some crazy people tried to see how many tents they could take out with their early firework display, our tent was fine though luckily!!

After the festi we drove back along the 19 km dirt road back to civilisation,  and we made our way through the pretty countryside of marlborough sounds to Picton where we spent a nice few days waiting for our ferry crossing to the North island in a paid campsite where we had well needed showers, sleep, and watched tv and ate loads of ice cream!!!

Fox Glacier

After laving fiordland we went to queenstown, but hadn’t the money for all the extreme sports that its famous for, so we just enjoyed the scenery and the sun! On our way to the west coast we went to a place called arrowtown, from the old goldmining period, which was cool as it still resembled an old wild west town. then traveled over the barren land s beyond up to Haast pass where everything changed from barren to more tropical rainforest! and mountains, to the glacier country, where it rainded solidly for two days which we spent keeping dry in our car! We booked ourselves a walk on the fox glacier and the rain cleared up,  and we went on an amzing hike up onto the ice!! Further up the coast we came to a beach covered in driftwood and gemstones called Hokitika! And a little further up we saw some amzing limestone rock formations called pancake rocks name so because they resemble enormous stacks of pancakes sticking out of the sea!!

Milford Sound

After the Catlins we entered fiordland, where we spent our first night near n.z’s deepest lake down a 20KM gravel road, back in our tent unfortunatly,  the next day we moved up to Te Anau which was our base for the next few days, we went and visited milford sound, which was a funny trip, up into wild rainforest straight out of jurassic park into the mountains where you reach a long tunnel that goes straight through the rest of the mountain, whilst waiting our turn to go through, some cheeky little Kaka’s mountain parrots (not even that little) sought to destray our car! so we picked up a car aerial theyd got off some other unsuspecting victim and fought them off! when we got there it was a bit cloudy to do the boat trip, so we just had a walk about and a coffee, but it was an amazing spot, with sheer mountains covered in forest reflected in a clear fiord! A couple of days later we rented out a hotel room for Teilo’s birthday! which was luxury! and we ate cake went on a rowing boat and drank rum!! And we also met a kiwi man called James who improved our camping from then on by giving us a duvet and a tarp for our leaky tent!!

Pengiuns!!!

Hello everyone! sorry we’ve been so slack in updating our blog, this all seems like ages ago for us now but this is what we’ve been doing since our last post… We entered the catlins, an area along the south coast of the south island to beautiful weather, we drove straight to a lookout called Nugget point, where we were really lucky to arrive just on time to see some yellow eyed penguins coming out of the sea to make their way back to their  nests on the beach, we then took a walk upi to a lighthouse on the end of the point surrounded by sea stacks, where we could see a family of seals lazing on the beach down below, we then made our way back inland a little bit to find our hostel for the night, or campsite seeing as we were camped in the garden, it was a really nice old building, which was a former hospital, it had massive corridors which the two brazilian guys who were running it used scooters to get around them on. The only problem at the hostel was that there was a really odd family staying there who instantly gave us the creeps, not for any particular reason they just looked like they probably came from transylvania and acted pretty strangely toward us, but to be honest they were probably quite nice :s maybe.. anyway after we’d set up our tant we went for a walk on a nearby beach, and we were both walking along saying to each other I wonder if we’ll see a seaslion, cus they were apparently quite common on that beach, and then we realized that the huge log infront of us was infact a sleeping sealion! So we skirted around it quickly and sat watching it for a while, it was about 7-8ft long!

The next couple of days we spent traveling along the catlins visiting really nice waterfalls, and some amazing caves called cathedral caves which were about 30 ft tall and could only be accessed at low tide, and we visited this wicked little bus called the lost gypsy bus, were the guy had built up a collection of little trinkets and things in an old travelling bus, complete with a little train that ran around the ceiling setting off little bells hanging down near the track, and nocking things out of its way, we saw N.Z’s very own niagra falls which were named by an explorer with a sense of humor, and a beach covered in a fossilized forest, but the penguins there were much more interesting, we visited the most southern point of N.Z., and a really nice beach made entirely of tiny shells rather than sand, where we found a few paua shells and saw three more sealions!  and that night we rented out a little caravan with a television and a bed!! woopee!!