Well we are back in the snowy north and I thought I should catch you up on the rest of our vacation. I really tried to blog regularly but between slow to non existent internet and forgetting to get at it, it didn't happen!
Our stay in Turangi was, shall I say interesting. It claims to be the Trout Fishing Capital of the World. Since we are not fisher people nor equipped to try we, instead, tried to hike in Tongariro. The weather tried to cooperate. We had a great hike up to and around a lake, Rotopounamu. Roto means lake, so really this is Lake Pounamu. It was forecast for rain but we lucked out and even got some sun!
Our next attempt was to take the gondola to near the top of Mt. Ruapehu, an active volcano, and hike from there. It last erupted in 2007 and had no activity warnings that day. However there was a wind and rain warning that closed the gondola. So, we did a couple of hikes lower down. The first to Gollum's Pools for you LOTR fans (Lord of the Rings for people like me). The second was to Taranaki Falls.
From there we drove on to Tauranga (I have to say, even after a month, it was hard to keep the names of places straight and pronounce them) for Pierre to kitesurf. Alas, for the first time all trip, there was no wind, not a whisper! Go figure!! We did lots of beach walks and we even dug ourselves out of bed at 4:30am to do a sunrise hike up Mt. Maunganui! It was stunning and a good walk for us, and a morning run for locals before work. Many young'un's zipped by us to the top!
The start of our sunrise hike.
From Tauranga, south of Auckland, we were to go to the Northland, but once again the weather foiled us. A torrential rainstorm took out parts of the highway and the detour route. Travel was not recommended unless essential. It is very hard to justify vacation travel as essential... This poor country has been very hard hit by weather events this summer. Talking to the locals, they have never had a summer like it.
Another cancelled accommodation. A side note about booking and cancelling places to stay in New Zealand. We used VRBO a bit and Airbnb more, but when we could find them, we tried to book directly with places. Airbnb and VRBO very clearly stated cancellation policies and very readily processed deposit refunds when needed. Places that we booked directly also stated cancellation polices, usually quite generous, but when it came to refunding deposits they said they had no way to do it??? It was so strange, you can take a credit card in payment but you can't process a refund. One place, we finally got them to try doing a bank transfer, for which they passed all the fees on to us. And in the other case, they just stopped communicating with us. I have never run into this anywhere, but then, I have never had to cancel so many accommodations on one trip!!!!
Decisions, decisions - Go further south and then risk suddenly closed roads to get back to Auckland or go to Auckland for 6 days? We compromised and went to Waiheke Island, just a short ferry ride from Auckland with lots of wineries and beaches, for 4 of the days and Auckland for 2.
Waiheke Island reminded us of Saltspring Island off the coast of Vancouver. A couple of towns and windy roads over hill and dale through farms and wineries. We booked a day at a winery! It included an e-bike tour of the vineyards and a wine tasting with an optional dinner. The pictures of the tour were a group of smiling people riding across a field and down a lovely wide wooded trail. It sounded perfect. We started by getting familiar with the bikes in a parking lot as neither of us had any experience with e-bikes. The first clue for me should been that these were suspension mountain e-bikes. But they were good bikes and we headed off across a field and then to a trail. Full stop for me. It was a steep downhill ending in a hairpin turn between trees and about the width of my handlebars and then up. I said, "is the whole trip on trails like this? The guide said, "pretty much only it gets steeper, but that's ok, the e-bike makes it a piece of piss" Yikes!!! This was not for me, however Pierre was keen to give it a try!! No problem, I rode back to the beautiful waterfront winery buildings and watched the beautiful people come from their helicopters or yachts for lunch at the winery . It was a nice peaceful couple of hours sipping rose under a tree. Pierre survived the bike ride, although a little worse for wear! He said it should be billed as an advanced mountain bike ride. The rest of our time on the island was spent wine tasting, eating and beach walking.
Auckland is a city! Not much else to say. However we splurged and stayed at a harbour front hotel. Our first impression was iffy, our room wasn't ready when we first went but I was able to check in, we went back later and the lobby was full of people whose rooms weren't ready. It was a zoo!! They finally came to us with our key, apologizing profusely and gave us an upgrade to a top floor suite!!! and sweet it was!!!
What a crazy adventure it was!!
