Category: Blog

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get around New Zealand.

Now compared to Canada, South Africa, and Australia, New Zealand is not a very large country. Still, I figured that visiting different parts of it would involve more than hopping on a local bus and ringing the bell when I saw somewhere I wanted to stop. I’d heard that the best way to really see the country was to rent a car and travel around it, but I wasn’t eager to do all that driving myself. I was also a bit afraid that I would get it into my head that I could in fact see the entire country in 2 weeks, and that if I was left to my own devices I would try to do this (and then possibly end up hours from an airport in the South Island, moments before my flight was scheduled to leave Auckland in the North Island… ).

Fortunately, my friend Mel had been to New Zealand recently and had a good sense of what I was looking for in terms of getting around. She suggested that I sign up with Stray Travel – I managed to visit the Stray office my second day in Auckland and booked a couple of sectors of travel with them right away. I was all set to head off to explore the North Island first thing on Tuesday morning.

What appealed to me about Stray is that it seemed to be a very relaxed travel company. The brochure mentioned that you shouldn’t travel with them if you don’t like to walk (I love to walk!). They also pride themselves on taking people off the beaten track (sounds good to me!). And they said that the drivers can change the schedule depending on what comes up (I’m flexible!), and that you shouldn’t panic or anything if your driver doesn’t show up at precisely the time given (I’m even flexible about punctuality!) – they’ll always show up, just not absolutely according to a totally set schedule.

So I tried my best to get myself to the meeting spot at the right time on Tuesday morning. It’s always my fear that I’ll be the one holding everyone up, and I didn’t want that to be my introduction to the group. I was a little embarassed that I wasn’t travelling with just a simple backpack – I’d left my petite yet hefty backpack at Julie and Raf’s place, since the smaller bag (with wheels, much to the delight of my back and shoulders but to the extreme horror of my wannabe backpacker sensibilities) which I had acquired along the way was actually a whole lot easier to pack.

I was told to be outside the Stray office by 7:50 am. Or, well, 8 am. Well, between 7:50 and 8… anytime around then should be fine. And if I somehow missed the bus, it wouldn’t be a problem for one of the people from the office to drive me over to where the bus would be. So it all sounded easy. I left Julie and Raf’s place around 7:45 am, and made it to the office a few minutes before 8, and started to wait. And wait. And worry (a little) but I didn’t want the staff to know in case they thought I was one of those people who had to do everything according to a schedule and maybe wasn’t cut out for their kind of travel after all. I just wondered whether somehow I had already missed the bus, and should already be asking for that ride to meet it before it left the city.

Around 8:20 am or so, my driver Rob (aka “Pops,” since he was older than most of the other drivers but apparently not as old as the one they called “Gramps”) pulled up in front of the Stray office. Phew! It was such a relief to see him. And he didn’t even make any snide remarks when he tossed my wheeled bag into the storage compartment (I was very pleased about this!).

I was the only one getting on at the Stray office, so we left from there to pick up the others. Fourteen people, all located at hostels around Auckland. And if I thought I looked relieved to see Rob pick me up, it was probably nothing compared to how relieved some of these people were. It turns out that when one of the girls on the trip booked her ticket (from Australia), she was told to be ready at 7:30 in the morning. She had been waiting outside her hostel for more than an hour before the bus pulled up! But no one was upset about the later-than-expected start, and we were soon on our way to Mt Eden.

Mt Eden is the highest volcanic cone in the Auckland area (OK, I got this fact from Lonely Planet), and from its summit you can see a great view of the city. But what really impressed me was that the crater is filled with grass. And cows. Cows! The cows were grazing on the grass. I was totally surprised. After being caught a bit off-guard by all the trees inside Rangitoto’s crater, I truly didn’t expect to see just grass inside Mt Eden. And I never expected to see cows. When I asked Rob about this, he said that local farmers are paid to bring their cows there to graze – it helps preserve the archaelogical site.

After driving down Mt Eden, we were finally on the road – out of Auckland, and on our way to the Coromandel Peninsula on the east side of the country. We stayed at a campsite in Hahei (no tents required) and were able to walk to Cathedral Cove that afternoon. Most of the walking I had done in Australia required footwear, and by this they meant that you should wear flip-flops (or ‘thongs’ as they call them). It was warm when we reached Hahei, so I was eager to take off my woolen hiking socks and put on my ‘jandals’ (kiwi term for thongs). When Rob saw me come out of the cabin like this, he asked whether I had any proper shoes along – apparently, the walk was going to be more challenging than I had expected! I was so glad he had encouraged us not to wear sandals for the walk. Like Rangitoto Island, it wasn’t too tough a walk but it would have been very uncomfortable (and possibly dangerous) in just flimsy jandals.

The walk was beautiful. I’ve never seen so many rainbows in my life.

We returned to the campsite around 5 pm, and headed off for Hot Water Beach around 6 pm. This was one of those really neat things that you hope you can do in New Zealand but that I wasn’t sure I would get the chance to do. Rob picked up the necessary spades for us, and dropped us off at the parking lot near the beach with instructions to just look for the people lying close to the rocks and start digging around there.

We found the people – lots of them. Way more than Rob had expected. What was harder to find were free places to dig. It seemed like everyone else had got there early and already dug the prime places. Eventually, our group figured out what to do and we ended up with some nifty hot water bathing holes. You dig a hole big enough for a few people to lounge in, then let it naturally fill with hot water and get in and enjoy. Some of the places were so hot that we could see the water bubbling through the sand. At times, I could even feel my toes burning. Then the tide would come in (we were very close to the edge of the beach and really couldn’t be any closer to the water), and we would be flooded by cold water.

When we were ready to go, we went back to the campsite for a BBQ. Earlier that day, Rob had told us about his family’s ancestry – like many people in New Zealand, he is part Maori. Just before we ate, he led us in a Maori prayer (this felt very appropriate).

The next day we were off again, with one additional person added to the group (she had jumped off the Stray bus a day or two earlier and stayed in Hahei longer than the others in her group). This time, our destination was Raglan, a beach area on the opposite side of the North Island. Somewhere along the way, I decided that I would sign up for the surfing lessons that are offered there. It was fun, but I don’t think I’ll be signing up for a surfing contest anytime soon. I’m better at it than I am at snowboarding, but that really isn’t saying much. At least learning to surf doesn’t really hurt!

Julie and Raf suggested that I check out Rangitoto, a dormant volcano and Auckland’s youngest (it was created about 600 years ago). They hadn’t been there yet themselves, but they had heard that the walk up the volcano was good and the views of the city from the top would be worth the trek up there.

The day I decided to go was one of the few days that I haven’t been travelling, so I was a big sluggish (needed a break from moving far distances over a short span of time!). So taking the ferry over to Rangitoto Island seemed like a good idea (the pier for the ferry is a very short walk from Julie and Raf’s place, and the ferry ride itself only takes about 40 minutes).

It ended up being a perfect day for a walk up a volcano. The sun was shining and it was warm, but not too hot. A large group of elementary school students was also there, so I let the kids get a head start and then followed up the trails behind them.

The walk was much more strenuous than I had expected! It’s not very steep, but the incline is such that it really tired me out. I kept running into the other stragglers who had let the school group pass them, and then I found out that one of the stragglers was giving up (it was just too much for her, so she headed back down to wait for the ferry).

By the time I reached the crater and the summit, I was tired and hungry. I joined the school group and took out my lunch. At the bottom of the volcano, signs warned about the presence of bees at the top. And those warnings weren’t false – the bees loved being near the students, and our food! I’m not really afraid of bees, but I get very panicked when I’m eating and they won’t leave me alone.

Anyway, it took a while for me to finish eating (I had to keep getting up and moving around to try to lose the very curious bees) so the school group was gone by the time I was ready to walk around the rim of the crater and start the decent. I had put my bags down while I was eating and then noticed that there was a bee on the water bottle that Julie had lent me. I didn’t want to abandon the bottle up there, so I found a way to shake the bag and get the bottle free (I also really wanted the water that was in it!).

The bee then found something much more interesting inside the bag, and really made himself comfortable. I didn’t want to leave the plastic bag there, either, not because I needed it but because I didn’t want to litter. So I waited. When I figured the bee was gone (I couldn’t see it anymore, and I’d kicked the bag a little to check) I picked the bag up and started walking over to the crater.

Suddenly, there was a bee on my hand (nestled between my ring finger and my pinky)! I freaked out, dropped the bag, and started trying to get the bee off my hand. Man, I never knew bees were so sticky. Somehow I managed to get the bee off without getting stung or killing the bee (how, I’ll never know) and it dived right back into the plastic bag. I poured some of my water on the bag to try to get the bee to leave, but that didn’t do anything. I realized that, if anything, my efforts were just making the bee more angry so I decided to cut my losses and leave the top of the volcano. Who wants to be alone at the top of a volcano with an angry (and possibly vengeful) bee?

So I started a brisk walk around Rangitoto’s crater. The volcano has been dormant for so long that there is a lot of vegetation inside the crater (I hadn’t expected this). And by vegetation, I don’t just mean grass. There are tonnes of trees – it’s like looking into a very shallow valley rather than into a hole that once shot out lava and rocks.

I made it back to the meeting spot for the ferry on time (thank goodness!), put a small donation in the box to ease my conscience and hopefully make up for leaving litter behind, and took at look at some of the historic baches along the coast. A bach (sounds like ‘batch’) is a beach house, sort of like a cottage. Families own them and pass the ownership through generations. The baches on Rangitoto Island were controversial, I think because the land became national park land and then it was an issue for people to own property there.

What I normally love most about travelling is having hours of uninterrupted time for reading. (Sounds exciting, I know!) I just love being able to have so much time available to read as much as I like. Luckily, I’m able to read under almost any condition (in cars, on boats, on planes, standing up, in the dark… and noise doesn’t really distract me while I’m reading, either, so I can pretty much read anywhere).

I wasn’t sure how many novels to bring with me for a trip that would be 8 weeks long. Especially considering that most of those 8 weeks would involve long hours spent in transit.

Much to my amazement, I’m nearing the end of my trip and I’ve only finished reading one book. Just one! I’m about halfway through another. And these aren’t even enormous books, since I was really limited with what I could bring along.

So why is this? I think it’s that the scenery has just been too good not to spend hours looking at. And I guess I’ve also done a lot of travelling overnight, so I’ve done my best to get some sleep when looking out the window doesn’t offer much.

Anyway, just had to take note of this since it’s something that has really surprised me.

I arrived in Auckland on Saturday night, and after quite some time with the officers in quarantine, finally met up with Julie and Raf. [I had to check off nearly every box on the form they make you fill out: wooden items? (X) dried fruit? (X) hiking shoes that have been through a national park in the past 30 days? (X) – at least they cleaned my shoes for me, which was really appreciated – I had been ready to throw them out, and now they’re like new again!]

Julie and Raf’s apartment is in a great location, right in the central business district. Auckland has really surprised me so far – I hadn’t expected the city to look so new.

It was raining today, so we spent the afternoon in the museum. I was glad to get a bit of an overview of New Zealand, so early in the trip! To be honest, I hadn’t realized what a big part volcanoes have played in the formation of this country. The museum had a lot of information on this, which we really appreciated!

I didn’t think I would make it all the way up to Cairns.

Aside from the pure distance between Sydney and Cairns (which I didn’t fully understand until about 2 weeks into my time in the country), I wasn’t sure whether it made any sense to travel up to an area that had had such recent and dramatic encounters with cyclones. The road from Townsville to Cairns was actually closed for a few days, and some surrounding areas were without power for quite some time. Anyway, the government wanted to let travellers know that the state of Queensland was still OK to visit – just certain areas (such as Innisfeld, south of Cairns) were not really open for business.

So I caught an overnight bus from Airlie Beach to Cairns, arrived at 6:25 am, and got on another bus at 7:30 am to start my rainforest tour. Within a couple of hours, I was walking through Cape Tribulation and floating along the Daintree River. We saw one crocodile and one tree snake, and lots of rain (so far, it’s rained both times I’ve visited rainforests, and they always let us know that it’s actually just ‘liquid sunshine’ – I guess so we shouldn’t be disappointed).

I ended up really enjoying my time in Cairns. Lonely Planet had described it as being a “backpackers’ carnival” and the truth is that I found it a fun place to backpack in. The city centre (very touristy) is easy to get around, and they set up tour times to coincide with the morning arrivals of the overnight buses. The walk from the bus drop-off point to my hostel was fairly simple (I did lose my bearings a bit, but that probably had more to do with spending the night on a bus and waking up in an unfamiliar city in the rain). What was a little tricky for me is the way that Cairns has these shopping squares – you can walk around a block and not quite know whether or not you are supposed to turn. It’s very easy to lose track of how far you’ve gone.

The rainforest tour I signed up for was great. All the people on the bus seemed to be travelling alone (I love when this is the case – everyone is so much friendlier then). And it was a nice bus of people. Some of the girls I met wanted to meet for dinner the following night and we managed to make this happen. I also ended up signing up for the same Great Barrier Reef snorkelling trip as one of the other girls, and I was glad I had (it was a very small boat load of people, and much nicer trip already knowing someone there).

The weather wasn’t great, but it was worth it to finally see the Great Barrier Reef. The visibility was 10-12 (metres, I guess) and much better than it had been when I snorkelled at the Whitsunday Islands. I was suprised by how big the fish near the boat were – it’s creepy when you can see their jaws move. Speaking of jaws, I wasn’t quite sure what to do when I noticed that I was swimming directly above some sharks… The tour operators seem a bit frustrated when we panick, though (I got back on the boat fairly quickly) – since the sharks were only little reef sharks, apparently they have very little interest in humans.

My last night in Cairns I got to sample the backpacker nightlife. This involved going to ‘ladies night’ at the Rhinobar (free champagne – term used loosely to describe cheap sparkling wine with raspberry flavour thrown in to disguise the taste) and then accidentally stumbling into the Wool Shed (which my Lonely Planet had warned me about – they mentioned the nearly unavoidable dancing on tables and benches, and I really should have remembered about this before entering… I was thankful that I either missed the wet T-shirt contest or that there just wasn’t one that night). But I was glad that I was with the people I had met on the Cape Tribulation tour, and it was fun to see how a lot of backpackers spend most of their time in Australia. One place I had heard a lot about along the way was Byron Bay (roughly speaking, near Brisbane) – a lot of backpackers plan to be there 3 days and end up staying for a week or more. I didn’t go, and when someone at the Wool Shed exclaimed “This reminds me of Byron Bay!” I knew just what I’d been missing…

The next day I did some shopping around Cairns and met up with people from the tour again (for lunch). We said bye at the lagoon and I caught a taxi to the airport to head back to Sydney. I didn’t really feel ready to leave Australia but I was looking forward to finally reaching New Zealand.