Category: New Zealand

And so, after 10 weeks, we said goodbye to New Zealand – where the crows are black and white and the swans are black with red beaks. In spring, there are swathes of wild pampas grasses, clumps of wild white peace lilies, banks of yellow broom and gorse, brightly coloured rhododendrons. We’ve been soothed to sleep with the odd hoot of the morepork owl, waken by the distinctive song of the Tui birds and entertained by the tiny fluttering fantails. Being springtime, we saw lots of lambs, foals, calves, baby seals, tiny ducklings, Weka chicks, and even some fawns.
We’ve seen stunning aquamarine seas with white frothy waves crashing onto golden or black sand beaches, passed snow capped mountains and dormant volcanos, driven through huge gorges lined with forests studded with tree ferns, passed by acres of avocadoes, kiwi fruit, hops and vineyards. In tiny towns and big cities we’re loved the colourful murals and street art and met some fabulous people.
We’ve travelled by car, campervan, bus, train, tram and ferry through these beautiful islands all the while learning about the resilience of the people of New Zealand: living with volcanos, earthquakes and floods yet rebuilding their lives throughout as industries change – the rise and fall of coal mining, the change from sheep to cattle farming and diversifying all the time to survive in this beautiful country.
We loved it in 2009 and possibly loved it even more in 2023.
New Zealand – we will miss you.

We completed the 648 km journey from Wellington to Auckland by train – The Northern Explorer.

It’s a comfortable train with huge panoramic windows and a carriage on the back that is open to the air and gives a different view of the journey if you want. It has a buffet car with a variety of hot (microwaved) and cold options and it also serves alcohol.

The train travels along the historic North Island Main Trunk railway that was originally completed in 1908 (it took some 30 years to complete due to the tough yerrain it was going through). We had interesting commentary (personal headphones were provided) along the route of both the locations we travelled through and the railway history. We travelled along the gorgeous Kapiti coastline,

through beautiful countryside, over eye watering viaducts, past the volcanos of Tongariro National Park

and through the engineering feat known as the Raurimu Spiral, designed in 1898 to climb the 139 metre ascent. It uses 1 horseshoe curve, 2 90-degree curves, 2 tunnels, and 1 full circle that crosses back over one of the tunnels!

And so we returned to Auckland for 2 grey and rainy days, but the shops and streets are now dressed for Christmas, which was fun to see.

We had a smooth crossing on the Interislander ferry (we got good discount with our Top 10 membership) from Wellington, North Island through the Cook Straits and Marlborough Sounds to Picton, South Island,

followed by a 5 hour Intercity bus ride down to Christchurch. We were last in Christchurch in 2009 and fell in love with this beautiful city, so it was heartbreaking to get our first sight of the centre after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes – we could hardly recognise anything. There is still so much building work going on but from it all is rising some stunning new builds, gorgeous street art and the Cathedral in the centre is slowly being rebuilt – the strength and resilience of the people of Christchurch is amazing.

We ended up having a split visit as we couldn’t get accommodation the first week as, unbeknown to us, it was the Riccarton Cup week (harness racing). So we stayed 2 nights, then hired a car for 12 days and went off to explore the North of the island and then returned for a further 3 nights!
We took a day to simply walk the streets and the banks of the river Avon, admiring a family of Paradise ducks, watching the punts go by and listen to the clickity clack of the old trams which are back running.

Then, when we returned, we hopped on one of the 9 historic trams still running for an entertaining but informative trip around the centre and came across a couple of areas we hadn’t seen before.

Our tram was 102 years old.
We learnt more about the destructive nature of the earthquakes (90% of the old brick/stone buildings have been destroyed in the centre) and how building techniques have changed to try and quake proof them. There is now a height limit on new builds, but there are a couple of higher buildings that survived the quakes that can stay as they are deemed “quake proof.”
We jumped off to explore the Arts Centre, which used to be the university and was heavily damaged in the quakes. All the building are very Oxford / Cambridge esque, and they are still rebuilding, but they are beautiful.

Then, on for a walk in the Botanical Gardens – the rose garden looks and smells gorgeous at the moment.

Then, finally, we visited the Transitional Cathedral or Cardboard Cathedral as it is known – built in 44 weeks and 4 days, and yes, a huge amount is cardboard – it’s an amazing space and looks beautiful at night as the roof is polycarbonate sheets so the light shines through.

It’s been interesting seeing the city again after all these years and it has an exciting vibe about it with all the new projects going on so it was rather sad to say goodbye and jump on the bus to Picton for a night

before crossing back to North Island and a stop in Wellington before heading up to Auckland for the last couple of days in New Zealand.

In 2009 we did a 4 week road trip of South Island visiting the “big” attractions like Dunedin, Milford Sound, Queenstown ect so this time we decided to do the maybe less travelled parts. We hired a car in Christchurch and then travelled north up the inner scenic route which was beautiful (and much quieter than the Highway 1), passing the Mt Lyford ski lodge – all closed up for the season and then back onto the coast. Mt Fyffe has snow on and looks stunning high above the Kaikoura Cove.

We didn’t go whale watching this time around (what this area is famed for) but did see a couple of fur seals enjoying the sunshine and of course we had to have a seafood lunch at the famous Kaikoura Seafood BBQ – a small hut on the road up past Fyffe House – it was lovely in 2009 and again in 2023!!!!

We left Kaikoura, travelling up the repaired Highway 1 (it was badly hit and closed on 14 Nov 2016 in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake here). We stopped off at Ohau Point Lookout to look for the fur seal colony – and found it!! Lots of pups, and as we were watching them playing in the pools, we also spotted a small pod of dolphins swimming across Half Moon Bay.

We drove up through the Marlborough area with its acres and acres of vineyards and on to Havelock, the green mussel capital of the world, and stayed in a lovely AirBnB for 2 nights. Whilst in Havelock, we visited the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre for Andy to get his aeroplane fix (Peter Jackson’s World War 1 collection is presented here), only to find the WW2 section was closed, then my treat was supposed to be a tasting at Cloudy Bay winery – nope, they were full (pre-booking is seemingly essential here) so we ended up having a very good pint in the Moa Brewery instead.

We returned to Omaka the following day for the WW2 section before heading off to Nelson.

In Nelson, we stayed at the fabulous Ah House B&B right in the middle of the city – a lovely place to walk around with lots of interesting snippets. Where the Lord of the Rings “Ring” was made (my precioussss…), has a lovely cathedral (quite simple but interesting in design and still uses the Ellacombe chiming apparatus where one person can ring the bells using a pulley system to swing hammers at the bells rather than move the bells themselves), has preserved a street (South Street) of original houses from the 1800s, has a vintage heritage museum, lots of arts and crafts including the Suter Art Gallery (one of the oldest in New Zealand) and is close to the stunning Abel Tasman National Park (didn’t visit this time around but we did a 3 day hike there in 2009 which was fabulous).

We did take a trip out to Mapua and had a wander around the market and wharf,

then up the Moutere Ridge road to the Moutere Inn (supposedly the oldest pub in New Zealand) and then back to Richmond to sample the beer at the Eddyline Brewery – well Andy did whilst I remained the responsible driver and admired the 4 tiny minis that turned up in the car park!!!

We left Nelson (but not before spotting a Weka in the garden – a very strange sounding chicken like bird with a longish beak) and started our trip across the island. We stopped off in Wakefield to visit the Heritage Museum there (sadly missed the steam day) and had a mooch around the sheds – lots of small engines, tractors and trucks. Then, we headed down to Lake Rotoiti for a bit of a hike, but sadly, the rain came through from the far end of the lake, so we just did a photo stop,

checked out the eels that live under the jetty (some of the biggest and oldest long finned eels in New Zealand),

and headed for coffee and cake before moving on to Murchison for the night. A nice little place to break our journey and where we were lulled to sleep with the curious sounds of the morepork owl – the only endemic owl in New Zealand.

Then, from Murchison, we drove through to Westport along the beautiful Buller Gorge. We took a detour to see the Maruia Falls, which did not exist up until 1929 – this is when a 7.3 earthquake (known as the Murchison earthquake) hit the area, caused a landslide in the Maruia Valley and diverted the river. Seemingly, the falls started at about 1 meter drop but are now at about 10 metres.

We then went back onto the Buller Gorge Road and stopped off at the swingbridge (marketed as the longest in New Zealand at 110 metres long and 171 metres above the Buller River). Did Andy cross it – yep, but then realised he had to back over it again to get to the car (oops!).

There was a loop Bush walk at the other side with some information boards about the gold mining history and markers where the flood levels had been – the 2021 level was pretty scary, just a metre or so below ghe swingbridge!
Then, back on the road, through more stunning scenery down to Westport for a couple of nights.

We took a drive up the SH67 through the tiny historic mining towns of Seddonville, Hector, Ngakawau, Millerton and Granity. There’s still an active coal mine at Stockton (New Zealand’s largest open cast mining operation) – you can’t see the mine from the road but you can see the aerial tramway bring coal buckets down the hillside (of course it wasn’t in operation when we saw it!!!). We then took a rather hairy road trip (half the hillside seemed to have slid away and was being repaired) up to the Denniston Plateau and the historic coal mine site.

An amazing place, littered with old mining equipment, some extremely well written informative boards about life in Denniston and what they call here the “8th wonder of the world” – the Denniston Incline.

Coal was hauled by horse and cart to start with, then by an aerial tramway in the 1950’s to the edge of the plateau and then the buckets were lowered down the hill via the Incline – quite a feat of engineering – 1670 metres total length of incline with a vertical drop of 518 metres with each wagon carrying 7 tons of coal. It operated up until August 1967. Well worth the windy road up – oh and the view was spectacular as we had a gloriously sunny day! Then, back down the hill for a pie at the lovey Scullery and on to Westport for a wander around before heading back home.

From Westport, we took a slow drive down the West Coast road, first stopping off for a quick walk to Cape Foulwind and its little lighthouse, then on to Tarunga Bay and a small fur seal colony, and on to the Punakaiki Pancake rocks. These are quite spectacular limestone rock formations that look like tiny layers of stone but are actually huge blocks. There is a good path around the site with various viewpoints along the way.

This whole area seems to have lots of Weka (the chicken like bird) and we even spotted some chicks.
Then, onto Greymouth for the night. We’d intended to go to the Coal Creek Falls but somehow missed the turning but did stop at the Strongman Mine Disaster 1967 Memorial.
The rain that had threatened all day finally caught up with us but passed through, so we took a walk to the local pub for dinner.

We left Greymouth in the sunshine and travelled up Coal Gorge, along the Grey River, stopping off at the Brunner Mine Historic Site. One of New Zealands important coal mines and sadly the site of the deadliest mining disaster in New Zealand with the loss of 65 lives in 1896.

Then, on up the Gorge to the poignant Pike River Memorial (on 19 Nov 2010, an explosion killed 29 miners, whose bodies were never retrieved).
Then up to Reefton (City of Light) – an old gold and coal mining town that is famous for having its own electric power supply in 1888, making it the first in the Southern Hemisphere.

To those of you with maps, you’ll notice that this really is a rather odd roundabout journey! We decided that because we travelled through Arthur’s Pass in 2009 (a stunning drive), we would go through the Lewis Pass (907 metres above sea level) this time and stop off at the alpine village of Hanmer Springs (famous for its hot springs). It was 17 degrees and sunny when we left Greymouth – and 7 degrees and raining when we arrived at Hanmer!! The drive was beautiful all the same with lots of stunning changes in scenery from high mountains to vast plains, and in the morning, we awoke to fresh snow on the mountains around us.

We woke to clear blue skies and more fresh snow in Hanmer Springs and as we made our way back to Christchurch to return the car we were surprised at how much more snow there was on the South Alps than 12 days ago when we started our trip – and New Zealand’s summer starts on Friday 1st December!
Before heading back into Christchurch for 3 nights, we dropped Andy at the Air Force Museum for him to see a few more planes! The hangers here survived quite well during the earthquakes and were used to house other museum artefacts during the recovery/renovation period.

Having returned the campervan, we spent a couple of nights in Auckland and a fabulous trip up the Sky Tower

before boarding the Intercity bus to Wellington (should have been a long 11 hour journey but due to problems with the bus it was nearly 13hours – but we did get to see some beautiful scenary in the Tongariro National Park – “Mount Doom” from Lord of the Rings – proper name Mt Ngauruhoe capped with snow.

We then spent 2 days in Wellington exploring before heading over to South Island.

The infamous Wellington winds held off and the sun shone. We watched cricket in The Basin Reserve,

rode the Wellington Cable Car

and checked out the cable car museum at the top, wandered the harbour front where remnants of its working history still stands – old cranes

and many of the sheds now house event spaces and restaurants, Andy’s tried to open the safe in the beautiful Old Bank Shopping Arcade,

visited the new Cathedral

and Old St Pauls Church (a beautiful wooden church, now an historic site and mainly used for weddings),

admired the old and new government buildings – you can see why it is called the Beehive

– and then met some lovely veterans at the memorial service at the National War Memorial on Armistice Day.

It was interesting to see a memorial to those that perished in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic in the Pukehea National War Memorial Park, among memorials from other countries like America, the Pacific Islands, France and the UK.
Oh, and we a couple of very nice local breweries too (Panhead and Whistling Sisters)!!!!

And then, as we were leaving, we spotted this great Christmas Tree made from traffic cones! Not sure if this was a tongue-in-cheek nod at the sheer number of cones there seem to be in New Zealand or not!!!

We returned to Wellington for a night before heading back up to Auckland for our flight out and took the opportunity to visit the huge Te Papa Museum. It’s mostly free, although you may have to pay for certain exhibitions throughout the year. We visited the Gallopoli: The Scale of our War section, which was put together with the help of the Weta Workshops. It’s very interesting and well exhibited, following the stories of 8 different New Zealanders and their experiences, with quite haunting models at 2.4 times their normal size of the people. It is definitely worth a visit, and at the moment, it is planned to stay in the museum until Anzac Day 2025.

After Auckland and Parnell, we hired a car to tour Northland for a week.
It’s definitely worth taking time to visit this end of North Island – it may not have the hot springs etc that the central area does, but it is beautiful. We went up the west coast, with its stunning beaches (including one called Omaha)

and quirky towns like the bohemian Puhoi (famous pub, which is almost a museum in itself, good food and live music),

Orewa which had a great repair cafe that saved Andy’s hoodie from disrepair, Warkworth (named after the village in Northumberland and with streets called Morpeth and Alnwick), Waipu (home of Scottish settlers and they still hold Highland Games. They also have some good information boards in the town about the first world war and people from the town), Whangarei with its Hundertwasser Art Centre, amazing clocks (a huge sundial with movable numerals to account for daylight saving time changes and an amazing ball drop clock) and beautiful waterfalls,

Kawakawa (world famous WC – Hundertwasser again) and the steam railway and then historic Russell in the Bay of Islands, home of Flagstaff Hill of the Flagstaff War between the British and the Maori and not forgetting the Waitangi Treaty Grounds (we didn’t get to visit this historic site as we ran out of time – it quite expensive and probably needs several hours to do it justice). We travelled up the “tail” of the Island to the top and walked down to Cape Reinga Lighthouse – a fabulous spot.

The sand dunes along this tail are amazing and of course, on the east side of the tail lies 90 mile beach (only about 55 miles apparently but still stunning). Then on down the east side, past more stunning coasts of huge sand dunes and on down the Kauri coast, through huge forests of Kauri trees, including the ‘Lord of the Forest’ standing at 51.5 metres and which has a girth of 13.77 metres (quite a sight).

It’s more cattle than sheep up here and at present there are LOTs of tiny calves, we’ve seen acres of avocado trees and eaten yummy Kumara chips (like a sweet potato), seen creepy looking long finned eels

and stayed in some super BnBs, motels, holiday parks and AirBnBs along the way. Oh, and we also found the building used as the police station in the TV series Brokenwood Mysteries that we like – it’s the old post office in Helensville. The Puhio pub also appeared in it!

We arrived in New Zealand a week earlier than planned and treated ourselves to a nice hotel stay in Auckland CBD. We moved from shorts and t-shirts back to long trousers, fleeces, and rain coats and dodged lots of showers but have loved it! Auckland CBD is an easy place to explore on foot (despite all the roadworks). There are lots of old elegant buildings tucked among the skyscrappers, interesting histories noted on pavements and seats if you take the time to look for them, and of course, lots of boats – it is afterall known as the city of sails. We’ve admired beautiful historic yachts at the heritage landing, watched the America’s Cup yachts do their turns in the harbour, and spotted the super yacht Bliss owned by the founder of Snapchat ($200mill apparently!!!).

The Maritime Museum was an interesting escape from the rain with displays from the earliest Polynesian outrigger canoes up to the Americas Cup and Round the World races.

We took a ferry across to Waiheke Island one day and took the Hop On, Hop Off bus around so we could try some of the wineries and breweries out – as it is out of season we found alot only opened from Thursday to Sunday (and of course we went on a Wednesday!!).

After a week in the CBD we moved out to the lovely suburb of Parnell with its old painted wooden houses with wide verandahs, good eateries, independent shops and lots of walks (albeit hilly). From here, we could walk to the Winter Gardens and Fernery. They have just been renovated and the glass houses strengthened (against earthquakes) – they look lovely – one is a cold house and the other a hot house, both with beautiful displays.
The fernery was deliciously cool and verdant and echoed with the sounds of frogs croaking! We also took a walk around the duck pond – very odd seeing tiny ducklings in October but of course it’s spring over here.

We also spent nearly 4 hours exploring the Auckland War Memorial Museum which has some really good informative displays about volcanoes (Auckland sits on an active volcanic area!) and how New Zealand was formed, Maori culture, nature, and the wars that New Zealand has been involved in. Rather poignantly, there was a Mumford listed on the WW1 memorial wall and a rather striking wall that was an empty plaque with the words “Let these panels never be filled.”
On a lighter note, we also met Peter and Barbara – two T-Rex skeletons on display in the ticketing area – pay up or else!!!!!

We also took the opportunity to visit the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell. It’s fairly new (1973) and is beautiful inside – very simple, clean lines with stunning stained glass windows. Next door is the equally stunning St Mary’s Church, built in 1886. Up until 1982, it was across the road to the cathedral and was not being used so much. Then they decided to move it! It came across the street in one piece with the glass windows still in situ! It’s a stunning gothic wooden church made from Kauri wood from New Zealand, which gives it a lovely warm red glow. Both buildings are in use and have some lovely volunteers to tell you about them.

We walked to Judges Bay one day, past the tiny St Stephens Chapel where the constitution of the Anglican Church was signed in 1857 and where we met a lovely man and his 3 young boys cleaning headstones and repairing the fences in the cemetary, on down to Parnell Baths and back up the hill to the rose gardens – sadly it was a bit early but in the summer they must be stunning.