Cape Reigna/90 Mile Beach Pictures

Secluded white sand beach where we enjoyed a picnic lunch

Rugged coast line up near Cape Reigna

Cape Reigna; notice the white caps--this is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman sea.  Apparently on stormy days, these two oceans cause quite violent waves

Ang and Steve at Cape Reigna

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Sand 

tobogganing

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Our bus on 90 Mile Beach

Hot Water Beach Pics

Panoramic shot of the beach

People enjoying their self-made hot tubs

Steve with his spade, digging us a relaxing afternoon!

Hot Water Beach (beautiful!)

Auckland Pictures

New Zealand Money--there is a little plastic decal on all the bills, that is in the shape of a rugby ball!

Auckland Harbour--they have turned the working harbour into a very interesting neighborhood called the Viaduct.  Parks, walking paths and restaurants dot the harbour front.

Eden Park, home of the 2011 Rugby World Cup

View of the Auckland from Mt Eden--one of the many volcanoes this city is built upon.

Nelson

Hello from the South Island!!

The last time we wrote, we were in the capital city of New Zealand, Wellington, which is the port city for the interisland ferries.  New Zealand is a country made up of two islands, north and south, with ¾ of the 4 million population residing on the North Island.  From what we have heard, the south island is supposed to be quite stunningly beautiful, so we are quite excited to explore this island.  We took the ferry over a few days ago and are now in the Northern most aspect of the Southern Island. 

We have spent the past few days relaxing and unwinding in the sunniest city in New Zealand, Nelson.  From what we can see, this city deserves this reputation.  Other than the crazy wind storms that have been happening (which I am writing to you in one right now!!) the weather  has been quite nice.  We are staying at a very nice hostel in Nelson.  It is called “Paradiso”, and it is living up to its reputation!!  There is a pool, hot tub and sauna, as well as a large backyard full of areas to relax—lounge chairs, hammocks and palm trees surround!  There is a very nice kitchen with glassed in solarium for eating pool side, and they provide a yummy breakfast and soup every night!

Our first day here we took the opportunity to explore the city and the waterfront.  We walked down to the nearest beach and had the opportunity to walk a few kilometers along the exposed reef and sandy beach, due to the approximate 4 meter tide flow.  This means the water level decreases 4 meters in depth at the time of low time, which equals to what seems to be miles and miles of distance.  There is a river flowing through Nelson that at low tide is simply a barren channel—there is a restaurant called the River View, but I figure the name is only accurate for half the day!!  Apparently the spring tides, which we are experiencing now, are the most dramatic.  On the beach we walked to, there was a bunch of kite surfers.  There is a channel that runs through this beach area that at low tide still contains water, making it the perfect place to learn to kite surf.

Yesterday we rented a car and took off to explore on of the tourist hot spots in this region, the Nelson wineries.  All along the Northern tip of the Southern Island are numerous little wineries, with the specialties in this area being aromatic whites and quite peppery reds.  We had a great day exploring the area, had a wonderful picnic lunch on Rabbit Island—a little secluded nature reserve right on the water (no rabbits seen!!)  and also sampled some excellent olive oil.  Apparently grapes and olives grow well in the same climate, so we came away with a few bottles of wine as well as some delicious olive oil.

Today we spent our morning exploring the Nelson market, which showcases all the local offerings.  There were vegetable stands, cheese shops, homemade venison sausage, olive oil and lots of local crafts and art.  We came away with quite a haul, which should keep us eating well throughout out next adventure—hiking the Able Tasman.

We take off tomorrow to explore New Zealands smallest national park, and from what I can see, possibly one of the most beautiful.  We will spend about 5 days in the park, walking along the white sand beaches with turquoise waters—should be some nice pictures after this adventure!!

Random New Zealand food facts: We aren’t quite sure who decided how to price the food in this country.  Soup, for one thing, is more of an expensive option.  If you wanted a bowl of soup for lunch, it would easily be $8-$10.  You might not think this is too bad, but a big sandwich with fresh meat, cheese, veggies—the works essentially—would only be $3-$4!!  Peppers (green, red, yellow) are known as capsicums and Steve does not understand why all the colony countries have adopted marmite!!  However, Steve has found a fondness for chutney, which works out well in all these fruit growing areas of New Zealand—delicious!!  There must be a large middle eastern population in New Zealand, because schwarma/kebabs  are everywhere.

Signing off for now.  Will let you know how our Able Tasman adventure goes in a few days.  Miss you!!

Tongariro Summit Video

I only wish you could hear the wind better!!  Steve is videotaping the views from the top while Ang is trying to find safety out of the wind.  Not the greatest video, but I hope you get the idea.

Oh, and if you notice in any of the pictures: yes, Steve is growing a moustache for Movember!  Thanks Speagle and Romanek--much appreciated!

Windy Wellington!!

Well, the main point is that we survived the hike.  But honestly, there was times we weren't so sure.  Let me start you from the top...

1) Waitomo Caves
Very very neat!  We had considered travelling from Rotorua to Waitomo to do a full day of caving, but were discouraged by the travel time and had other adventures to do.  So when our bus was able to detour around to Waitomo and we were able to do a quick walk-through caving tour, we were quite excited.  Like I said on the previous blog, I really had no idea what this caving thing would entail.  Well essentially there are hundreds of caves in this little area of Waitomo (about 300 to be exact).  The geography of the area is that there are numerous limestone caves under all this farm land--if you own land and it has a cave underneath, you own a cave!!  So there are many many companies that will take you into their caves and show you around.  Since we only had limited time, we just got to go on a walk-through cave--but you can go on tubes through the water channels in the caves, and do all sort of adventurous things like cliff jumping and stuff.

So the guide takes you down a ton of stairs and you are walking through a tunnel system underneath a farm.  The pictures definitely don't do it justice, but it is quite neat.  In the cave we were in there are a bunch of these glow worms--literally little worms that have the ability to shine a light from their body and look quite neat in the caves.  They turn these lights on to attract bugs--bugs see the light and fly towards it, thinking it is the outside.  These worms have string like webs (think spider webs) that the bugs then get attached to, and then they can eat the bugs to survive in these caves.

My suggestion would be if you have the opportunity to go caving, do it!  If we end up in Waitomo again, we will definitely try and swing one of the longer, more adventurous caving tours.

Sorry no pictures of them actually glowing—we literally took about fifty pictures and tried to capture the little green glowworms in the dark, but weren’t really successful.  The last pic is a glow worm at the entrance to the cave—you can actually see the worm and his lines quite well here.

2) National Park

Then we were off to Tongariro National Park for our four day hiking adventure.  The hike is 44km in total, reaching an altitude of about 1900m.  The first day, known affectionately as “the ditch”, literally sees you walking through a series of eroded paths.  We arrived at our first hut without any issues, but were quite happy to see the hut—the clouds were rolling in and the rain started about 30mins after we made it to safety. 

The second morning we awoke to a blanket of clouds—literally, you couldn’t see the mountains we were next to!  The rain had let up (for the moment) and the warden promised us only winds of up to 65km/h at the top, so we took off on our second day.  The second day of this hike is the famed Tongariro Alpine Crossing—New Zealands best one day hike.  Here you go from an altitude of about 1150m, up to your summit of Red Crater around 1900m, back down to 1300m at the second days hut.  As you are doing the crossing, you are cutting through the ridge that separates the two volcanoes in this park.  It is quite a neat area—the entire National Park has dual world heritage status due to the nature aspects (it’s a volcanic field, which also hosts forests and dessert area) and its cultural aspects to the Maori people (the indigenous people in New Zealand).

We leave our little hut off on our expedition--you walk for about an hour on flat planes along a river and then you start your ascent.  This is where my sherpa was needed--with the rain/snow/sleet starting, Ang found this park quite difficult and needed assistance from her very generous husband!!  You begin to hike up the crater and the wind starts picking up.  At the top of this crater the wind was so fierce that we were sure we were going to blow off the mountain.  Literally we were holding each other, trying to get from one large rock of covering to the next to offer us some shelter from these winds.  You have to walk head-on into the winds, to avoid being swept off the mountain!!  We come to find out later that the 65km/h winds they predicted were not quite accurate--they were measured to be greater than 100km/h the afternoon we crossed (they usually recommend you not to cross if they are higher than 80km/h!).  Once you get over the ridge you get the beautiful views of the red crater and the crater lakes--all due to volcanic activity.  Everything here also smells like sulphur and you can watch the gases rising while you are hiking!  We made it down the other side and out of the crazy winds, finally making it to our day two hut.  Definitely beautiful views--well worth the hike!

Day three and four were much easier over rolling hills.  You walk through desert areas, followed by forests dotted with rivers and waterfalls--very interesting landscape.  We had some clear skies these days and got some nice pics of the volcanoes (Mt. Ngarahoe is known as "Mt Doom" to you Lord of the Ring nerds!!)

"The Ditch" 

Hut Day 1

Red Crater 

Crater Lakes and sulphur gases

Mt Ngarahoe (Mt Doom!!)

My Sherpa!!

3) Wellington

We are currently in the capital city of New Zealand.  This beautiful little port town has the most amazing waterfront I’ve ever seen in a city.  You can walk for hours along waterfront paths (we literally did today!!) and they have incorporated nice sculptures and art to really make the city unique.  We were able to enjoy some New Zealand beer while watching the Sunday Night football game on Monday afternoon here (weird!!) and took in the Te Papa National Museum this afternoon.  We are off to further explore the city tonight before taking the three hour ferry ride to the South Island tomorrow to stop over in Nelson for the next week or so.  Nelson apparently is the sunniest New Zealand city, so we hope to have some more beautiful beach pictures for you!

Caving, anyone!!

I cannot believe it is the middle of November already!!  Steve and I are currently sitting on a bus (good use of our time to be on the internet!!)  heading to Waitomo to go caving.  We aren’t quite sure what this whole caving thing has in store, but it’s supposed to be quite neat—glowworms and everything in the caves!!  Now, to explore what we’ve been up to….

We’ve just been in Rotorua for the past few days.  Rotorua is this neat city that is essentially sitting on miles and miles of thermal activity.  This all started when a volcano erupted in 1886, leaving all these mud pits and water springs that are quite thermally active.  The entire place smells like sulphur!  We took a day tour through two separate thermal parks, which were quite neat.  Unbelievable colours from all the minerals, and as you are walking around you just encounter bubbling pools and gas emitting from cracks in the rock formations. 

Our second day in Rotorua was spent at the spa.  Apparently all this sulphur/minerals has medicinal purposes, so we enjoyed spending the day at one of the top 10 spas in the world. 

The stop after Rotorua was in Taupo, this little lake-front town that came into existence due to the above mentioned giant volcanic eruption.  The same eruption that made Rotorua thermal, ripped a giant hole through Taupo, which now holds a lake larger than the country of Singapore.  It is quite a beautiful place and I understand why the tourists flock here in the summer.  We did make it out to a natural hot spring just on the edge of the town—very neat to sit under the waterfalls and relax with nature.

We are heading to National Park Village, the jumping off point of our first overnight tramp (that’s hiking in New Zealand speak!!).  We will be hiking for four days and I’m sure there will be some interesting stories when we are done!!

Random Facts--New Zealand Media—obviously this country has different laws when it comes to reporting—these guys will say anything!!  We listened to an entire program about babies names that were outdated, and they had people call in with all these “old names”.  HILARIOUS!!  They had a good time talking about Barry and making up nicknames!  There also was a program on times you had run into your teacher or boss out in public, focusing on stories where the person of authority was not necessarily meeting their moral standards.  Teachers who couldn’t afford their McDonald’s tab and buying lap dances from their students—I only wish we had such good radio/TV programs!!

More antics after we return from our hike—wish us luck!!

90 Mile Beach

It is Saturday morning, at 830, and Steve and I have now been on a bus heading South to Rotorua for the past hour.  It was a noisy Friday night in the hostel (we should have known when we saw three cops standing on the corner that it was going to be a rowdy night!!) and the 710 bus pick-up came much earlier than we would have liked!!

The last few days we rented a car and headed out of Auckland.  We headed up to the North of the Island, which is a subtropical area since we are in the Southern Hemisphere.  We had wonderful weather and really enjoyed the scenery.  We first drove around the the area known as "the Bay of Islands".  Lots of little islands off the coast scattered all the way up to the North tip.  We had a nice afternoon on the beach in Paihia, and again, these beaches are just as beautiful (if not more beautiful) than any other beaches we have ever seen before.

Yesterday we took an organized tour up to the most Northern tip--Cape Reinga.  The day started out driving up and stopping at numerous little shops and quaint beaches along the way.  There is an area that is white silica sand beach--very beautiful!  You end up at the Cape and this is really neat-the area where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.  We had a very nice day, meaning the waters were quite quiet, but apparently sometimes these two seas can be quite violent when the two streams collide.  Then the finale of the trip is driving down a sand highway known as 90 Mile Beach.  We were told it is about 63 Miles long, but it is an actual legislated highway in New Zealand.  Really really neat!!  You have to be quite careful with tides and things, cause there have been lots of tourists who have had their cars stuck because they didn't realize the sand was too soft or the tide was coming in.  We also stopped off at some sand dunes and went sand tobogganing.  Was a fun adventure until I bailed off my board (video clip to follow) and we both had sand covering us for the remainder of the day!

So, we are now sitting on the bus and trying to upload some pictures for you.  We also got a few cool videos from the 90 Mile Beach trip that I will send you--words just can't describe the things we were driving through!  Hope everything is well in Canada and we will be in touch soon with pictures and video of our adventures!!

Hot Water Beach

Well, today was a big day in the Majoros family--we learned how to drive a car on the wrong side of the road!! VERY difficult, but we managed.  It was actually kinda fun when we got things figured out, but definitely made for a few interesting turns off the bat.

Today we rented our first car, and took the drive from Auckland to Hot Water Beach.  The idea with this Hot Water Beach is that there is volcanic activity beneath the ground, and for two hours before and after low tide, you can dig a hole (with a spade, not a shovel as we learned!!) on the beach and the hot water bubbles up to the surface, allowing you to make your own mini hot tub!  Now, the thing they don't tell you, is that the water only bubbles up where it wants to--unless you have a lot of energy and a lot of patience, it works best just to jump into one of the already begun holes and make it your little oasis.  We were actually sitting in a hole that was too hot--like scalding--Steve had to craft a little channel to let the ocean water flow in, to cool the place down.

It's about a two hour drive direct from Auckland to Hot Water Beach, and then on the way home we took the scenic route along the Pacific Coast Highway.  It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL, but a little dangerous at times.  One way bridges, falling rock and crazy local drivers who obviously know these turns well made for an interesting day!  But we got some great pics and were discussing that we think these beaches might be the best we've ever seen--they certainly give Hawaii a run for its money--white sand, blue-blue water, what more could you ask for!

Yesterday we took a tour of Eden Park, home of the All Blacks.  It was quite neat to see how a country of 4 million managed to host the Rugby World Cup--they made a ton of changes to the field, so the tour was quite interesting.  We also hiked up Mount Eden, one the volcanoes that Auckland is situated on.  Absolutely stunning views of the city and the harbour from here--definitely worth all the huffing and puffing it took for me to get to the top!

I do apologize--we are working on limited bandwidth in the current internet we are using, so we aren't able to upload pictures just yet.  But I do promise pictures soon, once we get to better internet service!!!

Funny moment of the day--they were having a "Canadian Club" moment on the radio.  They are doing heavy advertising for CC over here, so they were giving away packs of Canadian Club if you could call in and have the best Canadian accent.  VERY funny!!  Steve wanted to call in and thought he'd have the perfect accent, but his wife wouldn't pay the international fees to win the CC.

Tomorrow we are heading North, to the subtropical area of the Bay of Islands.  Promise to post soon and hope all is well at home.  Miss you all!!!

We've arrived!

It's 9pm on November 6, so we have officially survived our first day!  Our thanks go out to Sean for transporting us to Pearson, where we began our journey from.  No issues on our flight from Toronto to LA--actually, there was lots of extra room on the flight, so made for a nice start to the journey.

We arrived in LA to find a bit of an issue--in order to access entrance to New Zealand, you must have proof of an ongoing flight.  Well, we have a flight booked for December 15th to Brisbane, but I didn't have printed confirmation of this....argh!!!  So we spent about an hour trying to navigate LAX, but finally were successful and allowed to get on our flight!  AWESOME plane and entertainment options on our qantas flight--made the 13+ hour flight as bearable as possible.  Both Steve and I managed to get some sleep, making for a more successful first day in Auckland.

Not a whole lot covered today, but we did manage to explore the harbour and the University of Auckland.  Very hilly city, which made things a bit slow going on only a few hours of sleep, but tomorrow should be another great day of adventure after a good nights sleep.

Random trip fact thus far--since leaving Sean's house at noon on Friday November 4th, we have now had three mexican meals.....yes, we are aware we are in New Zealand, not mexico!!

More trip details and pics to follow in the next day or so.  Miss you all--keep us updated through email or add us to skype.  Talk soon!!

And we're off!!

Today is the day--we are finally off on our adventure.  We fly from Toronto to LA, and then on to Auckland--21hr in total duration....exciting!!!  Even though we leave at 645pm tonight, we don't arrive in Auckland until Sunday morning.  The plan is to be in Auckland for a few days (trying to battle the jet lag) and then start off on our New Zealand tour.  Expect a blog update every few days--I know you are all excited to hear about our trip!!!

Finally, we'd like to thank everyone who has offered us hospitality over the past few weeks--it was wonderful to be welcomed into everyone's homes and have some nice visits before we set off.

As promised, more pics!!  I do apologize to anyone from provinces other than BC and Alberta--your provinces are also beautiful, but didn't quite make the photo cut!

Lake Louise

Icefields Parkway--very beautiful drive!

Gotta love the car!!

Next post--from down under!!