Underground

A post-script from yesterday’s blog. We were walking along Eat Street, when a young couple passed us going the other way. On his shoulders was their little girl. She took her dad’s cap and threw it to the ground, landing at our feet. It was an Atlanta Braves cap! I told the dad we were from Atlanta and he said they were, too! He had gone to UGA and lived in the Atlanta area, but they now lived Melbourne, as did his and her parents. Small world.

We bid goodbye to Rotorua this morning. We got to breakfast by just past 7 so we could be on the road by 8. We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to make the drive to the Waitomo Caves. We were told to allow almost 2 1/2 hours. It didn’t take that long, even with two delays caused by road work.

We were about half-way there when we saw a road sign telling us we were approaching a fairly common occurrence on New Zealand roads: a one lane bridge. The sign also told us the oncoming lane had the right of way. What made this bridge different from the many others we’d traversed was it’s elbow macaroni shape. There was no way to see if something was coming. I’m happy to report traffic was light and we made it across without incident.

The Waitomo Caves is a major tourist attraction in the central part of the North Island. This is probably because some of the caves are home to glow-worms. Our guide told us they’re actually not worms; they’re mayfly larvae. Whatever they are, they glow in the dark.

We had booked our tour with Spellbound, because our chief scout Annette told us they did such a great job for her and her traveling companion Esteban. Annette’s reliability is unquestioned in these quarters. We were part of a small group—just a dozen of us—with a knowledgeable and entertaining guide. Our first stop was a cave with very few glow-worms but lots of cool limestone formations.

After leaving that cave, we took a short drive to another. For this one, we needed to wear hard-hats with flashlights attached. Once inside the cave, we walked a short distance before coming to a dock at a subterranean river. There, we got into a large raft, turned off our headlights, and floated along. The cave ceiling looked like it was carpeted in lights the size of pin heads. And at the end of that tour, we were able to take pictures of the glowing and sticky tendrils the “glow-worms” use to catch their food.

We really enjoyed the tour. It was Roslyn’s idea, and I just went along with it. But I really had a great time!

Back in our car, we headed north to Hamilton. Regular readers will recall that we met and had lunch last Sunday with Angie, whose daughter Bridgette used to work with our son David in Boulder. We met her last August when we were visiting David out there. Bridgette is now back in NZ, teaching school in Hamilton. We met up for dinner and had a wonderful time catching up.

We had made it an early supper, so that we could leave Hamilton and get to Auckland before dark. Even with the 120 km trip being mostly on a four-lane highway (a rarity in NZ), we just made it. We’ll be here for the next four days. It looks like rain may be here, as well. But we have family here and there are lots of indoor diversions here, so no worries.

Good night from Auckland, and mazel tov to Tar Heel fans everywhere.

Among the Maori

The native people of New Zealand, the Maori, are still a strong influence here. Most place names outside the bit cities have Maori names, and many of the places with names given by European colonialists, e.g. Milford Sound, also have their Maori names on signage. Today we learned a bit more about culture by visiting an actual Maori village.

It’s called Whakarewarewa. The pronunciation is FAH-kah-ray-wah-ray-wah. You trill the r’s, as in Spanish. The village is not far from the Rotorua CBD, and it’s located on land filled with thermal hot spots and geysers.

We learned the tribal history and how they live today. And as with the other Maori cultural tours you can take, you get to see a performance that includes the Haka, the warrior dance.

This shot is from another dance they did, with men and women passing the tossing sticks. Very intricate.

After the show, we had a lunch of chicken, beef and vegetables cooked in one of the thermal hot spots.

In the afternoon, we took a long walk along the Lake Rotorua lakefront. We dined for the third and final time on Eat Street, which is only a few steps farther from our hotel than the Arogeti house is from the Yellin house on 9th street. Tonight, it was the Craft Brew and Kitchen, where Roslyn took the highly unusual step of ordering and drinking a beer.

Today marks the 30th day of our trip. We have seven full days left. The weather looks iffy at best for most of that time, thanks to a cyclone hundreds of miles north of here. So we may get some rain. But probably nothing like what Atlanta is getting this week. I’ll keep you posted.

Into the woods & into the waters

It’s been a fun, active and exhausting day. We began with a short drive to The Redwoods. In the late 19th and early 20th century, someone had the bright idea of planting California Redwoods here in Rotorua. Maybe they’d yield a good timber crop. They didn’t. But they’ve thrived in this climate,and grown to heights of up to 230 feet.

They’re tiny next to their California cousins, but that’s because they’re so much younger. Give ‘em a few centuries more and see how they’ve grown. Other varieties of trees and other native flora abound there, and there are dozens of hiking and mountain biking trails there.

We did two of the trails, and after three hours of hiking, we were ready for a break. And we had the perfect one all lined up.

There it is; photographic evidence of your obedient servant and intrepid explorer testing out the therapeutic waters of the Polynesian Spa. These geothermal mineral baths have been here for well over a hundred years. Several offer a nice view of Lake Rotorua. They range in temperature from about 96 to about 104.

We spent almost two hours at the baths, taking breaks in between dips. At the end, I felt wonderfully like a piece of overcooked linguine—limp and loose. We came back to the hotel and chilled until the dinner hour. I may or may not have taken a nice nap.

Rotorua

The drive from Napier to Rotorua was one of the least stressful we’ve had on our trip. Fewer mountains meant fewer twists and turns. We arrived in Rotorua in the early afternoon and set about exploring the city.

Rotorua is in the center of the North Island, and it appears to be on every tourist’s itinerary. It’s easy to see why. Rotorua has natural geothermal hot springs and geysers. You can go see them, as you would if you were visiting Yellowstone. You can go to spas and enjoy a soak. This is a center of Maori culture; there are several places were you can go to see a performance of native dances, and learn about how these people used to live and still carry on today. It’s also quite lovely here. New Zealand has beautiful lakeside towns the way I-75 through Georgia has Waffle Houses.

We walked a few blocks over to the tourist information center. That’s where we got some help figuring out which Maori cultural program to see. It was booked up for tomorrow, so we’ll do that Wednesday. We also bought tickets for the Polynesian spa; that’s where we’ll soak in some of the geothermal baths. That’s part of tomorrow’s agenda.

We strolled around the rest of the central tourist area, checking out the restaurants and shops. Our hotel is right next to a covered pedestrian mall that’s lined with restaurants on each side. We made reservations at one for our dinner tonight. As we were leaving, Roslyn overheard a man and two women talking. One of them said something about a shul. So Roslyn asked where they were from. And that’s how we spent a half-hour getting to know Murray and Lorna Rosenberg from Philadelphia and their friend from near Toronto. It took five or ten minutes, but Roslyn and Lorna finally found someone they both knew. Jews finding Jews, on Tutenekai Street in Rotorua.

After saying goodbye, Roslyn and I walked to end of the mall for a spot of what has been our usual lunch: ice cream. The mango sorbet was quite good. We can do this because most days, we get a full breakfast included with our hotel stay. So we eat big in the morning, and then just have a snack in the afternoon to get us to dinner. Thanks to Annette for that pro tip.

And more thanks to Annette for suggesting we have dinner at Atticus Finch. The fried squid, ginger-sesame fried chicken, and fish dishes were all delicious. The portions are small and meant to be shared, and it was just enough food. We assumed the restaurant owner was a big fan of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but our waitress said, no, she just liked the name.

We took an after-dinner walk, and then came back to our hotel. Our room was described in the hotel literature is a “cutie.” If the seasoned travelers among you think that must mean it’s a small room, you are quite right. But it’s big enough. And it has really soft bathrobes. I’m going to climb into one now.

Big birds/Small World

Today, I got what I came to Napier for. We drove about a half-hour south of town to Gannet Safaris Overland. There, we boarded a bus with about a dozen other people—mostly English and Dutch—and headed out toward some cliffs overlooking Hawke’s Bay. There, we found three colonies of gannets, each numbering well into the hundreds.

The gannet babies born there wait for the parents to come back from the sea each day, so they can be fed. Later this year, these babies will leave this cliff and make their first flight utilizing a wing span of up to six feet. They’ll jump off the cliff and fly more than a thousand miles to Australia, where they’ll spend two or three years. Then they’ll come back to these cliffs to raise their own families. We were able to stand within just a few feet of the birds. I took 411 pictures in 40 minutes.

Now about that small world. When we visited our son David last August at the restaurant he manages in Boulder, we met a young woman working there named Bridget. She had an unusual accent.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“New Zealand!” she replied.

“Where in New Zealand?”

“Napier.”

“We’re going there in February!”

And that’s how we came to be having lunch at the home of Bridget’s mom Angie today. She lives not far from the Gannet Safari Overland office. She greeted us warmly, had us in for a chat and a lovely lunch.

After our nice visit with our new friend, we came back to our hotel to relax. The view from our balcony didn’t make that any harder.

If you’re ever planning a trip to New Zealand, I recommend adding Napier to your itineary. Especially if it’s during the Art Deco Festival.

Napier

On Februrary 3, 1931 at 10:47 a.m., a 7.8 magnitude earthquake leveled the city of Napier, New Zealand. It killed 256 people, and remains the deadliest natural disaster in New Zealand history. Napier remembers the quake each year, but not with a somber memorial. Napier throws a party; one of the best I’ve ever attended.

The city rebuilt after the quake, and did so in the most popular architectural style of that time: art deco.

The party is an art deco festival. It runs for five days; five days of music and fashion and vintage cars and much more. People come from all over the world to come to the party. And they REALLY get into it.

We had no idea this festival existed when we booked this trip. We came to Napier to see the gannet colony nearby. It’s as if we booked an autumn trip to Munich to see Deutsches Museum, and were surprised to find out we were there in the middle of this big beer festival. In travel as in poker, it is better to be lucky than be good.

A Day in the Capital

We were up before dawn today to make our 7 o’clock flight to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. The 90 minute flight was on time and uneventful. We arrived to a gray and drizzly morning here. Our plan was to meet Roslyn’s cousin Claris at noon for lunch and an afternoon together. Claris is the 24 year old daughter of Roslyn’s first cousin David. She lives and works here.

We went out for lunch and then she took us to Zealandia. It’s a large nature preserve in the heart of the city. Someone had the idea about 25 years ago to take a large tract of land, and return it to the natural state it had been in before colonization and development. So you get to walk paths through native plants while native birds go about their business. There are almost no other animals. We saw a couple of lizards. No mammals. They’ve been eliminated, because they are native to this island. Cool fact: the only mammal native to New Zealand is the bat. I saw and photographed a several very nice birds, including this guy:

This is a member of the parrot family called a Kaka. That’s what the native people here, the Maori, call it.

After wandering in this lovely park for a few hours, we made our way back to the hotel. I showered to help wake myself up so I could better enjoy our dinner with Claris, her dad/Roslyn’s first cousin David, his wife Anthea and their 10 year old daughter Izzy. David, Anthea and Izzy live in Auckland and are here to celebrate one of their friend’s 50th birthday. We had a lovely evening together, and will have breakfast tomorrow.

Then we’ll be off to Napier.

Queenstown finale

“Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains." — Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh

Words of wisdom from the movie “Bull Durham.” It rained today. Pretty much all day. We went out for breakfast, having finished the cereal and milk we bought Saturday night. Then we came back to our motel apartment and did laundry. We had enough for a two full loads, and the clothes I had worn for four days while my luggage was lost had to be washed or burned before I could pack them. While we waited on the washer and dryer to work their magic, we played cards.

Last week when we were on Kangaroo Island, we had met a woman from the east coast of NZ’s North Island who told us a landslide (which she called a landslip) had closed the area around the gannet colony south of Napier. This got my attention because we had an excursion booked for that gannet colony when we got to Napier. I called there today and was told, yes, indeed, our excursion had been cancelled because of the landslide. Roslyn started working the web while I worked the phone to see if there was a suitable alternative.

I will spare you the boring details, and skip straight to the good news that we found another tour that takes a different route and will get me up close and personal with thousands of gannets this Sunday. This makes me happy, because you know how I love the birds.

Which brings me to the only regret I have about our trip so far. We should have spent a day or two less here in Queenstown and added a night or two in Dunedin, where the yellow-eyed penguins can be seen. Dunedin is on the east coast of the South Island, about a three-and-a-half hour drive from here. I thought we would be able to drive there from here, and spend the night if need be—poor planning on my part. This island is huge—almost as big as Great Britain—and the roads are all two lanes and tortuous.

The rain in Queenstown stopped about 5 o’clock. The sun came out, but it was cool enough for sweaters. Queenstown’s latitude is 45 degrees. It’s as far south of the equator as Minneapolis is north. During the New Zealand winter, this is a Kiwi Aspen or Vail. Pulling out a few extra clothes, we got ready for our Valentine’s Day dinner (today is the 37th anniversary of our engagement!). Roslyn had asked Vanessa where to go for the best lamb in Queenstown. Vanessa had sent us to the Fat Lamb, a farm-to-table restaurant in the center of town. Roslyn had the rack of lamb, and proclaimed it the best she’d ever had. This is a supreme accolade, as lamb is Roslyn’s favorite meat and she eats it as often as possible. I had the green-lipped mussels. They were huge— at least half-again as big as mussels we get in the US—and tasty. And yes, their shells really are green at the edge where they open.

We walked back to our hotel. Roslyn started packing and I went out to gas up the rental car. We have a 7 a.m. flight tomorrow to Wellington, at the southern tip of the North Island. We have 14 days left in our trip, and we’ll spend all but two of them seeing as much of the North Island as we can.