In Saigon, I had to spend a night before my next flight at 10am, and when I checked into my hotel for the night, I ran into Erin, a tall Canadian girl that the group of us had befriended in the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. What luck! She was traveling with Sofie, the English girl that Jurre had hooked up with and subsequently became obsessed with. She's nice enough, but much older than him and she made it clear that she didn't want to see him again for whatever reason. It was the age gap of course. Anyways, we had a few beers, I did a little shopping for DVDs and a NZ guidebook, and I went to bed early.The series of flights that I took weren't so pleasant, but I saved a couple hundred dollars by making them so. First was a 3 hour flight to Guangzho China. It was a freezing cold airport and I had a 9 hour layover there. Despite being a very well made building from the looks of it, they didn't heat the thing in the winter and they had no bank to change my Vietnamese Dong at. Ah, an end to 5 weeks of dong jokes. It was fun while it lasted. I ended up finding a flight to Vietnam and trading currency with someone in line to get on. They gave me dollars, but the Chinese cafes wouldn't take them anyways because they weren't crisp enough. Jerks. I spent the time shivering and starving. After that I had a 10 hour flight to Melbourne followed by a 6 hour layover and then a 3 hour flight to Auckland. I sat next to a nice Kiwi couple who gave me some travel tips for NZ and gave me their number in case I needed it for something. Nice people.
I spent a lot of my flight time reading my Lonely Planet New Zealand and trying to decide how to spend 4 weeks on the road. From what I can tell, most of the 4 million people of NZ live on the North island, and most of those live in the city of Auckland. I'd been told that Auckland is an attractive city, but still just a city, and the real beauty of NZ is in the countryside. To that end, I scheduled us to pick up the van the following day so that Diane and I could leave the city and go enjoy the unique parts of New Zealand.
I also read on the flight to China that to enter New Zealand, I'd have to prove that I'd booked a flight out of the country. That surprised me a bit, and at least I had 9 hour to find a flight in a cafe in the Chinese airport. I ended up buying a flight to Sydney on the same day that Diane's leaving NZ, a month after our start, for $150. I don't know if I'll use the ticket of maybe I'll fly to Fiji for $400 one way. Fiji sounds like a cheap 3rd world cluster of islands that has reasonably affordable flights back home. Alternatively, I could fly to Central America and try to meet up with friends. I'll look into it a bit.So, when I got into Auckland, I took a bus into the center of town to the hostel that Diane had booked, and eventually knocked on her door very late at night... like 1 am. We talked a bit, I took a shower after that awful journey, and it was like no time passed between us. It's always like that isn't it? I guess that works against you sometimes, but this time is was very fine.
The next day I got to start to learn about New Zealand in the first person. First off, Diane told me that our double room cost $60 NZ Dollars. Those are worth about 3/4 of a USD so that's a lot when I'm used to $10 doubles. I guess I'm just spoiled by Asia... but NZ does seem to be more expensive than the US by a little bit. That's a shame, but I guess that I should be able to manage a single month in a 'normally' priced country. We're going to cook all our meals in the van and camp everywhere to manage the cost, but there's no escape from the costs. Food costs twice what it does at home, and the fuel is at least half more. It makes me want to buy a van back home to tour around my country in where I can afford it. I still need to see the deep South.
Auckland is a very attractive city. It reminded me a lot of Seattle because the buildings and lanes look similar, there's a huge harbor filled with pleasure craft, and the tallest building in town looks just like the Space Needle. Apparently you can rappel down it for some money. 
The city holds 1.2 of NZ's 4.4 million people so it's pretty big too. I found the whole place terribly eerie since I haven't been in an English speaking country in so long and this one feels a bit like home, except that they drive on the left and sandals are called jandals. Freaky.
We picked up the van from Spaceship rentals the next morning and after loading up on food and drink at a large market, we started making our way North after a lot of wrong turns. The maps that we have were all free and are a damn mess. They don't cover the 4 major cities at all, and not a lot of the really rural countryside either. It's pretty useless to a degree, but there's some very basic maps in my guidebook that help a bit. Anyways, the road signs are in English and we can ask for directions so what's to worry about? After a few hours of driving it was late in the day and we pulled up on a beach side camp ground that's run by the government Department of Conservation (DOC) for about $8 a person. There were cold showers, clean toilets, and a lot of people camped there for the week to enjoy the empty and excellent beach.
This was our first night cooking dinner in the van, though we did make tuna sandwiches outside of the store for lunch, and I have to say that I really missed cooking. I like to think that I'm getting better and Diane knows a few recipes so we're going to learn a lot this month I think. 
Since this first night, the best thing she's taught me is how to make mustard mashed potatoes and I love them. I really never make mash at home but I guess that I will from now on. Anyhow, we made pasta with sausage and veggies. Not bad.
The next day we set off to go further North still. Auckland where we started is nearly at the top of the North island anyways, but there is a scenic cape that extends a few hundred miles North of there. We aimed for the Bay of Islands which we were told by many travelers and Kiwis is a very lovely place. 
We drove through many forested valleys full of pine and fern trees separated by large grassy farms sporting mostly cows though sheep are supposed to be somewhere around this country. We found a couple really cute coastal towns that reminded me of Belvedere and Tiburon and got out to walks around the touristed piers and ice cream shops. They were all really small and could not have had more than 5000 people in any of them. At one point we had to take a ferry to get across a long bay and camped the night near some bassalt lined waterfalls that poured straight into a bay.
that night at the camp, we got to talk for a while with the guy who ran the private campground, and he told us about how he emigrated to NZ from Holland with his wife. I said that it looked like the most beautiful land that I had ever seen, which is true, and asked some questions about gaining citizenship and work visas. 
They said that it wasn't easy to emigrate and that there's some local tension with the Maori who sometimes play the race card a little quick. I said that it seemed so clean, full of friendly people, had a great landscape, and free health care and that it reminded me of home in a way. Why wouldn't I want to move here? Well, he said that if it was so nice, then why would there only be a population of 4 million? He walked away and I've been thinking about that ever since.
The next day was a long driving one since we decided to head back South again past Auckland to get us close to Rotorua for the next day. On the way down we impulsively stopped at a place claiming to sport a cave full of glow worms. I've never heard of the things so we pulled off and found a small farm with a cave on its property. They give tours for $10 each and we went for it. It turns out that a small stream formed a cave through the limestone hill and has is navigable clear though, which is only a few hundred yards. Apparently glow worms are about 2 inches long and cling to the ceiling dropping lines of web down to catch flies and such.
They use their glowing tail to attract their prey. When they're about 11 months old they cocoon up for a month and then become a fly for a single day to lay their eggs before dying. Sad life. The tour was great and apparently a year earlier Bill Gates and company rocked up in 3 helicopters to take the tour themselves.
The rest of the day was a very tiring long haul on the highway. The main highway through the island switches between 2 lanes each way some of the time, and a single lanes going through the towns where it acts as the main business street and the speed limit drops to a crawl. It's just very slow to travel down is the issue, not to mention the many bits of flying gravel from passing cars that threatens to crack the windshield.
I took out a special insurance policy just for the windows since I'd been warned of this threat by many people. This is one of those heavy handed countries that does yearly inspections of every vehicle and makes you replace the glass if there's any nicks. I think Massachusetts does the same thing.
We knew we had reached Rotorua by the smell. It's a volcanically active area and has many hot springs, geysers, mud pots, and that ever lovely sulfur smell that goes along with all that. It's just like Yellowstone really, but it has a large town built on top of it and isn't quite as large. Actually, a lot of central North Island is very active and volcanic explosions of various mountains seem to happen every decade or so, though a really big one hit 90 years ago and wiped out many communities 
South of Rotorua in the Tongorio area. Anyways, we found a cheap DOC campground near a small clean lake and spent the night. I took a picture of a really cool Flight of the Conchords camper van there and put it on Facebook with the implication that it's mine. I wish... mine is nicer, but looks a bit dull in white and orange. A lot of cheaper vans here sport outrageous paint jobs as part of the their companies marketing plan. I think it's awesome.
The next morning we made our way in to town and to a place called the Whakarewarewa Thermal Village. A lot of the towns in this country have names strikingly similar to that since they kept the Maori names which only use 14 letters in English. In this traditional Maori village, natural steam vents and scalding pools of water are used to cook the food, bathe, and generally stink up the place. 
We were shown how they make steamed pudding, boiled corn, and baked chicken, and sweet potatoes. We didn't eat any of it though... it's not worth $30 to me since they don't even season the food with anything. The tour was pretty interesting I guess, and finished up with a really excellent traditional song and dance routine. One of the love songs sounded distinctly Hawaiian in style but the highlight was the Haka dance. 
It's a war dance that's used to intimidate rivals and involves a lot of stomping, yelling, and sticking out the tongue and widening the eyes. Apparently the NZ national rugby team, the All Blacks, do it before matches and are the best rugby team in the world. I could see how it would help and I should look that up on YouTube.
Later in the day we visited the lakeside in town and then made our way to a nearby park to have lunch. It was a good one... we made extra lamb the night before and then made sandwiches with it that day. I think that we put in bell peppers, cheddar, and cream cheese too. They were pretty rich. There was a farmers market going on nearby and we got some more produce, but it was all a little spoiled actually. 
After that we went to the lake, saw the local black swans that live it it, and went to the historical museum that's inside an awesome old Tudor style spa lodge from the 20s. Out front a horde of old people were playing 'bowles' on wide flat lawns. It seems to be just like bocceball except you roll the balls from quite a distance. Diane was familiar with it. That night we camped in the same spot again.
Next day we drove down to Taupo lake, the largest in NZ, and explored the town. It's popular as a summer retreat and for its fishing, hiking, and water sports. It's really just like Tahoe actually except that the town is a bit smaller. There are tons of private and rented cabins about and in the winter it's a short drive from many NZ ski resorts though the elevation couldn't have been over 800 meters. I've seen picture of the area in the winter, and I think the snow on the mountains isn't too thick. Besides these conventional activities, the area is also known for it's extreme sports. 
Actually, this whole country is. Bungee jumping was invented in NZ, Queenstown actually, and the country is ride with skydiving, zorbing (rolling down a hill in a clear rubber ball), jet boating (also invented in NZ), and various bungee like activities. I don't think it's just for tourists either... they just love that stuff here and every city I've seen seems to have a bungee center or two. This is a picture of a local jet boat. It's so maneuverable and shallow that it can turn 360s while moving forward at high speed making everyone as sick as possible.
After walking around town for a while we went out to a nearby park and started a hike to the nearby Huka waterfalls. It's apparently the most visited natural attraction in NZ and I guess that's got to be because it's free and it's right on the main highway. Most people don't do a 2 hour walk in, but we wanted to stretch our legs for a bit and packed some sandwiches and snacks in preparation. The falls were just a narrow chute of rapids about 300 yards long and were rough enough to intimidate a little, but I bet you could do that in a kayak. I didn't see anyone trying it though.
The walk was nice though. The forests here are filled with loud cicadas buzzing away and there were some blackberry bushed to pillage. Blackberries aren't native to here or Australia where I read they're a huge problem and have covered thousands of square kilometers of the countryside.
In the afternoon we continued the drive into Tongorio National Park and found a campsite for the night. Every camper always has a bottle of wine with them while sitting out for the evening and we're no exception. Of course, the cheapest bottle out here starts at $9, and I can't afford that this year, so we do what all the backpackers do and buy the local 'goon', also known as boxed wine which we've all convinced ourselves is better out here than back home. Could be, plus the plastic sack of wine fits much nicer into our tiny fridge.
Tongorio is a group of three volcanoes and the land is considered sacred to the Maori people. The chief that owned the land gave it to the NZ government in 1895 in exchange for making it NZ's first national park, and the 4th in the world. I wonder if it's older than Yosemite? Tongorio's last eruption was in 1985 and there are a lot of postcards bearing images of it. 
Though the park is mostly covered in scrub brush and clumps of grass, that's all on top of lava flows and ash deposits that give the countryside a melting look. One of the three volcanoes, Mt Hgauruhoe, is a perfectly shaped huge ash cone and was used by Peter Jackson as Mt Doom in his Lord of the Rings. There's no snow on it but there was on the other two more misshapen peaks.
The next morning we got back to the mountain as early as we could and visited the small resort village, Whakapapa, that's built part of the way up the mountain slope. There's not many cabins there I would imagine because the road access is occasionally cut off in the winter, but it's just a few miles down the road from a ski resort so I don't know why there's not more to this tiny town. I guess it's all protected land. 
Soon enough we parked the van, packed our lunch (tuna salad sandwiches as usual) and set off to go to Lower Tama Lake. The hike out was mostly treeless though we did go through a lovely half mile of forest in the beginning. The trees here are truly weird in my mind. The dominant tree in the area looks like a sturdy low pine, but if you look closely it's actually got tiny little round leafs. Apparently it's under threat of imported Australian opossum that like to eat its bark.
We made to the Lower Tama Lake in less time than we expected, 2.5 hours, so we pressed on an extra hour to reach the Upper Tama Lake which overlooked more of the barren and rough countryside dominated by the snowy Tongorio and conical Hgauruhoe mountains. There's a longer hike in the area that's very popular, called the Alpine Crossing where you stay one or two nights in mountain huts along the way and cross over the mountain range at higher elevation than we reached. 
Unfortunately, we really didn't have the equipment to do it so we decided to let it go. Besides that, it was Diane's first real hike in a long time and she didn't know if she was up for it. Turns out she's in great shape after all as this hike proved. We had lunch in the warm sun that perfectly matched the cool winds and set off to return to Whakapapa. It took us longer to get back and I was pretty tired at the end.
Back at camp, a guy who was renting the same brand of van as us approached and asked if we had any DVDs to trade him. The van's got a DVD player and at any of the drop off points, we could go in to borrow and trade DVDs for free though the selection is beyond horrible. Most of the films were from the 70s. I gave him the box set of Mad Men that I picked up in Vietnam since we had watched a few episodes and weren't really taken with it. It's not bad of course, but we've also got the box sets of Entourage and Tudors to see and that's plenty of content since we seem to watch about 1 episode every other day on average. Anyways, we spent the evening talking with Him (Andre) and his girlfriend Holly. They're English and had come to NZ on a one year working visa. They're almost at the end and generally didn't like their jobs but had a nice time in the country. They gave us some tips on where to go and we shared a lot of wine. Good times.
With the mountains out of the way, we drove all the way to Wellington, the capitol of NZ, the next day. Oh, we had our first restaurant meal on the way, a big greasy pile of fish and chips. NZ is known for offering this stuff everywhere and the fish was really good. My only gripe was wish the milkshakes which clearly were just a powder mixed with milk just then that made a thick foamy sugar sludge. 
They were gross. Anyways, Diane took over driving and I fell asleep and when I woke up we were driving down the side of a populous waterway that I swore was the approach to Belvedere. Once we got to Wellington and I took in the pile of buildings against the sea, built on rather steep hillsides, and scattered with small wooden homes on the edges, the effect was strikingly like San Francisco in my mind.
After getting a little lost driving around the downtown, we parked on a metered street and were shocked to see the price was $3 USD an hour. I ran into a bagel shop and asked where the cheap parking was and I found out that's about as cheap as it gets since the garages cost even more. Anyways, I paid for 2 hours and we walked to a tram building that we read about in the guidebook. It took us up one of the hills that the city is penned in by and into a lush botanical garded on top. From there we had a fine view of the city. Wellington isn't that big... just 200k people, and it's in an area famous for its foul weather. The site was chosen for the capitol 150 years ago because of it's reletively central location between the two islands. It's on the very southern tip of the North Island and has a ferry service that runs between the two. Back in the 60s, a strong wind sunk one of the ferries and I'm hoping for more luck when we eventually cross.
The garden was nice, and a path was marked to lead us through it and back into the government district near to downtown. We followed there and I marveled at how similar the small homes we walked past looked like ones found in the Bay Area. Wellington is built on a faultline and like SF, they shun brick homes for wooden ones. Of course not all of it is so attractive. 
There's the marginally iconic parliment building called the 'Beehive'. Next to it is a slightly more traditional looking stone government building, but with a knock of the fist you find that it's just a thin vaneer of stone over a wooden buidling. Better safe than sorry I guess. We got back to the car just before the meter expired and found a $40 ticket for parking with a tire on the line since the one next to us was crowding our spot. Bummer.
We found a campervan carpark on the waterfront, in a pretty central location, that offered a night for $50. We also found one next door that had no bathrooms or showers but went for just $7 under the assumption that nobody would sleep there. Well, we used the shower at a hostel down the street and the bathroom at a gas station. What a deal! Heh, the only problem was the powerful rainstorm that struck while we were cooking dinner on the back step of the van. Wellington is pretty notorious for its weather, and we got laughed at by a few passers by. The wind and rain woke us up many times in the night, and we had to get up at 7am to buy a new parking ticket, but we saved a bundle so I'm going to say it's ok.
In the morning we wandered along the waterfront, and made an effort to find the city council offices to pay off the ticket at. Eventually we reached the Te Papa museum which is a in a monsterous and stylish building and houses exhibits on most everything including sea life, earth sciences, maori art and seafaring, kiwi history through the ages, and a visiting european painting tour.
I particularly liked the maori meeting houses reconstructed inside the museum and the stuffed kiwi birds in the biology section. They even had an original cannon from James Cook's ship, the Endeavor, which was the first to really explore and document New Zealand and Australia, though not technically the first to discover either of them. His voyage was certainly the most important though and the cannon was found in the sea where Cook threw it overboard to try and free himself from some shallow coral. It was a pretty great museum overall. 
Afterwards we wandered about town and did some laundry back at the hostel. In the evening we walked up and down Cuba street, home of the most interesting bars and restaurants, and tried unsuccessfuly to see some live comedy. Anything live is out of season this month apparently. We ended up just having a few pints of beer at a nice bar and watching some of the Australian Open.
Finally we were done with Wellington and after another night in a parking lot, we drove onto the Bluebridge ferry and set off for the South Island. It was a rather dull 3 hour trip, and at the end we drove on a short ways to a caravan holiday park in the nearby town to try and wait out the foul weather that snuck up on us during the boat ride. This concludes our tour of the North Island, and 25% of our time in NZ. I'll let you know how the rest goes as soon as I've lived it.
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