Farewell New Zealand

As I have reflected on my trip through New Zealand, it has been hard to believe that 2 1/2 months have passed already. It feels like just yesterday I arrived in sunny Auckland, ready to see where my guide book would take me.

 

 

With so many amazing things packed into this little island nation I feel very fortunate to have seen so many amazing places, and met so many interesting people.

Today, again in Auckland I sit watching the heavy rain and winds beat against the window, and I am excited for the next adventures life will bring.

Lost Springs, Whitianga

My last day on the Coromandel Peninsula the weather started out awful! Horrible wind, strong rain showers, and cool temperatures. I used the bad weather as an opportunity to get off the beach and into town, and did a little window shopping and lunch at a café.

Salmon bagel at Nina's Café

By the afternoon, the weather was a little better so I decided to check out Whitianga's Lost Springs hot pools and spa. Hot pools here don't really compete with Japanese onsen (in my opinion) but they are still a great way to relax. The Lost Spring was a little pricy ($35 for 1 hour) but I was glad I went. There were few people, and the pools were much deeper and larger than I expected. They had also done a great job making the outdoor pools feel exotic and relaxing. their largest pool was actually big enough to swim in!


It would have been nice to have a chance to take one more walk on the beach, but all in all I had a fantastic time on the peninsula. Off to Auckland next for my last few days in New Zealand. I cant believe how fast the time has flown!

 

New Chums Beach & Coromandel Town

My original plan was to stay 2 nights in Whitianga and 2 nights in Coromandel Town, but after seeing how much more was going on in Whitianga I decided to just stay there. I did however want to take a drive up to the north of the peninsula and see what it was like.

Per the advice of a couple different locals, I stopped over at New Chums Beach on my way up the peninsula, and boy was I glad I did! It is apparently one of the nicest beaches (in the world so I am told… I don’t know if that’s true or not). It was a bit of an adventure getting there, since the road map wasn’t very clear, and the path out to the beach is pretty much unmarked. A couple of women also going to the beach & I started walking together and had a bit of trouble finding the trail… When we finally arrived we were the first ones on the beach! The sun, the sand, all of it for us! J 

New Chums Beach

After a few people came and went, I was the only one on the beach for a little while, which was an amazing and welcome contrast to the hordes of people all crammed together at hot water beach. I worked on my tan, read a book, and played making shapes in the sand with all the shells. When I finally decided to more on, tons of people started showing up. I guess I had perfect timing! :P

So many kinds of shells on New Chums!

Amazing white sand on the beach neighboring New Chums

After another short, twisty drive up the peninsula I arrived at Coromandel Town. It was much quainter than Whitianga, and more what I had been expecting. (Whitianga has a huge supermarket, a couple box stores and a clearly defined “town center” as opposed to Coromandel, which has a small post office, and about 2 blocks of shops making up its “town center.”) There were a few cafés so I chose a busy one, assuming that busy means it’s good… unfortunately that wasn’t the case… or maybe my taste in coffee has just been spoiled by all the good cafes in Wellington.

Coromandel (from scenic view up the hill from town)

In the evening I again enjoyed a nice walk along the beach before the wind and rain came, and watched the Kiwi movie “Boy” with some people in the hostel.

One more day in Whitianga…

Hot Water Beach & Cathedral Cove

 

Hot water beach was a strange, fascinating, slightly overwhelming experience. On a small section of the beach, are hot springs welling up from under the sand. Apparently it is caused by rain and other freshwater seeping into the ground, being heated by magma (created in a volcanic eruption) and then rising to the surface. If you dig into the sand at one of these springs you can create a pool of hot water great for soaking. I imagined that the springs would be up the beach, away from the waves at high tide, but that wasn’t really the case. The best springs were closest to the waves, which meant that as soon as you started digging, the ocean undid all your work.

Found one! (Your dig your toes into the sand and if its hot there is a spring below!)

 Feeling it was useless to battle the waves alone, I buried my feet in the sand above a hot spot and just enjoyed it, until a couple from South Africa suggested working together. As we started to dig, a local family with a pool already made nearby took pity on us and helped us dig. Unfortunately the hot spring we had found wasn’t very good… so we ended up making our two pools into one big one. It was a bit overwhelming when I first got there, but all of us working together made it fun. The hot water was relaxing, but some areas of the sand were SO hot you could barely sit on them! I thought I was going to burn my bum in a couple places!

Digging our hot pool!

Our mediocre hot pool, just before we broke down that wall and made 1 big one.

After cleaning all the sand off and eating lunch I headed to the nearby Cathedral Cove. It is about a 40 min walk from the car park which was unfortunately very very full, so I had to park further into town, but it was still only a 1.5hr walk. The rocks and cave at the beach were cool, but there were so many people it didn’t really feel like the kind of place I wanted to plop down in the sand and relax. When I was getting ready to head back I bumped into one of the women working at the hostel I am at with her family. The locals here have been really friendly (so far! Haha) and seem to really value their family time.

 

In the evening I enjoyed a quick phone chat with Mario (<3) and then took a short walk on the beach by the hostel. There are SO many shells on that beach it is amazing! I don’t know why but in certain areas of the beach the shells collect in HUGE piles. And each pile seems to have a slightly different mix of shells, in a rainbow of colors, shapes, and sizes.  It's was quite fascinating.

All the white-ish bits are piles of shells!

So many shapes and colors!

Tomorrow I will explore a bit north of Whitianga... Hope the weather stays nice!

Waitomo Caves

Second to last on my check list, Waitomo Caves. As I have traveled I have debated what to do once I got here, other than glow worms obviously. Finally I settled on a low key cave tour combo. (Trina gave me a coupon hahaha)

First I did a boat/walking tour of a glow worm cave. The glow worms are apparently unique to New Zealand, and glow from their bum to attract insects. The insects mistake the glow for light at the end of the tunnel, and get caught in sticky strings that the worm creates, like vertical spider webs. In the dark cave you can only see the glow, like a million little stars in the night sky. When the guides shine a flash light on the worms you can see the little strings hanging down. It’s easy to see why the insects would get confused. Unfortunately they don’t allow photos inside this particular cave, but it was a really great experience.    

tour boat going back into the cave after letting us off

In the afternoon I went on my second cave tour, to the Aranui Cave. This cave didn’t have any glow worms but had amazing limestone stalagmites and stalactites. There were all kinds of colors and shapes, some amazing because of how large they were and others because of their delicate appearance. It was also nice because the tour group was smaller than the glow worm cave, and we were allowed to take pictures.

Aranui Cave

 

 

The caves didn’t take the entire day to do, so I spent the afternoon watching movies at the hostel, and planning route for my next adventure…

Off to the Cormandal Peninsula!  

Rotorua

I wasn't planning to visit Rotorua since I went with Trina two years ago, but it was the easiest way to access Hobbiton by bus from National Park. I am really glad that I ended up coming back.

 

As seems to be the usual story, I made a friend at the hostel. One of the girls in my room, Yukari, was also booked for the Hobbiton tour Tuesday morning, and we ended up getting along really well. Neither one of us are huge Lord of the Rings fans, but we enjoyed the cute buildings, and the free drink in the pub at the end wasn't bad. haha.


One of Rotorua's distinct characteristics is the smell. It has an amazing amount of geothermal springs and sulfur gasses escaping from all over town, causing it to smell of sulfur. A lot of people don't like it, but it reminds me of Kusatsu so I didn't mind. Rotorua has a really cool park where you can wander around and see a number of the spring. They also have a footbath like the "ashiyu" in Kusatsu and other onsen towns in Japan. 

Hot bubbling mud pool at the park

Free foot spa at the park

After a good soak in the spa

Also like Kusatsu they have a number of hot spring spas. After doing a little research I found that oddly most of the spas don't actually use the natural hot water. They use the heat to warm tap water... I guess that avoids the smell, but it also defeats the point in my opinion. The Polynesian Spa in town uses the natural sulfuric spring water, so in the evening Yukari and I went down to check it out. It was weird to wear swimsuits, since I am so used to Japanese onsen, but the water still felt amazing. It also made me very sleepy! I was glad to get to bed!


Wednesday Yukari and I took a wander around town and found a café, called Abracadabra. The coffee and brunch was really good and the Mexican-ish theme was pretty funny. (I still don't totally understand why a café called Abracadabra is decorated with sombreros and day of the dead skulls... but whatever)

Our last team adventure in Rotarua was the Redwood Forest. I didn't really have any expectations other than a nice walk but the forest was AMAZING! The redwoods were fantastic, and the forest was very relaxing to wander through. If it hadn't been for the ferns I would have thought I was back in California!

After returning to town Yukari and I said goodbye, and headed on our next adventures. For me, Waitomo!

Tongariro Crossing

I will be honest I was a little nervous about this hike... It is longer than I have hiked before and I had heard all kinds of terrible things about the Devil's Staircase and the steep slippery walk down... Plus the night before the shuttle organizer was telling us what to do in the case of an eruption, and if you step even a little off the trail you can fall to your death... All kinds of encouraging things....

Sunrise in the valley

I bussed over from the hostel and started walking around 8am There were SOOOO many people! It was crazy! At the start there was barely a moments peace because you were either trying to overtake slow people or being overtaken by the few runners. Eventually things sort of broke up into smaller groups by pace, and I finally felt like I could stop and take pictures. I wish there had been less people but it was nice to meet people and chat along the way. (A number of them had done it before and said they had never seen it so busy!)

Rather than run you step by step through the entire 19.4km I will just upload a few more photos.



Signal at the start letting you know if it's "safe"

 

Up we go!

In front of "Mt. Doom" (a little less than 1/2 way maybe)



Only section I didn't really enjoy... VERY slippery!



The last 3km or so is through a forest. Nice change of scenery but you keep thinking "are we there yet?"



Hut damaged in a volcanic eruption! Yikes!