Rotorua, Taupo, Hawkes Bay & Wellington

Rotorua

Rotorua really is a fascinating place. It lies in the Taupo volcanic zone and is nicknamed Sulphur City; it's famous for its geothermal activity and is one of the major tourist attractions in New Zealand. It also has 17 lakes which must be some sort of record. And let's not mess about, there's a simple fact about Rotorua that needs to be stated - it stinks. Really, really stinks. A rotten, eggy, farty smell fills the air and at times makes you gag; okay, so it's just sulphur and other gases and it's natural, but sorry you wouldn't catch me living there or even hanging around for a while.

Fortunately I only had a day there although don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time there.

I'd read a few things about Rotorua but I had no idea that the whole town would actually be so weird. I went past and subsequently checked out a place called Kuirau Park, near the town centre, which was full of boiling, bubbling, steaming, stinking natural pools; people's gardens have steam rising from them, and presumably their houses smell as a result; all very odd. My campsite offered free thermal baths which I duly tried out, and as enjoyable as they were I didn't enjoy getting out of them into the cold.

In the morning I left Rotorua and headed for Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland, on the way to Taupo (my next stop). The entry fee was worth every cent, $25 (about £10), the place is amazing and certainly not something you could ever see back home. The whole volcanic region is certainly still active and it's something to behold - bubbling mud pools in deep craters, spectacularly coloured lakes, green waterfalls and a strange warming heat around the whole place. The highlight was the Lady Knox Geyser which erupts for about an hour every day at about 10:15am. I missed the beginning but apparently its punctuality is forced a little by some organic soap, which slightly took the edge off it for me when I found out. Mighty impressive all the same.

Next stop is the home of the volcanic area, Taupo.

Taupo & Tongariro

Taupo is a small town off the shore of the massive Lake Taupo. The lake itself has a perimeter of almost 200km and is in fact a crater created by a massive eruption almost 30,000 years ago. The most recent eruption was about 2,000 years ago and was one of the most violent eruptions in the world in the last 5,000 years ago, covering the sky of virtually the whole planet with volcanic ash.

Taupo also boasts a dynamic outdoor scene and in fact rivals Queenstown on the south island as New Zealand's activity centre. Handgliding, parasailing, bungy jumping, skydiving and tearing around the lake and waterfalls in a high powered jetboat are all popular activities here and I had my heart set on doing a skydive here as it's one of the best and cheapest places in New Zealand.

Unfortunately this wasn't to be - once again I was scuppered by the weather. I rang all three skydive operators and all of them told me to wait until the storm had passed as there was no way they could take anyone up in this weather. Marvellous. So, I drove around for a bit, had a look at the Huka Falls and Lake Taupo, then settled down for the night and had a think about what to do next.

I decided to go to Hawkes Bay on the east coast and then come back to Taupo and see if the weather had improved. Fast forward a few days and... it hadn't improved so I gave up and checked out Tongariro National Park, thoroughly depressed.

Fans of the Lord Of The Rings films will know they were shot in New Zealand, and those avid buffs (or those who've visited New Zealand) will know that Mount Tongariro is in fact Mount Doom in the films. Well, I may as well have just stayed in my van all day and watched the films as I couldn't see a thing through all the clouds and rain in the air! Fantastic!!! Fortunately the park has two other mountains - Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu, the latter being the bigger of the three - but just as unfortunately I couldn't see those either. Oh yeah. How utterly, utterly, headbangingly frustrating. More storm-related updates to come, in the next one I'll let you know how I got on in my quick escapade in the Hawkes Bay area, and how much rain there was there.

Hawkes Bay

Rain, rain, go away. Seriously, I mean it. The constant hammering of rain on my van is driving me insane. I can't step outside without getting totally soaked through. My clothes are muddy and so is my van. I can't do anything. I can't see anything. I can't take pictures. Nothing. Talk about a disaster of a trip.

Anyway, Hawkes Bay is a big wine area and although I don't particularly like it I tried out a couple of wineries - well at least they offer something to do indoors. All very pleasant stuff, I was the only visitor at both tours and at the first one the guy left me with 10 bottles of wine for tasting while he took a 30 minute phone call! Ha!! I bought a bottle of white from both although they didn't last long at all thanks to my new found depression. I've actually never had a problem with drinking on my own.

I stayed in Napier that night and then took a look around Hastings the next day. I stayed in a place called Clive overnight and in the morning I heard a big commotion from a few vans down and on closer inspection... it was the girls! And they were stuck again, only this time they'd left the handbrake on whilst trying to reverse out. I had a quick chat with them although they didn't seem too keen, and to be fair neither was I, so I left them to it and headed off to Tongariro after two more thoroughly uneventful days.

Wellington

Windy Wellington, so named because of the winds generated by the Cook Straight that separates the two main islands, is located right at the bottom of the north island and is the capital of New Zealand, boasting a population of just 400,000 people.

I didn't come to New Zealand to check out all of its small cities and towns - in fact I'm pretty fed up with them already - but I have to say I liked the look of Wellington, much more than Auckland. I can't quite put my finger on why but it's a compact, picturesque little city with just enough life about it to keep you interested. It also seems busier than Auckland, although that's not hard as Auckland seemed like a ghost town at times; presumably its smaller size explains that.

I spent the previous night in a place called Palmerston North to break up the journey - that's as much as I'll say about that place - and so I only had a day in Wellington before catching the ferry to the south island at stupid o'clock. I spent my time there driving around the one way system looking for the info centre, going up on Mount Victoria for some nice views of the city and also checking out the Botanical Gardens (I got severely lost on the way there trying to take a sneaky shortcut). Thanks to my inability to navigate the one way system (why aren't they ever marked on maps?) I got to see most of the city in a relatively short period of time. Anyway, that was Wellington and after a 20 minute drive to get to the only campsite in the area I settled in and prepared for my ferry journey in the morning.

As this is the capital city I'll throw in some history. The word 'Maori' basically means 'ordinary person' or 'native', and 'Pakeha' basically means 'white skinned gentleman'. During the 1800s tribes were split between Maoris and Pakehas, with many tribes needing to take Pakehas for their skills with farming, hunting and building (and also their muskets) - in fact a chief of a tribe containing Pakehas was deemed to have more 'mana' (power, respect etc) than a chief without any. And that's how Europeans first started settling in New Zealand - by integrating with the Maori tribes. Compare that with Australia where they just started slaughtering the Aborigines and took over the country, although it probably says more for the advancement of the Maoris as a people than any sort of moral improvements by the Europeans. More boring history later, I promise.