3rd September 2009: Coming home

Our time in New Zealand is sadly over. I am writing this from Bangkok airport, halfway back to the UK. We've had a fantastic year, with lots of excellent memories that will doubtless stay with us for the rest of our lives.

In the last few months, one of the questions kiwis tended to ask me a lot was "so, have you decided to stay yet?" I came out here with the knowledge that many who move here never leave. We always intended to return to the UK, but we were open-minded and I think I now understand why so many stay. With our background being the UK, I think there are three major draws:

Firstly, the weather. There's plenty of sun in Auckland, yet it never gets too hot. The temperature is consistently pleasant across a lot of the year. It certainly rains quite a lot but only in short sharp bursts, after which the sun will be out. You never get those days of grey drizzle that London is infamous for.

Secondly, the space. Auckland is a busy city, but once you leave that the rest of the country is remarkably unpopulated. New Zealand has an embarrasment of deserted beaches, remote walks and open vistas. I've lost count of the number of times we've been on day-long walks without seeing another soul.

Thirdly, the people. I've been to no other country where the people are so consistently friendly and helpful. The kiwis are rightly proud of their country, and their pride shows through in the way they love to help visitors and each other alike.

Ultimately though, we're coming home, even though we had the option of staying longer. It comes down to a combination of wanting to be near friends & family, and where the jobs are. One of New Zealand's biggest selling points, its isolation, is also what is driving us home.

We'll miss you, New Zealand. It's been fun!

30th August 2009: Kitesurfing Lesson Four

It's my last weekend in NZ and I was supposed to be packing up the flat. The weather this morning was good though, so I couldn't resist one last kitesurfing lesson before I head back to the start of a UK winter.

The wind was a bit light early on, and I was stuggling to get moving. When you're learning you tend to drift downwind as you're trying to get going, and then you have to trudge back up though waist deep water with a massive kite pulling you the other way. That isn't much fun.

The wind filled in a bit later, and you know what? I can now kite surf! I was able to blast back and forth quite a few times and even stay upwind. The feeling, when you get it right, is truly awesome. You lean back against the power of the kite and just fly. It's amazingly fast, and almost effortless. The only comparison I can make is that it's a bit like sailing a fast dinghy with a big spinnaker up - I guess that's why spinnakers are often called "kites".

I definitely need to get more into this sport when I get back to the UK...

If anyone's reading this and looking for kitesurfing instruction in the Auckland area, I would definitely recommend Reuben at Wings & Waves.

22nd-23rd August 2009: Snowboarding on Mount Ruapehu

I'm fast running out of weekends before I go home, but Ken was insistent on a trip down to Mount Ruapehu for some snowboarding. Obviously I had to keep him company, so I agreed to go too.

Sophie and I had visited the Turoa ski area in October last year, so this time we headed to Whakapapa, on the other side of the volcano. I'm not sure how fair the comparison is, but Ken's and my impressions were that it's nowhere near as good as the stuff around Queenstown. It's certainly a lot bigger, with 10+ lifts instead of 2-3, but the snow quality wasn't as good and it was packed with too many people. We spent a lot of time queueing for aged and slow lifts, and then avoiding others on the slopes.

Mount Ruapehu

Still, we had a really good time. It wasn't busy the whole time and when the clouds cleared the views of the surroundings and Ngauruhoe in particular were fantastic. Skiing on an active volcano also adds a certain something to the day!

Ngauruhoe, from the road to Whakapapa

On Saturday night we headed to a busy bar to watch the Tri Nations All Blacks-Wallabies game. It turned out to be a bit of a thriller which the Kiwis won 19-18 with a last-minute penalty. I've definitely become a bit of an All Blacks fan since coming here: the locals take it so seriously it's hard not to get dragged in. Was it inevitable?

15th -16th August 2009: Waitawheta Hut

Saturday in Auckland dawned grey and rainy, and there was a severe weather warning for heavy rain in the Kaimai Ranges. This wasn't quite what we had hoped for, since I had planned a two-day walk there to the Waitawheta Hut with Ken and Mark. Despite it plainly being a day best spent in a warm pub, we set off anyway. We did make one concession: instead of taking the flattish route with 6 substantial river crossings, we opted for the high route in over the top from Te Aroha.

We started the walk at about noon with a 2-hour ascent up the Te Aroha mountain which, at 952m, would count as a Munro were it Scotland. With the car at 15m this was a sizeable start to the day, and it was impressively steep and muddy.

From the top, we then had 4 hours of tramping on some outrageously muddy tracks, undulating over valleys and crossing swollen streams. It was so wet, even the possums were giving up - we found one dying on the track (presumably poisoned). We had not really done our sums on the timings or we would have realised a bit sooner that we were going to get to the hut after dark. Once we did cotton on we sped up quite a bit, and by the time we'd had three stream crossings come up to our knees we were definitely getting the hang of them: there was no time for niceties like taking your boots off, we just had to wade through. We were just discussing (by torchlight) the remaining half-hour of walking we thought we had left when the hut appeared around a corner. I have rarely been quite so relieved to see a shelter.

Ken, about to cross one of the smaller streams

We shared the large and comfortable Waitawheta Hut with a group of 13 from an Auckland tramping club. Given the weather we hadn't expected to see anyone else there, and neither had they. It wasn't as sociable as some of my previous hut visits: there was some banter but as is often the way, everyone was in their sleeping bags by 9pm. Outside, it rained, all night.

The following morning we had to retrace our steps. The rain had eased, but the mud had just gathered strength. It took us about 5 hours of battling though the stuff to get back to the Te Aroha mountain. Every step was in water or mud. We couldn't face the ascent to the top again, so we circumnavigated for a further 2 hours before finally reaching the car, totally exhausted.

Ken and Mark, on our way back on day-2

It was one of the tougher walks I've done, and certainly the muddiest. All three of us had our moments of feeling dreadful, but when you're in the middle of nowhere you've got no choice but to keep on going. It's all part of the adventure - nobody is going to come and carry you out! I also took a nice knock to the head when I walked straight into a big over-hanging branch - it's left a decent mark.

More photos here.

9th August 2009: Kitesurfing Lesson Three

I had another kitesurfing lesson on Sunday. This time I managed to stay upright for decent periods and almost stay upwind, quite a big improvement on last time.

I'm definitely getting the hang of it. The speed you can travel at is quite amazing. I'd guess it's 15-20 knots (fast over water), but when you get it right it's almost effortless - the harness takes all the load and you just blast along.

The most important thing I learnt this time is that you really have to watch the kite the whole time, not your feet. Otherwise, the kite crashes and shortly afterwards you crash too, usually resulting in sea water imbibage.

Kitesurfing has quite a reputation for being a dangerous sport, but having done it a few times I reckon it's actually probably safer than, say, snowboarding. As I understand it, the design of the kites made some big steps forwards a few years ago - the newer bow kites can be completely de-powered by simply letting go. It's clearly possible to get yourself in trouble, but following the safety instructions you get from lessons probably makes it pretty safe.

30th July - 5th August 2009: Queenstown

My employer, CHP Consulting, organises annual conferences where we get together to catch up, find out what the company's plans are and have some fun. Last year, the regional conference was in Port Douglas, Australia. This year everyone came to Queenstown, on the South Island of New Zealand.

Queenstown is the capital of adventure tourism in NZ and has the widest selection of crazy activities that I have ever seen in one place. At this time of year, it concentrates on winter sports, with four significant ski areas within reach (Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, Cardrona and Treble Cone). After the morning conference, we headed up to the Remarkables, where we all spent an hour snow tubing. This was entertaining, although to many of us it seemed like a bit of waste of valuable ski-resort time.

After the conference I stuck around in Queenstown with Ken, Tom and Amy for 5 days' snowboarding. I've been lucky enough to go to many of France's best ski resorts, as well as some American ones, so it's interesting to compare how New Zealand does things.

The biggest difference is scale. Most of these areas have two lifts, three at most. In comparison, Val d'Isère claims 94 on its website. Despite this, we didn't get bored. Many of the slopes were wide and over open terrain with no trees, so you could pick your own route down. It's also nice to get to know slopes well - where the jumps are, etc.

Getting to the resorts is different too - you have to drive through the valleys, before turning sharply uphill and ascending quickly to the snow-line. No ski-in-ski-out luxury here. The roads up are also mostly unsealed, which become entertainingly trecherous when you reach the snow. I am now an expert at the messy business of fitting and removing snow chains!

Of our 5 days, 3 had excellent conditions, with nightly fresh powder and sunshine. I don't know whether this is how it always works down there, but I was certainly impressed. The only dissapointment was our day at Treble Cone - many people had raved about it, but heavy wet snow and strong winds meant half the resort was closed and the rest wasn't much fun. It did seem to have potential though: huge open slopes, steep sections and loads of natural gullies. One for next time!

25th July 2009: Waitakere Ranges Walking

Things have quietened down a bit since Sophie left - we had been trying to squeeze as much as we could into her last weekends here, and I haven't had much planned since. I did manage another sail at Panmure Lagoon Sailing Club last weekend, but it wasn't much to write about.

With Ken now back on the CHP NZ team, things were bound to get busy again. This Saturday I was supposed to be having another kite-surfing lesson, but the day dawned calm so that was abandoned. Instead, Ken and I headed to Cascade Kauri in the Waitakere Ranges for bit of a walk.

Sophie and I have been here before - there are some excellent stands of mature Kauri in the area and I wanted to see some more of them. From the car park, we took the Lower Kauri Track ("for experienced trampers only"!) which had some entertainingly muddy and steep sections. We then went north to take the Whatitiri track back to the car park, which crosses some grassy fields offering, unusually for the Waitaks, a open view.

Somewhere around then we lost the track. This doesn't happen often in NZ - they're normally very clearly marked. I suspect it was when Ken went to 'play' with a flock of pukekos. We'd been wandering around for a while, and were just discussing how to make a tent out of fern leaves, and wondering what pukoko would be like for dinner, when we found the track again and our fun was spoilt.

We saw quite a few birds in that area: pukekos, fantails, red-crested parakeets, a wood pigeon, an NZ robin and plenty of tui. Not a bad haul. It's interesting how this year in NZ has turned me into a little bit of a twitcher. Only a bit though!

11th-14th July 2009: Sydney

On my way home from NZ, I stopped off in Sydney for three days. I had a new relative to meet, a few friends to see, and wanted to fit in a little sightseeing.

It turned out to be a sociable stay. Kate, a colleague of Tim's, very kindly picked me up from the airport to drive me to my hotel and waited while I got settled in. Perhaps too kindly; Sinclairs at Bondi has a quirky feel and a very friendly and helpful host. By the time he had finished showing me round and giving me maps and useful information, I fear Kate's brother may have demolished the lasagne she had left in the oven.

Bondi Beach

In the course of the next couple of days I was plied with gin and tonic, cooked dinners, and generally welcomed by Kate, her brother Jon (who cooked me a delicious roast even though I'd never met him before), and ex-colleagues Rich and Nick. I also had the pleasure of meeting my three-month-old second cousin Lorelei, who frankly cannot be real. When I arrived she was asleep; she soon woke up and spent some time grinning at me; she then had a meal and went down for another nap. Is this really what babies are like?

In between times I fitted in a few touristy things, starting with a visit to the Art Gallery of New South Wales to see the Aboriginal art. I just love those bold colours and spotty crocodiles, although I am woefully uninformed about the meaning underlying the pictures.

I also walked the Manly Scenic Walkway, which wasn't honestly all that manly, being a well-graded 10km walk that any girl could manage. It was certainly scenic though, taking in surf, beaches and the native bush of the Sydney Harbour National Park.

Tourism-wise, the highlight of my trip was whale watching. This was something I had never quite got round to doing in Auckland. I'd love to say it was because I knew it would be better in Sydney. I discovered that Sydney is situated next to a highway for humpback whales, which every year swim north to the tropics to breed, right past the mouth of the harbour. My boat - a triple-decker ferry-like affair, but fast and with plenty of viewing space - located a passing humpback in minutes. We spent at least an hour watching two of these amazing creatures rolling along, surfacing to breathe, and diving with that classic tail-flick.

Humpback whale

3rd-7th July 2009: Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk

I am flying out of New Zealand for good on Saturday. I've had the most awesome year and will miss this place, but there are too many things at home to pull me back - family, friends, and a better selection of job opportunities even in recession. I'm fairly sure, however, that once I set foot back in London I'll wonder what ever possessed me to leave NZ.

Tim is staying on until early September to finish up his project work. Meanwhile, making the most of our time left together, we did the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk over the weekend. I've now walked 4 out of the 9 Great Walks in New Zealand, which feels like a respectable total for the year.

The walk is a 46km track south of Rotorua. It took quite a while to get there. After the 3-hour drive from Auckland to Rotorua we had another 150km to go, 80 of which were on a winding unsealed road through the national park and took easily a couple of hours. Total journey time was 6-7 hours each way, which is why we exhausted the walking options nearer to Auckland before tackling this one.

We walked the track in the standard 4 days, in company with an Irish backpacker named Owen. We met him when we shared track transport at the start of the walk, and happened to have chosen the same huts to stay in. He was doing some travelling after finishing his degree at Trinity College Dublin and before training to be a teacher.

This walk was as beautiful as usual, the track easy apart from a fun side trip to the Korokoro falls. We crossed a river by scrambling over rocks with a wire to hold on to, then walking a fallen log. It had rained the night before and the swollen river made the crossing a bit more challenging than it might have been.


What was really notable about this walk was the difference from other Great Walks owing to the time of year. Cold huts (really, two-sets-of-thermals-and-a-sleeping-bag-and-still-shivering cold), much less crowded of course, and sunset shortly after 5pm. These huts did not have solar lighting so we spent the evenings chatting or playing cards by candlelight.

Two of our three huts had feeble gas heaters which, as the DOC had warned us, barely took the chill off the air. The middle night, in Waiopaoa hut, was sheer luxury with a wood-burning stove. We only had a 3-hour walk to this hut, reaching it by lunch time, after which we spent a pleasant afternoon gathering and chopping firewood, and an equally pleasant evening watching the cosy blaze we had made. I should probably regret that my childhood was not spent doing more things like that.

Huddled round the gas heater at breakfast time.
Owen is standing up in the grey jumper.

27th-28th June 2009: Waipoua Forest

The mighty Kauri trees of northern New Zealand have featured quite prominently during our year in NZ. We first encountered them on the Pinnacles walk back in August last year, and I've been fascinated by the history surrounding these giants ever since. Their timber and gum had a huge impact on the development of NZ once Europeans arrived and started exploiting them.

To sate my curiosity, we used one of our two remaining weekends together on a Kauri extravaganza: a trip to Waipoua forest, which is the largest remaining area of mature Kauri forest, and a stop on the way at the Kauri Museum in Matakohe.

The museum has an excellent collection of all things Kauri-related apart, oddly, from a general introduction to the trees. We were glad to have known some background before we arrived. There are sections dedicated to the history of the sawmills, gum-digging and the so-called swamp Kauri: trees tens of thousands of years old that fell into bogs and were preserved. I think Sophie enjoyed the period-lifestyle displays more than I did, but there we plenty of big machines to keep me interested.

Perhaps the most interesting display was a lengthwise section of a mature tree that was recently killed by lightning. On its side, it gives a good impression of just how much timber there is in these trees and why they were so sought after. On the wall beside it there's a cross-section of the tree measuring 2m in diameter. Painted outside that are outlines of rounds of larger Kauris - some of which beggar belief in their scale.

The cross-section and outlines are on the wall behind - use the chair for scale!

After the museum we headed north to the Top 10 Holiday Park in Kaihu. Top 10s usually come across as characterless and densely-packed caravan parks, but in the uncrowded low season we were pleased with our cosy little lodge: a comfortable double bed and a bijou kitchen in a beautiful spot by the river, all for 75NZD. We had planned to go on the organised kiwi-spotting tour but rain and a nascent cold put me off.

On Sunday we headed up to Waipoua Forest itself. Some driving and walking took us to a number of massive trees: Tane Mahuta, the largest living Kauri by volume, and Te Matua Ngahere, the largest by girth. We also walked to Yakas, which is smaller (though still huge) but isn't surrounded by protected fences so you can get close to it.

Sophie in front of Yakas - the 7th largest Kauri tree

One thing is for sure: you can only really appreciate these trees by seeing them yourself!

21st June 2009: Auckland Museum

Having been to the Auckland Museum some months ago, we went back to finish it off at the weekend. We didn't quite manage that but have now explored the majority of it. This time we split up so that Tim could spend more time looking at dinosaurs and volcanoes while I meandered around the design section.

Tucked away among the war displays on the top floor, there is a reconstruction of shops from the Auckland of 1866. We were fascinated by a reproduced advertisement for a ship offering passages from St Catherine's Dock in London to New Zealand. Each passenger was allowed to bring ¼ to ½ a ton of luggage, which we thought generous compared to airline allowances today - until we read that a ship's ton was defined as 40 cubic feet, making the luggage allowance around 2 large suitcases.

14th June 2009: Kitesurfing Lesson Two

I had my first kitesurfing lesson a couple of weeks ago. My ambition this time was to get up onto the board. I managed that, but I've got a very long way to go until I can call myself competent!

I had to spent another hour or so body-dragging myself around behind the kite before the instructor let me have a go with a board too. I thought that I was getting pretty good at flying the thing (hey, it's just a kite!) but once you've got to think about flying the kite as well as balancing yourself on the board, things get a little trickier. You could say I was a touch over confident.

After a few face-plants (it's only water), I managed a few times to stay on the board for around 10 seconds before stacking it. Mostly I was alternating between sinking and being launched skywards, not quite how I remember those guys on the videos doing it. It seems you've got to get the kite maintain a smooth power delivery, without really looking at it. Not easy.

While I was drinking seawater, the instructor was teaching the more advanced students how to jump. He could effortlessly lift himself 5m into the air, before landing and blasting off in a different direction. And he made it look so easy!

6th-7th June 2009: Coromandel Peninsula

Coromandel is another trip that has been on our to-do list since we got here, but we saved it until winter, knowing that the weather would still be passable up here when it got cold further south. We were rewarded with a balmy weekend and a brilliantly blue Pacific.

Tim's colleagues James and Ken came along for the weekend and we drove around the standard tourist haunts. Hot Water Beach was similar to the one we previously visited at Kawhia, but with even warmer water - plenty of people were wallowing in their bikinis despite the fact that it is really not quite summer any more, even here.

Cathedral Cove was beautiful, with weather-sculpted rocks towering over the water. Some local walkers pointed out an eagle ray in the shallows and we watched it for some time. It was hard to get a good sight with the sun reflecting off the water, so Ken waded in to get nearer, much to the detriment of his jeans. He wore them for the rest of the weekend anyway.

Anything for a good photo

In Coromandel Town we enjoyed a surprisingly good meal at the Peppertree Restaurant, one of only two restaurants in the one-street town. Coromandel is a centre for farming green-lipped mussels and these ones were particularly succulent. We stayed away from the local wine though, assuming there was a good reason we hadn't seen it on menus outside the peninsula. Maybe it was great and we missed out.

The next day we took a tour bus to the tip of the peninsula to walk the Coromandel Coastal Walkway. Our driver was a very well-meaning lady who told us everything she knew about the local history, and persisted in referring to our three-hour amble as a great achievement, even giving us certificates for completing it. She advertises it as a 7km walk, but told us after the walk that it was 10km, but she doesn't tell people in advance because they wouldn't do it. The DOC website lists it as 8km. Sigh.

Tim colour-matches with the Pacific

After the twisty, unsealed road back to Coromandel Town in the bus, we got back into our rental car (a cheap-as Nissan Sunny of 1990s vintage) for another 3-hour drive home. Our mood was lifted half an hour later though, when Tim spotted a pod of dolphins in a bay by the coastal road. We stopped to watch and saw lots of fins and a few leaps. These appeared to be bigger than the dolphins we saw in the Bay of Islands, and there were plenty of them, maybe 15-20. The road home seemed much shorter after that.

More photos here.

1st June 2009: Montana Heritage Trail

It was the Queen's birthday bank holiday in NZ, so in amongst some wedding planning we did another trip out to the Waitakere ranges, 45 mins west of Auckland. This time, we headed to the northern end of the park to walk the Montana Heritage Trail, a track through the bush sponsored by Montana Wines who used to be based nearby.

We extended the walk a little to take in the Waitakere tramline. This line was orginally built for the construction of the nearby dam, but now occasionally takes passengers. It wasn't running when we were there but you can just walk along the track instead. It has an unusual railway station at Picnic Flats, a somewhat incongrous area of neatly trimmed grass in the middle of the rainforest.

A novel aqueduct, taking a stream over the tramway

On the way back, we passed along the Upper Kauri track, which has some of the best stands of mature kauri trees we've seen. It some parts you are surrounded by trunks over a metre thick, rising up like towers above you. One of the trees was wider than my arms streched out, around 2 metres across (photo). Much of this part of NZ would have been like this - before it was all logged early last century.

Sophie gives some scale to the kauris

More photos of big trees here.

23rd-24th May 2009: Tiritiri Matangi

The bird sanctuary island of Tiritiri Matangi has been on our to-do list for months. Situated in the Hauraki Gulf, it is free of mammal pests such as rats and possums and home to many endangered bird species. Mammals introduced to New Zealand have wreaked havoc with the native birds, especially ground-nesters whose eggs are easy prey, so this is a big deal conservation-wise. Tiritiri Matangi is also the island that until recently said Ni (say the name in a high-pitched voice and you'll see what I mean).

We spent two days on the island, spending the night in the bunkhouse so that we could go out after dark looking for kiwis, which are nocturnal. But a couple of hours of peering into the dark bushes didn't yield any sightings of the elusive birds, although we heard plenty calling. It was quite windy so they may have been staying well-sheltered, or perhaps we just couldn't hear them moving over the rustling of the trees.

A bellbird

During the day we did better. Walking around we were followed several times by fantails, feeding on the flies our feet dislodged. We also saw dozens of honey-eating bellbirds and stitchbirds at feeding stations maintained by the park rangers, as well as saddlebacks, whiteheads, kingfishers, New Zealand robins, parakeets, and the more common tuis and pukekos. The best were the takahe. These football-sized flightless birds are extremely rare, but there are three living near the visitors' centre on the island who are almost overly friendly and all too keen to steal your lunch if you look away. Quite a surreal experience - somehow I expect rare creatures to be shy. Maybe this gives some insight into why they're nearly extinct.

Tim bonds with a takahe

Staying in the bunkhouse was, as ever, a fascinating experience. With us were a couple of other people on holiday and five or so volunteers and researchers who work on the island. Some had led very varied and interesting lives and told dinner-table stories that were well worth hearing. One man had been an airport customs officer, and told us about a woman who tried to take her dead father on a plane as a passenger in a wheelchair. (Do you have any idea how difficult it is to ship a body in a coffin?) Luckily he noticed before she boarded...

Tim got a lot of good pictures - see here. Of course we also threw away lots of pictures of empty branches a bird had just left :)

17th May 2009: Kitesurfing

I've been meaning to have a go at kitesurfing for years and I thought that, coming to Auckland for a year, I'd finally get the chance to have a go. You see lots of people doing it on the beaches around here, and the conditions are great: warm water, regular sunshine and lots of wind. As it happens it wasn't until Fred said he'd tried it that I finally organised it, with the weather here having turned distinctly autumnal.

The place we went for lessons is on the South coast of the Manukau harbour and has a huge deserted area of waist-deep water. Perfect for learning to be dragged at speed by an enourmous kite. They look big when you see people using them, but they look even bigger when you're attached to one. We've been playing with a 3 square-metre trainer kite for a while, but there's a big step up to the 8m kitesurf kites.

The first lesson is all about learning to control the kite and getting used to the power by "body-dragging" without a board. I got on okay with this so hopefully next time I go I'll get on the board and do some kitesurfing proper.

10th May 2009: Surfing at Muriwai Beach

Mel and Dom returned to Auckland for the last few days of their holiday in NZ, so we spent the weekend with them.

Our travellers had tried surfing at Raglan on their first full day in the country and wanted another attempt. I hadn't managed to try surfing at all yet, despite it being a bit of a kiwi national sport, so I tagged along too. We headed out to Muriwai with two of my accomplished surfer-dude colleagues: James and Ken.

It seems to me that surfing is about spending a lot of time and effort battling out through waves, to be launched briefly back towards the beach. If it goes well you get a short bit of speed and exhiliration, otherwise you seem to drink a lot of seawater. Mostly, it goes badly.

I actually managed to stand up quite a few times (I surfed!) and it was good fun. I might go again!

After the surfing we flew the power kite for a while in the strong breeze, though still not strong enough for blokarts, annoyingly. Sophie's now fixed the kite twice, after we smashed it into the ground during some over-excited and under-skilled flying.

We finished off the day with some large and very delicious steaks at The Jervois Steak House, our favourite restaurant in Auckland. A good end to Mel and Dom's trip, I hope.

2nd-3rd May 2009: Mount Pirongia

The tramping tracks in Pirongia Forest Park are some of the most challenging we have walked. Our two-day tramp up Mount Pirongia and back took in two long ridges, each with a series of small steep-sided tops, and there were a fair few scrambles. Scrabbling up and down rocks is made harder if you have a 10-15kg pack on your back!

We walked up the mountain from Grey Road via Ruapane and Tirohanga Tracks, returning on Mahaukura Track, and spent the night at Pahautea Hut, a compact 6-bunk building near the 959m summit of Mount Pirongia. The last to arrive, barely before sunset, we were lucky to find exactly two beds left.

Pahautea Hut

The other beds were taken up by a very talkative homeless bird photographer who was spending a week in the hut; a couple of hunters, complete with orange camo shirts (deer can't see orange, but other hunters can); and a keen young traffic light engineer who is determinedly taking up tramping after going on an Outward Bound course earlier this year.

One of the great things about staying in the huts is that we meet people we never normally would. Sharing a single room with no heating or lighting (we were lucky someone had left a couple of candles), we chatted for a couple of hours after dark before fleeing to our sleeping bags for warmth at 9pm. All our companions were tradespeople who do manual, outdoor work, and inhabit a world I have little exposure to. It brought home to me how narrow my experience is. But then again, they have as little idea about my life as I do about theirs.

The other contrast we encountered was one we have often seen: the variety of walkers we meet. In the hut we were probably the least experienced in the group. Four punishing hours from the summit and one hour from the car park, the track got wide and easy and suddenly was busy with young families and older couples, looking faintly awed at our muddied legs and big backpacks.

24th - 26th April 2009: Rotorua & Kaimai Ranges

Our next set of visitors, Mel and Dom, arrived in town on Wednesday. We spent the weekend with them in Rotorua.

Saturday dawned drizzly, so we went for an epic breakfast at Relish Cafe and stuffed ourselves on their excellent "Bennies". After this, we had an urge to roll down a hill in an inflatable ball, so we headed to Zorb Rotorua. Mel and Dom had a two-person ride while I took the solo zigzag track.

Now cold and wet, we climbed into the car and put the heating on full blast for the short drive to Agroventures. Not nauseated enough by the Zorb, Dom, Mel and I did a Swoop together: a ride where you are winched 40m into the air and then released to swing at 130kph, trussed up in a harness that makes you look like a giant caterpillar.

To conclude our extreme sports for the day, Dom and I raced on the Shweeb. This is a monorail track with a suspended recumbent cycle. Obviously I beat Dom, but only by half a second.

From there we raced to the Sheep Show, which surprisingly was just as good on a second viewing, and then headed to Waikite Valley for a welcome hot soak. Dom and Mel spent the evening at a hangi, while Sophie and I had a delicious dinner at Bistro 1284.

The next morning Dom and Mel headed for Taupo, and Sophie and I went for a rather wet walk in the Kaimai Ranges. Starting on the Waitawheta Tramway, we were hoping to follow the Bluff Stream Kauri Loop Track, but found we would need to make a few knee-deep crossings of fast rivers. Instead we took a loop via Daly's Clearing Hut. My boots leak so I got wet feet anyway...

19th April 2009: Sailing on Thelma

We were offered another day's sailing on the classic yachts, and this time were back on Thelma. We are starting to know quite a lot of the crew, and I had a lovely day chatting to Nanda and to Tony's wife Fiona.

The sailing went extremely well for us, even down to the forecast rain holding off until we were home. Tony really is a very good sailor, and was helped by a gentleman named Bruce who sat in the cockpit planning tactics with him. Thelma crossed the line first and a leg ahead of any other boat we could see.

Our return to the dock was more exciting than usual. As we moored, an unfamiliar yacht came in beside us. A crew member had fallen off our sister ship Waitangi, and this yacht had picked her up. The poor girl was pretty shaken. It was her first time sailing and she didn't know what had happened; we later heard that the boom had nudged her off the afterdeck. She was wearing a lifejacket and was picked up quickly, so hopefully no great harm done.

After tidying the boat we went for a drink with the crew, and I got talking to a lady who had been with us on Thelma. Chatting about flat sharing and the kitchen equipment we collected over the years, she mentioned that she had lost most of her belongings when she was on a ship that sank. Gosh, tell us more about that, we said.

We found ourselves listening to a story that could have been straight out of a book. In 1982 she had been crewing on a classic tall ship which had leaky planks, and in some heavy weather the leaks had let in more water than the bilge pumps could handle. The ship sank pretty fast, and our storyteller swam to one of only two life rafts that had been released. One crew member drowned. They then waited a week (a week!) to be picked up by a passing ship that happened to see their torchlight. Apparently the captain had decided to ration the water on the life rafts to 30ml per person per day.

We were told all this in a very matter-of-fact manner. But seriously. Can you even begin to imagine?

14th-15th April 2009: Taupo, Orakei Korako and Rotorua

With the wine tasting now over, we finished up our Easter trip up by visiting Taupo and Rotorua with my mum and Ian.

We managed to squeeze in a late visit to Orakei Korako, reputed to be one of NZ's best thermal areas, and it's certainly the best we've seen. Huge silica terraces with boiling water flowing out, a big cave with a hot pool at the bottom and excellent bubbling mud. I've since been told White Island is very impressive too, so that's now on the list.

Our last evening's dinner was memorable. We went to Bistro Lago in the Taupo Debretts resort. This is another Simon Gault restaurant, just like Jervois Steak House in Auckland. He has a certain truffle-loving style that I do seem to get on well with.

The following morning, after eyeing up distant Tongariro and Ruapehu from our B&B, we took in Huka Falls and Aratiatia Rapids and headed to Rotorua. We dropped Mum and Ian at Te Puia for their dose of Maori culture and geysers, while Sophie and I went looking for a walk. We found the very pretty Redwoods forest, just outside Rotorua. Redwoods somehow feel a little out of place in NZ: they're quite unlike any of the native trees, but impressive nonetheless.

To finish our trip we went up the Skyline gondola for a view and a spot of luge. The luge is much more fun than it deserves to be - an experience a bit like skiing but sitting down. Mum took to it particularly well, getting her luge up on two wheels on occasions...

12th-14th April 2009: Napier and Hawke's Bay

The next stop on our trip up the east coast was Napier and the Hawke's Bay region. Home to some of New Zealand's best known wineries, this has been on our must-do list since we got here.

Napier was largely destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent fire in 1931. The rebuild happened over the next few years, in contemporary style, and as a result the city now has an amazing collection of art deco buildings - one of the best in the world. The art deco society organises good tours of the town; our guide's mother-in-law had experienced the original earthquake.

Having made a nod to culture, we proceeded to the main business of the day: wineries. I heroically offered to drive everyone else around for the day, as the wineries are too far apart for cycling.

We started at Te Mata, then made it to Craggy Range where we promptly got side-tracked by lunch for three hours. By the time that was over, we barely had time to race around Trinity Hill and Salvare Estate before they all closed for the day. The lunch was worth it though: great food under the steep cliffs of Te Mata peak, with the trees in their glorious autumnal colours.

Wine making at Sileni: old and new technology combined

We finished off our visit to the region with a tour of Sileni Estates winery the next morning. They do an interesting 30-minute trip around the winery, which processes a lot of NZ's olive oil as well as its own wine. The large vats of fermenting merlot grapes gave off a heady scent: we had to restrain Sophie from diving in.

10th-12th April 2009: Martinborough

Having scooped my prospective parents-in-law off the ferry, we set off to conquer the wine regions of the North Island. We started at Martinborough, north-east of Wellington, and stayed in the charming and comfortable Martinborough Hotel.

Martinborough is unusual in that most of the wineries are small and close together. This makes cycling an ideal way to get around them, allowing for a long day of tasting and a wobble home afterwards. Luckily for our livers (and the drivers of Martinborough) we were only able to get bikes for the morning.

Ian, making good use of the bike's drink holder

We visited Martinborough Vineyard, Winslow Wines, Ata Rangi, and Benfield & Delamere. Winslow was the most memorable, both for its excellent wines and the interesting but long-winded discourse from the owner on matching wines to food; it took an hour and a half to taste four wines. Ata Rangi is the source of the delicious Pinot Noir given to Tim by Nishan, but we weren't allowed to taste it that day.

We finished up with a late lunch at the Alana winery. Winery restaurants always seem to have good food and great settings. By the end of lunch we were fit for nothing more than a snooze before dinner.

The next day we set out for Hawkes Bay, but stopped on the way for a short walk in Holdsworth. We battled up a steep track to a viewpoint with great views of Mount Holdsworth and the surrounding hills. By all accounts the walking at the south end of the North Island is great - shame it's such a long drive from Auckland.

9th-10th April 2009: Overlander and Wellington

Tim's mum Karen and stepfather Ian came over to NZ for a holiday, and we joined them for a week on the North Island starting at Wellington. As I'm not working at the moment I decided that, rather than flying, I would spend all day getting there on the Overlander train from Auckland. Tim joined me in the evening, flying in an hour the distance that took my train 12 hours to cover.

Long-distance trains in NZ aren't really serious. They are only used by tourists, typically run once or twice per day, and there are only a handful of routes. This is not the Pendolino from London to Manchester. The trains do, however, pass through miles of fantastic scenery, sometimes in places that are nowhere near a road.

On this particular journey the highlights are in the Tongariro National Park. Low cloud meant that the mountains were not visible, but I didn't mind - I have seen them before and climbed one of them. We went through some spectacular valleys, over several viaducts, and climbed the Spiral at Raurimu, an 11km section of track that loops back on itself around hills and valleys to create a gentle gradient while climbing some pretty steep hills. Google has a good aerial view. It was great fun to watch our progress through the large back window of the train.

One of the many viaducts

Wellington is a pretty place with a picturesque waterfront. It has more of a holiday feel than Auckland's harbour, and we watched a guy diving off a plank built into the sea wall, evidently for that purpose.

We spent the morning in Te Papa, Wellington's excellent museum. It is huge: the introductory tour lasts over an hour, only giving an overview of the exhibits. Our Maori guide was great fun, friendly and enthusiastic, but also quite feisty and certain of her own opinion. Very Kiwi. After the tour we went to see the colossal squid, the largest specimen ever caught.

We finished up our day in Wellington with a ride up in the cable car, built in 1902, and a walk back down to the city through the Botanic Gardens. After that we just about had time to collect our bags and jump in a taxi to meet Karen and Ian off the Interislander ferry.

5th April 2009: Sailing on Panmure Lagoon

At their excellent BBQ on the 4th, Claire and Graham invited me to come sailing with them at Panmure Lagoon Sailing Club, a small club in south Auckland.

The people there were friendly, and it's remarkably good value:  NZ$25 to hire a nearly-new Laser. The race that day was up and down the Tamaki river, taking about 2 hours. There wasn't much wind - good for me since I hadn't sailed a Laser for some time.

I did quite well, coming third (out of twelve or so).  My sailing skills aren't too rusty after all! I'll have to go back and see if I can improve.

29th March 2009: Muriwai Beach

Another Sunday, another beach...

I've been wanting to go to Muriwai beach for a while as they rent out Blokarts there, and I'm dying to have another go after our previous brief sail. Unfortunately there wasn't quite enough wind on this occasion - it seems they only operate when it's really honking.

We went anyway, in the hope of the wind building. Ken (from CHP) came too, planning to catch a few waves. The wind didn't pick up enough for the karts, but we did have a good go with the kite.

We'll be back when the winter storms start rolling in...

27th-28th March 2009: Taupo and Balloons over Waikato

When I walked the Tongariro Northern Circuit last month, a hut warden told me I should follow it up with the Ruapehu Crater Walk. This is a guided walk from the top of a chairlift at Whakapapa up to the edge of Mount Ruapehu's crater. Several people have told me how stunning it is and I'd love a view of the crater lake.

On that occasion the weather forecast was terrible so I left the walk for another time. Last weekend we decided to make another attempt, along with Nishan and Tiani.

As it turned out, our old friend Fiasco decided to come along for the ride too. We started with the worst Friday-night rush hour we have seen in New Zealand, so that it took me an hour and a half to pick up Tiani, visit a petrol station, and drive 8km to Tim's office to meet him and Nishan. In the course of our subsequent four-hour drive we added a minor speeding infringement to our experiences, and took 20 minutes to find our mis-addressed hotel in National Park.

After all that, getting up at dawn on Saturday for the walk was hard work, but we hoped it would be worth it. Alas, the weather was not on our side; low cloud and settled drizzle meant that the trip was cancelled. You can imagine we were not the happiest bunch, especially since the weather for the past week had been perfect. The forecast for Sunday was tantalisingly perfect too but we had to be back in Auckland by then.

After a bit of humphing we decided to make the most of the day, so we took the scenic route home. We admired Lake Rotoaira and the Tongariro River before heading to Taupo about lunch time. I could actually imagine liking fishing if it meant I could stand in the Tongariro all day; it is a bit story-book, with graceful bends, bubbling shallows and glassy pools.

The Aratiatia rapids, just outside Taupo, are only open a few times a day. Most of the time their water is diverted to a hydroelectric power system from a dam above the rapids, but periodically the flood gates are opened to allow the rapids to return to their spectacular natural level. This made us enjoy them all the more; we stayed half an hour until the gates were closed, and watched the water diminish to five metres below its previous height. Even then, the rapids and rocks were spectacular and worth stopping to see.

Aratiatia Rapids

After that we satisfied my pizza-lunch craving, then headed to Craters of the Moon, a local site of geothermal activity that has appeared as a side-effect of the building of the nearby Wairakei power station. It wasn't that exciting compared with other geothermal sites we have seen. We hope Orakei Korako will be much better.

From here we set out for Hamilton, where the Balloons over Waikato festival has been taking place. The pilot on our previous balloon trip suggested that we come and watch the Nightglow, and it was worth seeing. Around 20 balloons inflated at dusk in a large field - getting upright but not airborne - using their burners to light up the canopies. Bizarre and beautiful.

Nightglow

More photos here and here.

21st-22nd March 2009: Around Raglan

After Jenny and Eric left Raglan to catch their flight home, Tim and I stayed for an extra night to make the most of the weekend. We stayed in the Harbour View Hotel, an old-fashioned building built in 1905, with high-ceilinged bedrooms and a shared bathroom down the corridor. I imagined ladies in long skirts treading those same floors long ago.

The next morning we climbed Mount Karioi, the only significant peak in the area. It was a sunny, clear day - summer just doesn't want to end round here - and we had beautiful views over the Tasman Sea, Raglan Harbour and the surrounding countryside. We didn't see a single person all morning.

On the side of Mount Karioi

Back down by lunch time, we made our way to Kawhia, via a quick stop at Bridal Veil Falls. The road to Kawhia is 40-odd km of gravelled road, and at the end of it is a hot-water beach. An hour or two each side of low tide you can dig a hole in the sand and see it fill with hot water from underground springs. It is slightly strange to watch a few dozen people sitting in holes dotted along the beach, but great fun. Lacking a spade, we availed ourselves of existing holes that had been abandoned and enjoyed a soak.

Photos of the whole Raglan trip are here.

19th-21st March 2009: Raglan with Jenny H

Jenny, my oldest friend, came on holiday to New Zealand with her boyfriend Eric. His parents own a beautiful bach in Raglan and I joined them there for the last few days of their holiday. Tim came down on the Saturday for their last day.

Our last experience of a bach, on Waiheke Island, was of a hut that was a bit like Guy's beach hut at Wrabness but with a few more mod cons. Eric's family bach was even more shiny: a compact wooden two-bedroom house, right on the shore, with fully fitted bathroom, electricity and everything we could want. There was a dinghy moored in the bay, high and dry on an expanse of mud-flat at low tide, and a feeling of time standing still as we gazed at the water. I thought I was pretty chilled out before I went there, but rediscovered a level of relaxation I don't often achieve.

Raglan is all about beaches and boats. We weren't able to sail the boat due to inconvenient tides, but we visited a couple of beaches: Ruapuke, reached down a gravel road and deserted except for us, and Ngarunui, the main Raglan beach. There we swam - or rather jumped about in the surf, and marvelled at the rip currents either side of the very narrow swimming area. You really get a feeling for how treacherous the sea on the West coast is.

Other than that, Jenny and I spent most of our time nattering, catching up on the last year which has been eventful for both of us. Eric gets serious brownie points for putting up with a deal of wedding-related chat. Having a bridesmaid in the same country as me was a rare opportunity not to be passed up, and Eric bore it stoically, assisted by beer.

17th March 2009: Hot Air Ballooning

As my 30th birthday present, back in December, Sophie bought me a hot air balloon ride over Hamilton. The weather foiled our attempts to take the flight several times, but finally we got the conditions we needed and headed down to Hamilton for the dawn start.

The Kiwi Balloon Company is a small outfit and the passengers have to help out quite a bit with the preparation and stowage of the baloon. It was a surprisingly quick process: you lay it out on the grass, blow it up with a big fan, then fill it with hot air and jump in quick. It took about 20 minutes from bagged to airborne.

The balloon, just lifting itself off the grass

The flight lasted about an hour and flew up to 2000ft. The views definitely beat plane flights, not least because you could look straight down at the toy sheep and houses. I was surprised at how much steerage the pilot had: the layers of air at different altitudes move in significantly different directions, so the pilot could steer the balloon very accurately by rising or falling. It was fascinating!

A very still lake, not far from our landing site

We were buzzed briefly by a barrel-rolling biplane, and finally landed in Te Kowhai airstrip. Sophie enjoyed deflating the balloon by sitting on it (okay, it was mostly deflated and rolled up already).

More photos here.

15th March 2009: Tamaki River Walk

Way back last July, Tim and I did New Zealand's notably short Coast to Coast walk. The leaflet describing the route had two other walks to offer, and we gave one a go on Sunday: the Point to Point walkway along the Tamaki River estuary.

The Tamaki River goes almost all the way through to the other side of the North Island; it's only around 2km between the river and the west-coast Manukau Harbour. The Maori used the isthmus as a portage point for their canoes.

The walk was good, hugging the beach on the wide sandy estuary as much as possible. At one point you walk out onto the Tohuna Torea Nature Reserve sand spit and at low tide you can walk back to land on an expanse of sand that is usually under water. It was fairly low tide when we did this and we escaped with only mild dampening of the feet. We later worked out that it was neaps, which possibly explains why we didn't stay drier.

14th March 2009: New Zealand Beer Festival

I went along to this beer festival with Ken, a colleague from CHP. Sophie, being essentially allergic to beer, decided to give this one a miss.

I haven't been to many beer festivals, but this one was quite different to what I expected. It was more of a general party with beer-sampling as an excuse than anything - quite good fun. There were far fewer beards on display than I would have expected, and much more fancy-dress.

There were live bands too, one of which spent about 20 minutes playing that "I don't know...." song that Kiwis seem to have adopoted as an anthem. What is it actually called though...?

[Update: Found it! It's Why Does Love Do This to Me, by The Exponents. Listen to it here. - Sophie]

14th March 2009: New Zealand National Maritime Museum

This was my first trip to the Maritime Museum. Tim had been on his own last year before I joined him in NZ. I am quite familiar with a couple of the exhibits, however: Thelma and Waitangi get a free berth at the museum in return for being on display.

The museum was pretty good. The best bit was the display on Maori canoes. The Polynesians used outrigger canoes to make immense ocean voyages exploring the Pacific islands; an incredible feat given the size of the islands compared with the size of the Pacific. There is a 76-foot voyaging canoe on display in the museum, with a sturdy deck between the main hull and the outrigger. Seaworthy but still insane.

A fair chunk of the museum was closed while a new wing is built in honour of Sir Peter Blake. Sadly I don't think we will still be here to see it open.

8th March 2009: Blokarts

One of the stands at the boat show was for blokarts: small wind-powered buggies that seem to be the new cool wind toy. They were offering free demos down near Papakura, so we drove down to have a go.

Sophie chases an evil yellow-sailed kart

These things are really good fun and remarkably fast, particularly when reaching across the wind. They're also much more stable than I thought they would be. I'd be pretty keen to own one if only I had a large expanse of sand or tarmac...

A few more photos here.

7th March 2009: Auckland International Boat Show

Soph and I decided to pay a quick visit to the Auckland International Boat Show which was being held in the Viaduct Harbour, just near our flat.

It was much the same as other boat shows I've been to: lots of boats (obviously) and toys for boats, all invariably very expensive. This show also seemed to have a surfeit of marine loos, for some reason.

The London Boat Show in Excel is certainly bigger and more swanky, but this show had a slightly more realistic feel to it. Perhaps this was because Auckland is supposed to have one of the highest boats-per-capita ratios of any city.

1st March 2009: Canoeing on the Puhoi River

We drove over to Puhoi to go canoeing on the Puhoi River. We saw the cayaking setup there when we came though before, back in August, and have meant to come back ever since.

We picked up a two-person canadian canoe, and set off to explore the river. You can get a kilometre or so upstream before it becomes a bit fast-moving and you have to get back.  After another kilometre in the other direction you reach the estuary, and drift along through the mangrove swamp until you reach the sea. Good relaxing stuff for a Sunday afternoon.

28th February 2009: Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World

Despite the cheesy name, Kelly Tarlton's is actually pretty cool. We had been meaning to go for some time and a day of awful weather provided the opportunity, since the whole place is underground.

Kelly Tarlton (a male Kelly) built the aquarium in 1985 from some old disused sewage tanks, a couple of miles out of Auckland centre. He seems to have been a bit of a pioneer in aquariums, building a domed tunnel in the tank so that visitors have fish on both sides and overhead. Back then nobody knew how to bend sheets of acrylic into curves, so he invented his own method to make the tunnel roof.

Nowadays, in addition to the impressive tunnelled tank, there is an open-topped stingray tank and a penguin enclosure containing a load of manufactured snow, and king and gentoo penguins. All the creatures were impressive and beautiful, but the vast stingrays were the best for me. A keeper gets into the stingray tank to feed them by hand while giving a talk to the audience, and they come and nuzzle her looking for food. When I say nuzzle, imagine a 2m diameter, 200kg beast launching itself up her body so that the mouth on its underside is over her hand holding the food. I only wish we had had a camera with us.

22nd February 2009: Rangitoto Island and Cornwall Park

Rich vdH and Hilary came to stay for a couple of days at the end of their holiday in NZ, and we took them to Rangitoto Island. It really is a pretty unique place - I get the feeling we will make another few trips there with visitors before we go home.

We gave ourselves three hours on the island, then inevitably packed enough in that we had to get a move on to see it all. This was made more amusing by the fact that Hilary's walking boots had died a few days earlier. When we arrived at the island the soles were not fully attached; by the time we left, one had fallen off entirely and was tied on with the ends of her shoelaces. The boots just about made it back to our flat before being consigned to the dustbin.

After that exertion we went to Cornwall Park for tea in the cafe on the side of One Tree Hill. This is the cafe we found on the coast-to-coast walk, that had its own tea sommelier. Having already eaten a sizeable lunch, we found space for a cream tea all round before a little kite-flying in the park.

13th-15th February 2009: Sailing on Waitangi

Tim and I spent another weekend racing classic yachts in Auckland. This time there were three days of racing, in the Southern Trust Classic Yacht regatta, and we were asked to crew on Waitangi, Thelma's sister ship. I joined Waitangi for all three days and Tim for the Saturday and Sunday.

The main difference between Waitangi and Thelma is that Thelma, a couple of years newer and more advanced, always wins the races. I was quite pleased to find we had consistently come third in our class, until I found out there are only three boats in our class... the other being Rainbow. We had a great time anyway, and met the usual selection of new people ranging from novices to those whose full-time occupation is sailing round the world.

Sadly the weather wasn't quite as fabulous as on previous occasions sailing Thelma and we got fairly soaked in both salt and fresh water. When the boat heels over, those who are doing jobs on the lee side can be up to their waist in the wash over the deck. We'll have a word with the weather man and see if next time we can stay a little drier.

9th-11th February 2009: Taupo

On my way home from the Tongariro Northern Circuit, I spent a couple of days in Taupo. Lake Taupo is bigger than Singapore. It is beautiful, but its size is disappointing in a way; I could hardly see the land on the other side so it was more like being by the sea.

The first day I walked to Huka Falls. They are part of the Waikato river, the only river to flow out of Lake Taupo and the longest river in New Zealand. Near the lake it's immensely clear and blue; at the falls it is channelled into a narrow gap making the most impressive rapids I've ever seen, then rages over a 10m drop. The photo doesn't really do it justice - you'll have to visit it yourself.

Huka Falls

The next day I went for a sail on the lake aboard Barbary, to see some Maori rock carvings. Seemingly I'm destined to find classic yachts wherever I go; this one was built in 1926 and belonged to Errol Flynn, reputedly after he won it in a game of cards.

Barbary

More photos here.

6th-9th February 2009: Tongariro Northern Circuit

Following on from the Tongariro Alpine Crossing walk with Tim and CHPers, I stayed on the track for another two days to complete the Northern Circuit. While they walked out to the carpark, I stopped at Ketetahi Hut for the night. This was a fairly interesting place to be for a couple of hours; around 2000 people walked the crossing that day and their exit route goes across the deck at the front of the hut. The few of us staying for the night sheltered inside from sunshine and the hordes of trampers, until the rush quieted down and we could enjoy the usual peace of the backcountry.

This was my first experience of walking alone, and I expected to be somewhat bored in the evenings. I'd packed as light as possible, having no-one to help spread the load, so the big fat novel hadn't made it into my pack. However, the wardens in both Ketetahi hut and Waihohonu hut, where I spent the next night, were much more sociable than the ones we had met on the Fiordland great walks; perhaps because the Tongariro is a much less popular walk, with often only 5-10 trampers in a hut, so it's easier to get chatting in a group.

Walking at dawn

The walking was easy too, largely over flattish scrubland, and I had a great time. One part of the track has black sand and small scrubby plants, and looks for all the world as if it's 50 yards from the shore at Piha or Karekare.

My favourite people of the tramp were a lovely French couple, Jean and Françoise, who have lived in Australia for almost 40 years. They told me enough about their grown-up grandchildren, and daughter's 40th birthday, to make me most impressed that they are still hiking with big packs on their backs. They obviously make a habit of this and have done tougher and longer walks than this one. If I'm half as fit at their age I'll be well pleased.

Françoise and Jean

More photos here.