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.