Rotorua has always been a place I wanted to go to but due to the limited holidays I have had, I have never managed to travel around the North Island. Having a three day weekend was the perfect opportunity. So we decided to go there with my dear flatmate (my travel partner) and Evelyn, the American girl I went to the South Island with the first time

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This region is a place where the turbulent forces that formed New Zealand are the most evident. It has one of the world’s most lively fields of geothermal activity and sits squarely on the Pacific Rim of Fire

We left on Thursday afternoon, hired a car (we are now experts in trip organization).  We had'nt book a place for the night but fortunately the woman from the car rental offered to do it for us! We understood why we had received a special offer for this car from the first kilometer: it was a miracle that we were reaching 100km/h!

Now the sun sets at 6pm so we didn’t see much of the landscape and went directly to Taupo.

The common response when I told people I was going to Rotorua was about the smell: this region is particularly known for its sulfur sources! They were quite right, what a wonderful feeling when you wake up!

Taupo also has its geothermal wonders, mostly hot springs. After a small walk we lay in one of them for quite a long time, it's so great to have a bath that never gets colder ;)

 

 

The first step in was quite difficult, the temperature was around 47°C! After a small walk in the town and around the lake we went to Rotorua. That was impressive, we could even see the hot steam from the road!

On the next day we went to Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland.  We could see all kinds of geothermal things. So amazing! Can you imagine seeing the water boiling in the ground, seeing yellow liquid, steam coming from the lakes, mud pools...?!

 

The mud industry:

 

 

 

We went there with a girl from South Africa… four girls coming from four different continents and gathering in a fifth one…

 

 

by the way we had a debate on the number of continents there are in the world. According to Wikipedia, my best friend, there are 4, 5, 6 or 7 continents depending on people’s view.

 

This park also has a geyser activated every day at 10:15am. In fact it is active around once a day at night or daytime but so that people can see it they activate it with soap at fixed hours: a real attraction!

 

I think that the sulfur, in addition to its particular smell also had soporific effect: we were so tired after this morning!

In the afternoon we went to a Maori village. Rotorua is one of the places where the Maori culture is the most highlighted.

 

 

 

Sulfur sources are everywhere and they are sometime used by Maori for cooking. I heard that it brings a very cool taste to the food! We finished our tour by walking along the lake where we could see black swans and a beautiful sunset!

 

 

(So many discoveries!) Quite nauseated by the sulfur, we decided to leave Rotorua  the next day and went to Tongariro National Park. This is a place very famous for the Tongariro Crossing, a six day tramp but we couldn’t see much as we only had three hours… The mountains are not particularly high but there is an active volcano, Ruapehu, the first time I got to see one with my own eyes!

 

 

At first we wanted to do a 2 hour walk but we were too lazy and went back to Wellington. 

 

 

 

Now, no time to think about travels for the next two months, the exam period is getting closer! 

 We met at the airport at 7 on Monday. I realized then that Wellington’s airport is quite small compared to the other capitals’: There is no need to arrive more than 20 minutes in advance especially when you don’t have any suitcases to check in. I was a bit worried about my shampoo in my hand luggage but in fact it is not a problem at all, you can even bring a knife!

 

 

The flight lasted less than one hour. Ten minutes after taking off we were told to get ready for landing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 When we arrived in Christchurch we went to the rental car agency and we were quite relieved to learn that the car we had was an automatic one and not a manual (it depended on the availability).  Driving a car on the left side is not natural so I’ll let you imagine driving a manual car on the left side of the road!

We decided to spend the day in Christchurch which is the second largest city in New Zealand. There was not much to do: this town has been partly destroyed by an earthquake two years ago killing 185 people. A large part was still under construction.

 

 

We went to an unusual new mall: it is made off containers! 

 

 

 

We also went to the city museum and to the coast 

but the weather was not very good for walks: we went to the top of a hill to see Christchurch but the only thing we could see was clouds. Fortunately it was our only bad weather of the week!

The next day, we went to a small town Akaroa that was built by a French colony. Some indications were still here such as some names of streets, shops…

The road to this point was really windy but the view was impressive!

 

 

 

 

 

This day was a long day because we decided to drive directly to Dunedin. The only reason we wanted to go there was to see penguins… we didn’t! We had paid to see them but they didn’t tell us when we were buying the tickets that it was not the right season to see them…

 

What we should have seen

 

 

But we saw a lot of seals as it is a protected area, even baby ones! This place is also famous for albatross but again, if you want to see them you have to pay as they are in protected areas…

 

We left Berbelijn (the girl from the Netherlands) here beca

 

use she was going further south to spend the next two weeks and also because there was an Aerosmith concert in Dunedin that evening!

Then we drove to Mont Cook and stopped at a special beach where there are round rocks: the Moeraki boulders. Their shape is due to the coastal erosion and is at the origin of many Maori legends.

 

 We arrived at night at Mount Cook’s backpackers: now the sun sets at 6pm, the joys of the winter!

Once again I was very surprised to see so many Germans!

We did some walks the next day. Mount Cook National Park is classed a world heritage area by UNESCO and its highest mountain, which is the highest in all of New Zealand, is Mount cook: 3754 m high! We didn’t feel like doing a big tramp and the good thing was there were really beautiful things we could see by walking very short distances!

So we went to the Glacier Lake, Tasman and Blue Lakes

 

 

 

 

We wanted to spend the next day by Lake Tekapo but all the places we called were already fully booked… were we going to find a place for the night?? The last hope was to ask the place where we had spent our last night and they had three beds available! We also discovered they had a free sauna!

 

 

 

On the last day we drove to Lake Tekapo and used a way different from the highway, going among the mountains and the lakes.

We got back to Christchurch and went to the mall again but this time without the rain!

We got back to Christchurch Airport and spent the “night” there to catch our flight at 7am.

Now that I have been to the South Island twice I am planning on going to the North Island for a big weekend with my dear flatmate! But that is another story, for now I have to go back to my studies. I received my exam schedule and the date is approaching! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I had lots of hesitations when preparing this trip: should I do it with the tramping club (I really like tramping and they already have the car but I would go to only one place) or should I do it with friends (I could go to all the places I want to and be free to do what I want… but it means renting the car and buying the tramping gears…)

Finally I decided to go to the north of the south Island with three friends: my Japanese flat mate and two Americans. It was a bit short to prepare this trip 3 days in advance but we made it! Well… everything was not booked yet but there is nothing better than adventure!

 

 

 

After a “crêpes party” I had in the afternoon with friends of the uni, I directly went to the ferry. Yes, the last hour available was at 3 AM! The journey lasted 3 hours and a half. We expected to see the sun rise but it was just 6am when we arrived, so to early!

 

(1)    When we arrived at the place to rent the car, the person in charge told us that we didn’t book the car as we thought but fortunately the one we wanted was still available. While he was preparing it, we did a small walk and discovered Picton. This is the kind of place that exists only thanks to tourism: what we could see was only car rentals, backpackers, hotels and souvenir shops. However the landscapes were amazing!

 

 

 

We had our first bad news when we realized that to drive, we had to be over 20. We planned that the two American girls could drive but in fact, only one could…

 

The first place where we stopped was Kaikoura

(2)    This place is famous for people who want to see whales, swim with dolphins… minimum $170. We heard that it was possible to walk to a place where there are usually seals. That’s what I did with Tomomy and YES, we saw them. Quite impressive for a city girl who only sees animals in the zoo!

 

 

The place where we stayed was a backpackers and I first realized that it was true that a lot of German people loved traveling in New Zealand!

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  On the 29^th we decided to do a walk before taking the car. We didn’t expect so much from it but I think that it was actually the best landscapes ever!

 

 

 

We spent the end of the day at Hammer spring, this is a place known for its sulfur springs. We decided to go to those pools. I expected it to be natural but in fact it really looked like normal pools next to each other at different temperatures. The only difference was the sulfur pools that were at 40-42 °C. I can be sure it was sulfur: sulfur and silver react with each other! Fortunately they had a special product to give jewelries their original color!

We didn’t have any place to stay for this night but the second place we went to, still had camp sites available!

On the 30^th we also did a small walk (if you go to New Zealand there is one condition for you to like it: you have to love tramping!

The walk was supposed to last 20min but as we got lost it lasted 1 hour (we met Germans who helped us find our way back).

(4)    For the night we stopped along the highway. We decided to use the stove we bought to cook our dinner but realized that the cashier, from the place where we bought it, led us astray: the gas bottle didn’t correspond to the stove we had! I went to ask German people if we could borrow there stove and luckily it was exactly the one we needed! (Second time that German people “save” our life!) And we had a wonderful dinner in the darkness surrounded by sand-flies, our best friends! I may have already talked about it: they are very small flies. When you see them for the first time, you may think that they are nice but in fact those are the worst! They bite you and you can’t help scratching for 2 weeks!

 

(5)    On the 31^st we drove almost all day long to go to Abel Tasman which is one of the best places for tramping. We went as usual to the i-site. We booked a boat for the next day. When we booked it, we didn’t really realize that we would have to walk for 8 hours to come back…We also booked two nights in the Mac Donald farm, a camp site. Did you know that Kiwi people were crazy about lamas… now you do! I asked a guy why they had some, I couldn’t find the reason. Maybe just for the wool to make some competition with the sheep.

The next day we took the boat for 30 minutes which brought us along the coast and dropped us on a beach. We were ready for an 8 hour walk!

At the beginning we really took our time, did some loops but then we realized that it was going to take us much more time than what we thought! The only nationality we met were German. At the end of this tramp, we couldn’t feel our feet anymore but we had had a great time and saw impressive sceneries!!

Before the last day, we went to the golden bay. Called so because people found a lot of gold there, during the gold rush. The water there is so clear (this is the second clearest water) that Maori people consider it as sacred.  Then I had a swim. On the pictures, the water seems so hot but believe me, this is not the case! We went back to the east, going to Nelson (6). It is told to be a historical place… I didn’t see much of it! Tomomy and I borrowed some bikes (be careful, the helmet is compulsory!) and went to a “Japanese garden” that didn’t look like one according to her!

And finally the next day, we came back to Picton (1)! We arrived way too early for the ferry. We did some walks but it was raining for the first time in 1 month… so a real good rain! I finally preferred taking the car and stopped to take pictures under the rain. And now we had to wait for the ferry. What can we do to kill time after having lunch, visited all the shops and ate donuts?... Get your hair cut! So did Evelyn! The result was not exactly what she expected but it was a good souvenir from Picton.

 

We finally took the ferry to reach our home sweet home!

No words to describe this trip! Just extraordinary!

A big thanks to Evelyn, Tomomy and especially Destinee who drove during this whole trip!