Activity Summary
Saturday 10th December - Day 100 (continued)
Tauranga day visit
Moturiki island
Mt Maunganui walk
Sunday 11th December - Day 101
Whakatane day trip
Nga Tapuwae o Toi Trail (with adaptations)
Monday 12th December - Day 102
Hell’s Gate geothermal reserve & mud spa
Kuirau lake & park
Tuesday 13th December - Day 103
Lake Rotorua
Sulphur Point
More running away from rain
Wednesday 14th December - Day 104
Kerosene creek
Orakei Korako Geothermal Park & Cave
Aratiatia rapids
Huka Falls
Drive to Taupo
World's coolest McDonalds
Failed bid to see anything in Taupo
Drive to Hastings
Summary
Tauranga
Seemed like a cool place to chill when driving through. Had a number of bars and food joints in the centre that seemed busy and vibey but we aren’t so interested in it. The walking was decent enough (nothing complex) and had the weather been much nicer Luke may have been tempted to surf but given the distance away from the campsite this would have taken a bit more planning than could be bothered with.
Whakatane
Small place with little going on apart from various walks through nature reserves which were very enjoyable. NZ and its roads / walking tracks seems to have taken quite a beating of late so there are quite a lot of repairs or straight up closures, as we found out here.
Rotorua
The thermal pools, mud baths & geothermal activity impact on the landscape was epic. A number of different activities were well worth doing in the area and were great fun.
Accommodation
Rotorua - Top10 Blue Lake
Number of nights - 4
Price per night per person - £10
Enjoyable Top10 with really good facilities and again, if the weather was better, a great lake to relax in on the doorstep. The TV room even had sky sports. Unfortunately as there were a lot of kids around this meant we weren’t properly able to stake a claim on the room in the evening but this wasn’t the end of the world. Good kitchen, free to use bbq and good vibe throughout (as not a city/town campsite). The WIFI and mobile data signal was awful but this just meant any productive time researching was non-existent.
The Bay of Islands were about 1-1.5 hrs away from the campsite so suited us well for exploring this coastline while also having Rotorua on our doorstep. With a tent this made it very easy to set up shop and not worry about the drama of packing up. Overall it was one of our favourite camping spots on the trip.
Diary
[Continued]
Having done some research we concluded that the cities/towns along the coast of the Bay of Islands could be done in day trips from our campsite in Rotorua so our day plan was to head over to Tauranga and then pitch our tent in the afternoon/evening.
We parked up along the beach front a short walk away from town (to ensure free parking) and had some lunch on a coastline bench. Naturally this drew in many of the local seagulls but they did very little but sit and watch patiently - only once did Nicola have to run at them when we both let our guard down when fetching provisions from the car. The whole experience is still so alien to us.
On our way along the coast and into the town we stopped by Moturiki island which had a blowhole worth seeing. We however had not timed this overly well and at low tide it wasn’t particularly impressive. The most entertaining part was the surfers battling pretty choppy conditions and Nicola getting hounded by a Polish tourist who was very aggressive in both her asking for photos and then the direction given to take said photos. She took the piss but Nicola is far too nice to tell her to jog on.
We carried along the coast and Luke found a wallet that had clearly fallen out of someone's pocket. Us being the good citizens we are, spent the next 15 minutes trying to work out who this Irish dude was, how we contact him and who we should hand it in to. Nicola proved to be far savvier with the old facebook/instagram stalk and slipped into his DM’s with a natural elegance that should really worry Luke. She was successful and after getting in contact with him we handed back his wallet, much to the relief of his other half more than him hilariously, and we were done with the good deed of the day. Well played Nicola.
We were then able to continue on our walk around Mt Maunganui. The lower levels of the hill were pretty clear but as soon as we descended up the view evaporated with the cloud cover. Luke got his exercise for the day by running off up the hill at his pace (loves a hill climb) before we were reunited for the viewpoint and summit. As expected we could see very little.
We continued down the otherside of the hill to complete the loop which gave a nice view of part of the area we hadn’t seen and explored a little bit more of the area before making our way back to the car. We had a short stop off at Kathmandu (find ourselves constantly frequenting outdoor shops just for fun) then took off to Rotorua.
At the campsite we pitched the tent, cooked some food and tried to occupy the TV room but were thwarted by a host of teens. We’d finally found LOTR and were very keen to watch it. Sadly this was not to be so we just awkwardly sat at a table charging our devices and scroll holeing.
Today’s day trip was to Whakatane which is a wonderful name simply because its said fuck-a-tane. Love it.
Grey clouds seemed to be stalking us with the constant threat of Miley Cyrusing our day, but Luke was determined to get a decent walk in and the Nga Tapuwae o Toi Trail was well trodden and not particularly challenging. Nicola gave in to Luke’s persistence but was not very happy with the thought of doing a 16km walk in the rain.
We parked up and started on the trail. The trail led through the Kohi Point scenic reserve where Luke falsely cried “kiwi” when seeing a weka - the equivalent of New Zealand’s wild chicken (there are a number of wild kiwi in the reserve and while we were desperate to see them, if we did that would be a pretty big concern given they are nocturnal). He would then take this habit with him wherever he went and cry kiwi at the sign of any form of wildlife - what a moron.
The first viewpoint through the tree line came out on the northern cliff edge and theoretically we could have seen White Island in the distance, which is the most active volcano site in New Zealand and erupted a few years ago so was closed off to the public. The cloud cover meant we could see nothing so instead we struck up a conversation with a trail runner who advised Luke his route planning was poor (she was much politer than this) and that the route from Otarawairere Bay to the West End reserve beach had had a massive rock slide and was inaccessible. Ever the optimist we carried on but Luke had planned a detour round if needed.
Once out of the trees and cliffs we descended onto the beach for a short time, which was great to have all this variety in a walk, until we hit that rock slip. Sensibly we turned up to village and round but this wasn’t such a pleasant part of the walk on the road and the drizzle had started to dampen Nicola’s mood along with her blisters.
Eventually we cut back onto the route, skipping out the Ohope reserve given our pretty big detour. The last part took us through more forest in the Mokoroa Bush Reserve before ending back at the car.
All in all, it ended up being a 17.9km hike, elevation gain 634m and walking time of 3hr 40mins. A little further than Luke had planned.
Endorphins pumping & feeling revitalised (for Luke anyway) we set off back to the campsite.
We realised the TV room was free for a change (although probably because it was Sunday and the kids had left) so Luke cooked dinner while Nicola hogged the TV until food was presented. Our evening was spent watching the first LOTR movie, sipping wine (Luke anyway) and chilling, despite some tools playing air hockey behind for a short while.
After a decent day's walking we had the pleasure of treating ourselves to a nice spa day at Hell’s Gate geothermal reserve & mud spa. We’d both never been mudding before so we were pretty excited for this, although it came with a pretty hefty price tag of course. The sunshine had even come out to play, although for a day of sitting in hot water it was probably poorly timed.
The reserve was pretty close to our campsite so it was easy to head over and join up with the guided tour in the morning. This was run by a local with a pretty dry and sarcastic sense of humour and he offered a lot of information throughout so we were very happy we took up this option than the self guided version.
We walked around the various hot sulphur pools, hearing about various death inducing qualities of the thermal pools and the history of the reserve. Most fascinating was the fine line between perfectly clear and safe waters, noted by the green plant life, feeding into the unviable sulphur pool.
The next part of the tour went through part of a forest that was growing perfectly fine so close to the pools. The sulphur had interacted with the trees in an incredible way and given the trunks an interesting yellow tint. There also was a waterfall that was used solely for Maori warriors (men only) and were given the key information into finding the NZ silver fern. Tip - the silver fern is actually the underbelly of the mature leaves of the plant when held against a dark enough surface. Otherwise its green to the light. Pretty cool.
The last part continued around further hot pools before concluding at a number of ever evolving mud volcanoes that rise and collapse based on the sturdiness of the heated mud spewed out.
We had some lunch in the centre before heading to the spa pools and mud baths. We started at the mud pool, of which every guest is allowed 20 minutes before having to get out. Plenty of time to get a full body sulphur infused mud soak in. Everyone is forewarned to avoid the eyes but we both still managed to get some residue there and cause us a fair amount of pain. Nicola managed this in the mud pool which led to a completely botched (original photo op for once) of Luke being a lying down sexy beast.
After washing off we continued our relaxing treatment in the various sulphur pools which run somewhere in the 30’s and then cooling down in a plunge pool. Luke managed to get sulphur in his eye this time which was rather unpleasant. All in all a great activity.
We still had the rest of the afternoon free so we parked up and walked around Kuirau lake & park. Much like Hell’s Gate, the water is bubbling away in pools all over the place with various warnings of death and destruction. The biggest lake was pretty cool as the temperature and wind changes blew hot smoke across the water to reveal crystal clear & algae free sparkling water. Looks delish - burns like absinthe.
After having such a strenuous spa day we were absolutely pooped so retired back to the campsite, fried up some fresh falafel pitas (actually amazing) and were even given some free chocolate mud cake and custard (Nicola had been craving this of late) by a travelling tag rugby club that were catering for a whole host of teenagers. Great outcome for us and they ended up leaving a whole host of free food and utensils the next day so pilfered as much as we could. Luke was eating Weet-bix (nowhere near as good as Weetabix) for weeks but made breakfasts very cheap.
We had some drama with our pitch power but the guy next to us was far more on it than we were or cared given all we really charged were phones, ipads and power banks vs a whole campervan. So we let him run around all evening with the Top10 guy and concluded it stopped working. Deciding it’s tomorrow’s problem we went to bed.
After waking up, Luke from the tent and Nicola from the car still (only to return when the weather was “better”), we had a nice little greeting with some ballsy ducks who had clearly been sheltering in our tent while we were out as evidenced from the poop. They only started to run away when we moved but clearly took a liking to our set up / the bugs inside. Personally, if they wanted to chill with us we would have had no problems but it was left as a loose friendship.
Visibility had returned to its washout ways so anything we would do today was not going to be spectacular. Needing to do some research (as we had been pretty busy / tired in our evenings / lacking solid internet) we chose a great little cafe in Rotorua called Ciabatta cafe & bakery and spent the afternoon there until it closed at 3pm. We spoke to some very friendly locals, the cafe owner and with WIFI and power we were able to comfortably get some admin done with great coffee on offer. We were a little naughty in sneaking in our homemade sandwiches and taking turns to eat on the main street. But you know, monies.
Once booted out, we had little left to do in Rotorua apart from seeing Lake Rotorua. Visibility wasn’t great and the wind was pretty cutting so we didn’t stay long but got a good glimpse at some black swans which look straight up evil.
Another small stop we had was Hatupatu scenic point but it was the most trashy and horrible place. Various people just seemed to go to Mcds and chow down at this “scenic” spot. We parked up and started walking down to a place called sulphur point, then swiftly regretted leaving the car there so Luke ran back to get it. In the 5 minutes Luke had been away Nicola had been cat called by some boy racers. Wonderful scenes.
Although Luke did chase a flock of seagulls which was both fun and naughty.
Sulphur point was ok, let down by the fact we had already seen incredible sulphur pools over the last few days. It did however smell the worst (lovely sulphury egg), so guess it has got that going for it.
The rain kicked in again so we parked up and pretty much ran away tut pub where we continued researching and not talking to each other for a few hours, drooling at the pub food being served all around us but completely unwilling to part with over $20 for the privilege. Our sense won out, although Luke’s two pints were not cheap.
Getting hungry we retreated back to the campsite for the evening. We had obtained the minor refund of losing power for the 2 nights, more a moral victory than game changing financial reward, but were fortunate enough that they managed to fix it by the time we got back so no further drama arose. May buy us a free cucumber.
The forecast for the next few days was not expected to be great so we made the decision to do a drive by of the north side of Lake Taupo rather than a full trip here, but rather aim to do so on the way back up from South Island (especially the Tongariro crossing).
We packed up the tent as best we could as although it was dry outside it was pretty cold overnight so the tent was wet. Luke was able to do a pretty good job of drying it out before we took off.
Our final hot water experience around the Rotorua area was to Kerosene creek, a free warm water and gentle flowing river. It was surprisingly really nice. It wasn’t overly busy when we arrived and when it did get overcrowded in the first area we were in we simply retreated further downstream. Piece of advice post spending a load of time in sulphury water - do not wash any of this swimwear with the rest of your clothes. We did this the following day, and weeks later we are still trying to get this smell out of our clothes. Bad faux pas.
Once again relaxed from the soothing warm waters (sorry-not-sorry to friends & family in the UK who were experiencing negative temperatures this week and saw us chilling in warm water pools constantly) our next fun day activity was the Orakei Korako Geothermal Park & Cave. Luke was completely unaware what this was as Nicola had sorted out tickets but it was low key amazing. After a short boat ride over Lake Ohakuri we were greeted by amazing silica terraces of ridiculous and vibrant colours as well as hot spring geysers (although these were pretty small).
We walked around the park, waited for one of the geysers to do something magical (which it didn’t) and saw Ruatapu cave, one of only two thermal caves in the world with the other being in Italy.
The next stop was the Aratiatia rapids which is a dammed river that has scheduled releases of water. We had done zero research on this however and on the drive over Nicola found out we had 2 minutes to get over to the bridge before the release. So a well timed park up meant we saw the release in full swing, before walking to a viewpoint a little further down the river. Fun fact - this was also the place that they filmed the dwarves in a barrel down the river scene for the Hobbit, sending down empty barrels multiple times and then CGI’ing the dwarves into the shot.
Further up the river, and an easy drive and park up, was easily the most impressive waterfall we have seen in New Zealand. Huka Falls has a mad volume of water flowing through it, roaring as it goes down the 11m cliff face at 160 cubic metres of water per second.
Now starving we had already consigned to a shameful mcds but it turns out the one in Taupo is noted as the ‘coolest’ of them all. One can frequent a real old converted plane and chow down on that big mac. It was too much effort to make it up the stairs for us however.
Once we were fed we stopped by a couple of viewpoints of lake Taupo, both high and waterside, but we could see diddly squat. So we continued on our journey over to Hawkes Bay and the Top10 campsite in Hastings.
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