North Island

Day One: BOSLAX

We’re sheep when it comes to travel. Herd us into a line and tell us to do things and we do them – stand passively in line shuffling forward every few minutes, watching the people around you and noticing annoying things about them like their hairdos, or their incessantly boring cell phone conversations, or the way they dress their children. Then you part ways for awhile only to meet up with them once again to go through security –only this time we’re all minus our shoes. We take off our shoes and place them directly onto the conveyor belt, we take our laptops out and place them in the gray buckets, we let our carry-ons and everything else to be x-rayed and then we submit to metal detectors and bag inspections. Then we get on the plane, and the plane goes nowhere. They have us now.

Of course its Christmas Eve and everyone who was not required to work for some reason (money or coercion of some kind) is obviously not here, which means that the airport is short of the people who would normally handle baggage and all the other miscellaneous items required for take off. But the dumb thing is they cancelled our later flight and booked us on this new one, and here we are an hour later, the upshot of which is that we will arrive in LA at the same time we were planning to arrive in the first place.

The weather was clear and we could look out occasionally at the world. We passed two Great Lakes and thousands of acres of agricultural land, flat as a pancake. The pancake ended abruptly in mountains, beautiful ragged mountains, and then gave way into red rocks and canyons, which gave way to desert. I have no idea what we passed over, but flying over such terrain reminds you that we do live in a beautiful country. And I’m leaving it go visit somewhere else.

Now I’m sitting on a park bench under a palm tree inside LAX terminal. It’s about 6:30 pm here, 9:30 pm my time, and I’m already feeling the time difference. We have a long way to go and I’m not sure I can make it. The good news though, is that in terms of time difference (21 hours) we figured out we really only had to add a day and then subtract 6 hours. So the jet lag won’t be as severe, as long as we don’t think too hard about what day it is.

Day Two: Piha

We managed to get to Piha beach without killing ourselves or other drivers and mostly even staying on the correct side of the road. But when we got to our lodge the manager was nowhere to be found and no one seemed to know which rooms we’d be staying in or when the chap would be back. We were jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, and hungry, and very low on patience, but an offer of a shower and a quick bite at the local store improved our outlook almost immediately. We’re staying at a surfer’s paradise, and you’ve got to be laid back in this environment, dude. Otherwise you’d stress yourself out.

We’ve only been here about two hours and already we’ve seen more different flora and fauna. Some kind of flightless bird the which I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you the name of later (maybe a pukeko) came pecking its way across the lawn just now, and a dove-type bird with black and brown wings has been flying about (the common myna). The landscape is green, odd enough to a Yankee on December 26, but it’s also a different texture, and smells like wet earth.

Lionel is already discussing accents with kiwis here. He asked for directions at the gas (I mean Petrol) station and came back telling me to turn “lieft”. He’s met someone he thought was name Jolie only to find out her name was Julie, and I’m sure we’ll have many more misunderstanding before the week is done. Maybe even before the day is done.

Day Three: Piha Undrugged

Life is much better when you’re not jet lagged. After sleeping the sleep of the dead, we woke up around 7 am local time and were ready to tackle the day. So we went to the General Store for breakfast and coffee, and then climbed up Lion Rock. The rock looks very imposing from the ground but turns out to really be a lamb—there are stairs all the way up and the way is barred from travel half way up due to falling rock and unstable land. We took ourselves down off the rock and then hiked off towards another lookout we’d noticed while up on the Rock. The water is an aquamarine and the surfers below are mesmerizing. Along the way up we met a Jack Terrier puppy and his human, we started off on the dog and then turned away to native flora and fauna. There is a tree here in bloom they call their Christmas tree because it blooms in December and happens to be a red puffy flower, the name a native Maori word (pahutakawa). She then went on to recommend some other hikes, one being the Kitekite Falls, and we thanked her and moved on. Dogs make great ambassadors.

There was a stone bench on the look out and we sat awhile, noticing that beyond the regulated trail there was an inviting beach, which our friend with the dog had mentioned earlier was a “beach friendly for children” which the Piha beach is not – surfing beaches are good for waves but bad for swimmers. So Lionel and I immediately set out for it. We had a few false starts since our likely paths soon petered out—one ended in a cliff—but made it down to the beach to stick our toes in. The water was aquamarine and cold. Lionel, though not normally a swimmer, decided to take a plunge; I watched.

In the afternoon we took the track to the falls. The way in was full of unfamiliar flora, and Lionel was obliged to stop every few feet to inspect them. We soon followed suit, pointing out things which are probably common as mud here but were new to us. Tree ferns, palms, native pines, odd bushes and trees were abundant throughout, every few feet was something new. The falls were very pretty though crowded. It turns out its also a local swimming hole. It also turns out that today was the first day of sunlight they have had in quite some time. Winter is the rainy season and summer the dry, and the rain has apparently been especially wet this year.

We learned at lunch there had been a Tsunami in Eastern Asian countries due to an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, registered 8.9 on the Richter scale. It occurred to us, then, that we were not only in earthquake country but also tsunami country, and any large waves generated last night would have wiped us out without our even knowing. This is the downside of living on a volcanically active island.

This evening we tried to find a wine bar in Titirangi which turned out not to exist in Titirangi at all, but we did end up having a nice meal at a place called Toby’s. It’s a Statutory Holiday today (Boxing Day is a recognized Holiday here), and therefore they charged a 15% surcharge for dinner. The reasoning being the staff was paid more to work that day. It doesn’t work that way in the States, but then we don’t have federally mandated holidays either. Anyway the meal was well done and worth it – we all had lamb rump.

Tomorrow we quit this place and head north. My computer clock, still set at EST, reads 3:30am, and I suddenly realized that I should be asleep. So TTFN.

Day four: The Road to Waipoua

The day started out slowly and coffee-less, since the General Store in Piha was closed at 8:30 am even though the sign promised and opening of 8:00 am, sending me into a decaffeinated grumpiness. I was driving though and there were curves to negotiate, so I was soon concentrating on a) not hitting the side of the road, b) not hitting the traffic coming the other way and c) not forgetting that I was supposed to drive on the left. It’s actually quite remarkable how fast you become used to driving on the wrong side of the road, and also just as remarkable that even so you still turn on the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers at every intersection. Another feat is backing up – normally you will look over your right shoulder to accomplish this task and everything is quite normal. Somehow looking over your left shoulder makes objects in the rear window seem closer than they actually are.

We drove into Titirangi where we got our coffee and some gas, and finally we were off to the Northern part of the island to see the Kauri forests. As soon as we got onto the highway (a real live divided highway with three lanes) the landscape changed dramatically to field and pines. Except for the occasional tree fern or palm, we could have been back in Vermont. Soon we were in real countryside, the rolling hills kind with pasture as far as the eye could see. We stopped for a bit at an art gallery and then again for lunch, where I had the famous green lipped mussels. I don’t really know if they were famous, but the guide books all insisted they were the bomb. They were certainly delicious, but I’ve never met a mussel I didn’t like. They are in fact green lipped, or would be if they had lips—the tip of the shell is a translucent sea green. We were off again into more rolling pasture and stayed that way for some time as the road got less straight, less wide, and much more curvy, until we finally hit the edge of the Waipoua Forest and the landscape changed back to its native Kauri state and we were back in a jungle of tree fern, palm, cedar, and the Kauri tree.

Kauris are among the world giants in the tree world, keeping distant company with the giant sequoia. They can grow up to 50 meters tall with girths of up to 16 meters, they can live for thousands of years. It looks kind of like a pine in its immature state but turns into a giant branched animal with a smooth but mottled bark. The road through the park is a series of hairpin turns (158 of them our host informs us, leaving me to wonder who had the right mind to count them all) and much of it goes up right next to some very large trees—probably to their detriment—but not to ours. Pressed for time but fearing that it might rain in the morning, we stopped to view Tane Mahuta. This 2000 year old tree is revered by the Maori as the life giver, the god of the forest, and it isn’t too hard to see why. Tane Mahuta is huge and vital, the largest living Kauri tree in New Zealand at 51.5 meters tall, 13.8 meters in girth. Pictures of the tree don’t do it justice. Because it is so revered, you can’t touch it. You can get about ten meters away from it, but you are fenced away from it to prevent humans, like any other pest, from bothering the behemoth. Therefore our pictures of less large and less revered trees are more impressive than the king of them all—and maybe it’s just as well. The less stated the majesty, the longer the reign.

Our hosts had an American flag up as we drove in, and as we were discussing it Les (the host) interrupted me and said “You call that a U.S. flag?” I nodded, unsure of what was coming, and he said “I thought that was the George Bush flag, with a star for every country he’s conquered.” We laughed and then related that we had put our own Earth flag down to half mast after the election. He said that he’d met only one American who’d admitted to voting for G.W., to which I replied that I figured those people didn’t travel out of the country. We all laughed, thought it sad that the rest of the world is so disgusted with the U.S.

Day Five: Cows and Tree Ferns

After a nice breakfast during which our host referred to us as “George’s People” which we found funny though disturbing (we reminded him that we had successfully flipped our state to the good side and it wasn’t our fault the rest of the country didn’t follow suit), we set off towards the Waipoua Forest to the first of our several planned “Kauri walks”. We entered the boardwalked trail and followed the signs dutifully to the Four Sisters, to Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest—the second largest Kaori tree next to Tane Mahuta), and to Yakas, the seventh largest tree. The trees are huge more in girth than in height though some were very tall with full crowns. They have a brown and gray mottled bark which flakes off and prevents vines from getting a hold of them. We kept hearing birds but saw none here.

After this we stopped at the visitor’s center to do touristy things like buy t-shirts and the like, then we went off to Trounson forest which is only about 15 acres but is completely fenced in and has been successfully rid of possums and rabbits, making it a model of restoration for the rest of the island. Birds were much more plentiful here (enough so that we could spot them occasionally) and the whole ecosystem seemed more complete and compact. The trees were smaller but more packed together, and we felt we could get a sense of what the island looked like before the kauri were taken down.

While driving to Trounson we came across a familiar sight—cows—but what struck us as suddenly funny was the cow, the pasture, and the tree fern behind it. We have cows and pastures but the tree fern was certainly new. We snapped a picture to remind us what struck us as funny though looking at the picture I think perhaps you had to be there.

After Trounson we dropped Mom off at the B&B and headed off towards a hike our host had put us on to, where the kauri trees were still unbound by boardwalk and where tourists seldom went. There had been a steady wind since last night but the rain had held off until the afternoon. Along the way we saw a sign for “Housie” which we were hopeful involved some kind of raucous house party but apparently is another word for bingo. Before setting off we stopped in at the small craft shop where we parked (we thought it only fair to drop in since we were using their driveway to park) and spent some time in conversation with a young Maori man. He was very nice and clearly proud of his ancestry and very willing to share it with us, and so we gathered more information than we planned right there in the little shop. He mentioned that legend had it that two boats tied together for the sea voyage then broke apart and landed on different parts of the island, one on this side near the bay and another farther on. He explained that the one that landed in the bay was “his boat.” He also mentioned that the name of the area was named for the waterfall that we would pass by on the walk we were about to take, the Maori name meaning “Moonlight on the water.” By this time it was raining in earnest. We set off in the rain and the trail was a mess and slippery, but once up in the kauri forest it was worth it, beautiful with the rain falling in the distance through the wide crowns of kauri trees. We spent some time trying to identify the silver tree fern ( New Zealand’s national tree) versus other tree ferns without much luck (they are easy to identify if you turn the frond over but that’s too easy) and meandering over kauri roots and between kauri trees. While driving back we saw a brightly colored bird fly in front of our car ( Eastern Rosella, which, it turns out is an exotic pest of a parrot). We joked that we’d never seen birds like that except in a zoo (or a pet store). Cows and tree ferns, brightly colored birds. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.

This evening while we were eating dinner someone came in to mention that a whale had come into the harbor. Everyone got very excited and ran to the windows or straight outside to the wharf to see. We never saw it though perhaps we were too hungry to wait long enough. Somehow the excitement of everyone there was touching. I might have thought such things as whales in the harbor were commonplace to the people there but they were clearly as excited – more excited really—as we were to see the whale. The bartender who periodically came out to make sure everything was okay had a handlebar mustache and a Hawaiian shirt, and loved to say “righty-o” whenever we’d come to an agreement.

Righty-o, mates. And that’s all there is for today.

Day Six: Road to Rotorua

The day started off gloomily. It was windy again last night with some rain on and off, but during breakfast it began to rain in earnest. While we were packing our car we saw cows in a line down the road, with sheepdogs (or cowdogs, I guess) keeping them in line. It was an amusing sight, though our hosts thought we were crazy taking pictures of cows. “Don’t you have cows back home?” Les asked. “Yes,” I said, “but normally they stay off the road.”

We started off back through the Waipoua Forest, passing the refreshment truck for the fourth and final time, back onto the road we’d traveled two days before. We’d seen this country and it was raining, so we passed through it silently and fell asleep for a time, all except Lionel, who presumably stayed awake as he was driving.

We ate lunch in Warkworth at a very hip looking café. A sign on the door prohibited gang patches and asked for tidy looking dress. Apparently we passed muster since we got in. Here when we said thanks to the waitress, she replied “It’s okay,” as if we’d just apologized instead of acknowledging our food.

It seems New Zealand either has a preoccupation with safe driving or a real problem; every so often there are signs with either a big smiley face congratulating the regional folks for not having any fatal crashes in the current month, or a big sad face with the number of fatal crashes so far. Also many clever signs with slogans such as “To: Funeral. From: Tailgating.” Or less serious “To: Hospital. From: Speeding.” There’s also the catchy “Don’t let your mates drive drunk.” The Lonely Planet does proclaim drinking and driving to be the national sport (bigger than rugby or cricket). So far we’ve seen drivers fairly well behaved and personally I’d put any weaving down to the fact that they are driving on the wrong side of the road.

Actually we were doing fine with driving on the left. It becomes hard to imagine driving on the right side of the road with the steering wheel on the left side of the car, or that turning right does not cut across traffic. The only vestige of the old way, for me, anyway, is that I am liable to say left when I mean right because I am imagining which way I need to look at the traffic when I’m turning.

We passed through Tirau, which had several buildings sculpted into various objects, made out of corrugated tin—a wolf, a shepherd, and a sheep all on the same street. Everything appeared to be made of corrugated, not just the animals but the buildings as well (which made a bit more sense), but after that we began to notice it everywhere. Not just for roofs anymore, corrugated tin (and its probably not tin either) decorates the sides of bars and the outsides of houses, churches, you name it. In a B&B we stayed in later on, it adorns one whole wall of the living room, lovingly framed by native rimu wood. Never thought of corrugated as a design element, but it does well integrated like that, as long as you don’t look too closely and notice that its… well, its corrugated.

Just outside of Rotorua we saw a sign for zorbing. Zorbing involves being strapped inside a transparent sphere and being rolled down a hill. Apparently you can pick up speed 50kmh. I think we’ll pass on zorbing.

We were staying for New Year’s at the Hamurana Country Estate. The driveway is a long, windy road which makes the main road appear farther than it really is. Its also got space enough for just one car, making me wonder what might happen if a car is going the other way. Since it’s raining we are enjoying the dry indoors which is just as well – this is the poshest place we will be staying at (tomorrow being New Year’s Eve it suits us very well). It’s a two room suite with ensuite bathrooms. Our room has a queen size bed as well as a day bed overlooking the estate s(at the moment there are two horse in the field), as well as a beautiful bathroom—with a spa bathtub. Of which I intend to take full advantage. Mom’s room is overlooking the back gardens and another field where apparently there are baby deer. We saw deer herds (or something very much like deer) in fields around here, and venison appears on many menus, so apparently they have some success raising it for meat. Also ostrich. Possums are a menace and are being harvested with a vengeance—we saw possum hats as well as full pelts for sale. They were brought here to raise for their fur, (the smaller stoat was introduced to control the rat population—another mistake), whereupon they escaped into the wild to feed on birds, including the ever popular but endangered flightless kiwi. Pigs also were brought here by the Maori and are responsible for rooting out and killing tree ferns and other flora—we saw a magazine devoted exclusively for the pig hunter. They are big and black and hairy and look very scary. I wouldn’t want to meet one in the woods, at least not without a big gun or maybe a club.

Day Seven: Sweet As

Our first stop for the day was Waimangu, a volcanically active area of which the exact date of surface activity can be documented (June 10, 1886). It is classified as hydrothermal and therefore is mostly mudpools, steam vents and large bodies of hot water. First was a large lake named Frying Pan Lake which seemed mostly calm except at the edges; there were bubbling areas and almost out of earshot was a furious roaring, like water in a pot left boiling for too long. This lake fed a stream further on. The water was warm like a very hot bath, it was also soft.

Not everywhere but anywhere there were steam vents. Some emerged from mysterious places in the hills, some were right in the stream, causing the water to hiss. Larger ones made furious boils, smaller ones made frying pan sounds. Hence the name.

A lookout took us to Emerald Lake. And it was—a bright, cloudy blue pond, perfectly round. Apparently it oscillates in water volume, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, sometimes overflowing into the stream below. The oscillation of this body of water is in direct correlation with the activity in Frying Pan Lake, indicating the network is intricate beneath our feet.

Layers of silica forms steps as the water cools and the silica forms. The colors coming out of the earth are sometimes subtle and sometimes raucous, brilliant oranges swirling into white, yellow sulfur, black graphite. Sulfur crystals form along the edges of vents sometimes—sparkling lemonade yellow with the rotten egg stench makes the world seem topsy-turvy. Or maybe it’s the surroundings in general. In the real world there are no bubbling pools of mud or warm streams flowing out of hot, blue lakes, and if there are they should not be edged about by lush green forest.

The second stop of the day was Wai-o-Tapu, an even more desolate area of hydrothermal activity—it contained bubbling pits of oil slick water, sulfur crystals, random steam vents, a huge silica slick 200 meters wide, an emerald green pond, and a continuously bubbling pool called Champagne lake. On the way out we stopped at a mud pool. We could have been there for hours—the mud seemed to form itself into small hills as we watched. Some would destroy themselves in the next big eruption, others would carefully build up their sides. The eruptions were impossible to predict in the camera view—I took many pictures of inactive mud.

We stopped by at our hotel and turned around again to go to a hangi—the Maori version of a luau. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I suspected something just about as tacky and demeaning as a luau—a spectacle put on for visitors depicting what the visitors expected to see. But upon arrival it became clear that the Maori involved in the hangi were proud to be Maori, and happy to have an excuse to perform rituals otherwise long dead. The dances were performed with attention to detail, there were smiles on their faces as they showed us things. When we got our tickets the man at the desk said “Sweet as.” It seemed to be the equivalent of “great!” or in Maori, “kia ora” (translating to “be healthy”). He turned out to be our bus driver, and on the way to the site he said hello in fifty one languages.

More amazing than the Maori culture we witnessed was the fact that everyone on the bus truly came from different places. There were English, Americans, Australians, Japanese, Germans, and Koreans. By the end of the evening it was clear that a message was being sent us – we all have a culture that perhaps we need to hold onto. The Maori feel this strongly of course, because their culture has almost been obliterated. We speculated that if we were to hold a “luau” for conquering aliens, part of the ceremony might include a mock town meeting with New England Boiled Dinner as the main course. Sounds stupid, but if it were truly a lost art we might remember it fondly as the highlight of our society.

Intricate wooden carvings adorned the roofs of houses and the front of the marai (meeting house) where they took us to demonstrate dances and weapons. Most carvings depicted warriors in intimidating poses, one of which is the extension of the tongue – meaning to convey that you look tasty and will end up in the stomach of the warrior. The facial expression in person does look ferocious, but in some of the carvings it sometimes looks friendly, like a dog smiling at you in a welcoming fashion. I find these cultural differences to be fascinating. Even the simplest things like facial expressions are not universally understood, at least not as they were intended. If such ingrained stances are different across cultures, it makes sense that we have a hard time truly understanding each other.

Day Eight: More Bubbly

The trip to White Island (the most active volcano on—or near—New Zealand) was cancelled due to wind, so we found ourselves all dressed up with nowhere to go. Fortunately we were still in volcano country so it wasn’t hard for me to make up my mind – we took a tour of Whakarewarewa which the Maori have developed into a park system as well as a school for carvers. One workshop is open to the public. No one was working there while we were there, but the half finished wood carvings were fascinating. Some held strictly to the old style but some were clearly modern – and that is the point, after all, to take one’s art style and modify it to suit the times or to explore the future. Static art will not survive, static culture will not survive either. The Maori are learning ancient ways and hopefully in the process also preparing for the future.

The thermal park was eerie in that beyond the pools was civilization; a road with rushing traffic, a food mart, a golf course (where the steam vents and mud pools were part of the hazards). One mudpool being right in front of a hotel, causing me to complain that we should have stayed there –though the smell was noxious. This thermal area also boasted several geysers. The Puheto geyser erupts once or twice every hour. We sat awhile on the park bench to watch, unsure of what signs we should be looking for other than hot water gushing. Steam would pour out of various holes vigorously at times and not so vigorous in others, but this didn’t bring the water. Finally water crested the surface. It was a cute little gush at first, playful, but it quickly turned more serious, spouting water to an alarming height. We moved on. There were several mudpools which I had identified as being my favorite—they are the natural version of a lava lamp. They are constantly changing their shape, building themselves up and exploding themselves down. The rain also helps to melt them.

After tearing me away from the mud pools we moved onward towards Taupo, New Zealand’s largest and most resorty lake, and also incidentally one of its most active volcanoes, and on the way stopped at the Huka falls. The falls itself is short but the canal it has carved for itself is very narrow and deep—the volume of water going over the 20 foot drop is one of the largest in the world – the largest in the southern hemisphere. It was clear and blue and soft and deadly.

In Taupo we stopped for lunch. We ate at a small Middle Eastern Café, eating lamb and falafel pockets. Finding restrooms was easy. In the center of the park was (no lie), a Super Loo. Not just toilets, also showers and storage and what else, the downside being that we had to pay 40 cents to pee. We tried to find Lionel a belt but true to places everywhere, only women’s clothes shops were open on the holiday. What this means I don’t know. Only women need to where clothes on a holiday, or men make their own? Fortunately Woolworths was open, but it isn’t a clothing store, it contains food. We bought a bottle of NZ champagne for the New Year, and moved on towards Tongariro, our final destination of the day.

Day Nine: Foiled Again

A note on pronunciation: “wh” is pronounced as an “f”. Today’s venture was to Whakapapa, and we joked that the English chose a “Wh” spelling of the Maori over an “F” purely defensively. They heard the Maori’s say “f—k” every other word, and decided something had to be done. They could have named the town Hadley, or something, but they chose the middle course. So: we went to Whakapapa Village. ‘Nuf said. (Whakapapa, I later learned, means “geneaology” in Maori and is actually an extremely important part of the Maori culture. I mean no disrespect but I do speak nothing but English, after all. I suspect that as in all languages there is some English word that fluent Maoris cringe whenever they hear. That’s the beauty of the tower of Babel).

We were scheduled to do the Tongariro Crossing today, and though the weather was such that we would have physically been able to do it without being frozen, drown, blown off the mountain or otherwise incapacitated, we didn’t come all this way to walk in the rain. If it had been our only day to go we would have done it, but the weather forecast calls for much better weather (i.e. the elusive yellow ball of heat) tomorrow. So we set out for shorter walks around the area.

We settled on the Silica Rapids, a two hour walk through alpine scrub and native beech forest, satisfying both my need for volcanic evidence and Lionel’s need for new species of flora. It was cold and drizzly when we set out. There were no tree ferns here, or palms either—it was similar in appearance to alpine country anywhere, albeit when you looked closely you would notice you’d never seen such a fern before. Native beeches don’t look anything like a beech I’ve seen before. Huge trees sprout impossibly small leaves, and consequently many of them, to serve the needs of the tree without freezing. Boxwoods were scattered throughout, some in bloom, and the native alpine daisy occupied the wetter and boggier areas. Going through a bog we found small sundews with tiny insect catching leaves, also heather, which is an invasive here.

The tracks are well laid out and where there are wet areas there are boardwalks, a good solution to the problem of too many tourists to a beautiful area. We passed by a waterfall falling from high above our heads, and native mistletoe which attaches itself to the beech and is itself devoured by possums, which are also not native and invasive. The trees gave way to scrub brush and thin volcanic soils, and then we came upon the rapids, beautiful cream colored bedrock with water overflowing them. The color is caused by aluminum dissolved in the water and deposited on the stream bed as the water passes over it. The sun had finally made an appearance and the stream glowed accordingly.

Passing back on the return track, Lionel happened to look up from his close inspections of small plants and saw that there are indeed mountains about. Driving to Tongariro it had been cloudy with no mountains in view, and we were left to assume they were far in the distance, not visible from where we were. All of a sudden looming heavily over us was a snow capped volcano. Mountains change your perspective immediately. The world became much bigger, the plants beneath us insignificant, the mountain, Ruapehu, very much the god. It is an active volcano, last erupted in 1995-1997; it is also a ski resort, a dual existence which strikes me as slightly incompatible. Apparently there is a sophisticated volcano warning system as well as volcanic alerts (today we are at 1, slightly high than normal but by no means up to 3, which means eruption is in progress), but the eeriness of the earth’s insides coming out so violently and the aggressive carving of trails don’t quite mix. I joked that land must be quite cheap around here – if it were for sale that is, and not a national park. You might wake up one day to find your prize lilies covered over with a lahar (mudslide) or better yet a lava flow. Or your house might go and your lilies spared. These violent works don’t make much sense. That’s why I find them so fascinating.

There’s three of them here, Mt. Ngauruhoe, Mt. Ruapehu and Tongariro. Tomorrow should bring a wonderful crossing. And I’ll leave you with that.

Day Ten: Tongariro Crossing

We’ve just climbed Mt. Doom, otherwise known as Mt. Ngauruhoe, and it’s worth it. . We’re not in Hobbit country, that was further back in Waipua and sheep country. This is Middle Earth, pure, imposing, volcanic, beginning. There’s an outer edge with active vents where Lionel posed over the vent with his wedding ring, poised to throw the One Ring into the fire. He decided against it though, and so we made our way up to the crater. Red rock surrounds the very top of the cone.

The way up was ferocious. It’s an almost vertical climb in mostly sifting ash, impossible to get good footing or any good handholds, also death to anyone with a fear of falling, which I have. I’ve gotten over it though in recent years, self defense really, since Lionel keeps taking me on walks with less than secure footing along sheer drops. It takes two and a half hours to reach the top. It takes half an hour tops to get down.

We got up at five again this morning, and this time the guide didn’t even bother to explain the weather, it was obvious that it was going to be a gorgeous day. On good days like this, 500 people will cross this track, a good deal of them will run it, for some reason known only to them. It takes 7-8 hours on the crossing alone, not counting the scramble up Mt. Ngauruhoe. At first it was cold, chilly air and no sun, and the valley was well graded and at times boardwalked for easy walking. We got to the Devil’s Staircase and the royal treatment stopped; up this long and steep track over boulders and drops, then up to what you thought was the top only to discover that you’re not done yet. It’s all lava rock and pumiced and black, odd shapes pushing up out of the ground. Up we go and the sun finally comes out at possibly the worst time—while we’re working up a sweat trying to get up the Staircase. Then it evens out and there is Ngauruhoe, classic cone shaped volcanic mountain.

So here we are up on top of it and it is time to go down. Going down, it turns out, is easy. First you slide down the snow top between the crater and the outer ridge, then you pick a good spot with mostly ash and not too many large rocks and you ski your way down on your boots. Sometimes you’ll knock a rock out of its slumber and it will start to tumble down the mountainside. “Rock!” you’ll yell, and hope that the others downhill from you will take up the call. I dislodged such a rock from the very beginning and it fell, gaining speed, bouncing over a snow field, finally stopping a thousand feet below. You could get seriously hurt on this mountain. But how often do you get to climb a volcano? So we swish our way down in record speed, conveniently forgetting that it took so long to get up here. It’s almost like skiing only I only have boots and no snow, and we reach the bottom 3 and ½ hours from when we started. 3 1/2 ! We must have spent some time up on the cone itself, getting distracted. Anyway we’re now going to be late for the bus, but there’s no help for it, we go on.

We cross over an impossibly flat area in a valley, which looks like an old crater but apparently was formed by glacier. Then we head back up towards the Emerald and Blue lakes and Red Crater, up another steep incline with loose soil. It isn’t as bad as before but it’s no picnic after Ngauruhoe, and our thighs are cramping a little bit in protest. It soon passes though, and we’re at the Red Crater. It’s certainly red, and eerie, with what a an eroded lava dyke coming out of its side. The dyke is gray inside and red outside, an eerie contrast. We start down again, through more of the sifting ashy stuff, slowly, since Mom has the same fear of falling that I do. She’s not enjoying this part at all but I am – there’s craters and lava flows, vents and green lakes surrounding us. No vegetation graces this area, sometimes an odd flower or grass stuck under the rocks out of the wind, but nothing more. The side of the trail steams and sulfur fills the air again, then we pass by the green lakes and head through another thankfully flat area until we start to go up again. A lava flow once stopped in its tracks halfway in its journey across this valley, and it looks as though it were yesterday, since the lake that it stops at it steaming at the edges, as if it were trying hard to cool off the rock.

The weather has changed a bit with fog rolling in fast from up the mountainside, and the view gets restricted. We’re back in alpine shrub country and the track has ceased to be so steep. There’s another whiff of sulfur but I can’t see anywhere it would be coming from, so we move on.

We wind our way across the mountain in this fashion for sometime, hitting boardwalk finally which means we’re close to other infrastructure, mainly the hut where we’ll get more water, and it becomes quite clear where the sulfur smell is coming from. A place identified as the Kehutia Hot Springs, Private Property, forbids entry to trampers. It’s steaming furiously and I’m not sure I want to get too close to it anyway.

After the hut we make our way down, getting quite close to the steaming vent which apparently outputs a stream, or maybe the stream just runs through it. It’s not hot water, but it’s certainly not cold, and it’s soft to the touch. Moving through this area we see more vents, more sulfur pits, and then we’re out of volcano country, probably for good.

By this time we’re exhausted and I start counting to myself as a way to keep pace. We leave the alpine shrub and enter the forest, which smells sweet and cool and surely signals that we’re getting close to our destination. But it’s another half an hour until we emerge to the other side, where our concerned bus driver awaits us. We’re an 1 ½ late, the fault of Mt Ngauruhoe, and we’re mostly unrepentant. It was a twelve hour hike for us, and we spent it well. We’re exhausted though, so it’s a good thing tomorrow we’re doing nothing but driving.

Day Eleven: Last of the North

We started off a little late in the morning, stopping to buy a poster of Mt Ruapehu erupting at sunrise. Lionel complained we had enough pictures to make our own posters but I pointed out that Mt Ruapehu had not cooperated on the volcanic scale while we were there and therefore I needed a picture of it at its best. Then we moved on down towards Wellington.

Windy road through denuded sharp inclines and a bizarre use of Lombardi poplars – sometimes standing out on a ridge like feathers stuck in the ground. We passed a crop duster which at times looked as though he would sail right through us, the contours of the hills being so great. We passed the perfect rows of pine plantations, and endless fields of green and sheep and cows.

Just past another waterfall stop we ended up in a traffic jam—hundreds of sheep were converging on us. We were the only car going towards them but four cars were behind the sheep waiting patiently for the two ATV’s and the two barking dogs to move the sheep along.

We stopped in Martonborough, a sleepy little town with small and prize winning wine grapes clustered about the center. We got there just before they were closing for the day and tried a few, ending up buying a couple of bottles and moving on again towards Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, and its only real city.

Day Twelve: Wellington: A City

Wellington’s a city, a westernized city. It’s a nice city, but we could have been in Seattle, especially since it rained all day. It certainly has nice features—we were able to have high speed internet access in the comfort of the hotel and we were able to walk to stores for items we’d been needing to get, as well as several excellent cafés and restaurants of all kinds, museums, parks, etc. Also noise, pollution, random collections of houses and high-rises, speeding traffic, and pavement as far as the eye can see.

We split off in the morning for a while. Lionel went to see someone at DoC (Department of Conservation), while Mom and I decided to wander around. We needed some batteries and some film, and also we needed to mail the key we’d unwittingly stolen from Solitaire Homestay. We stumbled onto the park next to the wharf, found a museum with free admittance (the Wellington City & Sea museum: small but well done), spent some time there, and then asked directions for a post office. The receptionist directed us to just down the street.

We found an imposing entrance to the New Zealand Post, and once inside it seemed the New Zealander’s took their mail seriously: there were no post office boxes in sight or stamp machines or indeed anything to indicate one would mail something here—a sign about security hung upon the door and insisted that we sign in with the receptionist. So we did. But it turned out the New Zealand Post wasn’t where we wanted to be at all; this was the central administration building (Wellington is the capital after all), what we wanted was a Postal Shoppe. Fortunately it was just the next door down.

We met up again at lunch and then went to Te Papa, “Our Place” the national museum. A real effort was being made to include the Maori culture in this place, with examples of old Maori art and architecture as well as modern Maori descriptions alongside the English. It turns out that Maori is an official New Zealand language, a fact which seems to be quite well hidden from road signs, cereal boxes, directions and so forth. But here in the capital, or in the National Museum at any rate, the Maori are equal partners in the development of New Zealand. The museum made attempts to show the unrest of Maori protesters in several instances, and displayed without prejudice the Maori flag of sovereignty.

We’re not just here in Wellington for the fun of it; we need to catch the ferry tomorrow. We drop off our car on this side, ride the three hour ferry, and pick up another car on the other side. We say goodbye to the North Island and travel on to the South for the remainder of our trip.

tags: classic larc  new zealand  world travelers