New Zealand

A Summertime Christmas:  Our Holiday in New Zealand

By

Randall D. Ball

Photo album by Christine L. Meunier (follow this link)
and map of the roadtrip (follow this link)

Three flights, including a fourteen-hour marathon followed by a twelve-hour layover in Australia, and we were at passport control in Auckland Airport, where the immigration officer warned us: “Watch out for the Kiwi drivers.  It’s the holidays, and they’re all drunk.”  With that welcome to New Zealand, we were in.

Christine’s parents flew in from the United States and us from our home in Pakistan, and we met up at our hotel in Auckland, on a hilltop overlooking—just barely—the harbor.  A colorful, aromatic public rose garden was just across the street, so that was our first exploration of the trip.  Then, in two cars, our Ball-Meunier caravan, we took an afternoon drive—on Christmas Day—north of town, through some rolling hills and fields with numerous sheep.  On more than one occasion, we would hear the statistic that there were more sheep than people in New Zealand.  Very few places were open on the holiday, of course, but we found a fish-and-chips take-away and took a box load of it, stopping outside a closed-for-the-holidays school for a greasy picnic on their grounds.  That was our Christmas dinner, on a road called Dairy Flats.

“But we’re makin’ memories,” as Christine’s father Alan said.

Boxing Day took us up the mountainous coastline to the Arataki nature trail, where we saw the endangered kauri tree.  Just over an hour-long hike, but the trail was steep at times.  From there we drove back down the mountain to the Karekare waterfall and then to the beach at Piha, where Anastasia and Talula played in a little inlet and probably would’ve stayed much longer if we weren’t all risking sunburn.  On the way back into town, we stopped at a little village grocery store for some bread, cheese, cold cuts, and fruit, and had a picnic in a park in the suburbs.

On our third day in New Zealand, we drove around the Coromandel peninsula, stopping frequently along the dramatic coastline and in the mountains in the center, and finally spending a few hours at Hot Water Beach, where—if you dig a little—hot spring water bubbles up and you can sit and simmer.  Or just play in the sand and surf as Anastasia and Talula did. 

As dinner approached, we tried to find something suitable near our hotel.  Alan had seen a barbeque-slash-saloon advertised, but their kitchen was closed.  Then we tried a Chinese hole-in-the-wall, but a customer there complained, to us, about the quality and price of the food, so we took the hint and left, opting for a Thai place down the hill.  It was decent but nothing special.  As Christine would point out on several occasions, the food in New Zealand often tasted rather bland, even when it should have flavor, like in Thai and Indian restaurants.

Day four was spent closer to base:  the touristy and mouthful Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World Sea Life Museum.  It had some good exhibits, though:  penguins, sharks, and sea horses especially, plus rays, jellyfish, and the usual marine life.  From there we went to the expansive, impressive Auckland Botanic Gardens.  The weather was perfect:  warm and sunny with the occasional gentle breeze.  We had lunch at a kebab hole-in-the-wall (again, just decent) and dinner was another picnic, this time around the pool of our hotel.

The next day we left Auckland for the Northland:  a drive up the east coast, ending at the Bay of Islands where we ate seafood at a waterside restaurant and then visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where we witnessed a traditional Maori welcome and cultural performance, saw the location of the famous treaty between British crown (Queen Victoria) and the Maoris, and gawked at their huge canoes.  Following that, we had a surprisingly good dinner at a Mexican restaurant that evening. Our overnight stay in Kerikeri was certainly different:  we stayed in little cottages in a bit of a “jungle” setting, or “subtropical accommodation.”  The site also had an unusual sculpture garden.  The girls’ favorites were “sculptures” of giant pencils and “A Box of Water” (literally, water in a box, also known as modern art).  Our evening ended with the adults playing cards on the back porch and watching the wildlife (rabbits, green parrots, a kingfisher, but alas—no kiwi birds).

In the morning we hit a nice bakery and then drove down the west coast of Northland.  We hiked around a rocky bay that was quite spectacular, and we also hiked in Waipoua Forest, where we saw huge, ancient kauri trees, one perhaps 2000 years old.  This forest also made for an enjoyable picnic spot.

On the seventh day, God rested.  We didn’t.  We continued driving south, towards the center of the North Island, to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.  We hiked down into the cave for a bit and then took a very brief boat ride (I joked that it took longer to load the boat than to actually ride in it) into the dark caverns, with millions of glowworms on the walls and especially on the cave’s ceiling, like some inner-earth star system above us.  It was a memorable experience.

From there we visited the Otorohanga Kiwi House to see some real kiwi birds (the nocturnal non-fliers are otherwise rare to behold) and a few other critters.  Our day concluded in the beach town of Raglan, where people jumped off a small bridge for kicks.  We opted against this activity, however.  As Christine’s mother Lucy said, “We all must be boring.”  We had another evening picnic, though, overlooking the bay, before heading inland to our hotel in Hamilton.

New Year’s Day saw us in the very touristy town of Rotorua, but we were busy.  Wanting real—not hotel or gas station—coffee, we found a little bakery that was open, and Anastasia spotted some fried chicken on display.  So the girls ate chicken and fish and chips for breakfast, and I just couldn’t resist a nice piece of pork rib.  Lucy had an ice cream cone.  Christine just made faces at us in disgust.  After all, it was just 8:30 am.

Then we visited an agricultural theme park, for lack of a better phrase.  The Agrodome features an entertaining sheep-shearing show with a few surprises and a tour of the farm, where Talula adored feeding and holding the sheep while Anastasia clung to me in fear.  We also tasted some kiwi juice and wine and honey from the farm.  Then we drove across town to Te Puia, the largest of the geysers in the area.  Dinner that night was at the Pig and Whistle Pub downtown, where we had some tasty pub grub.  Unfortunately, colder, wetter weather was settling in.

Sunday morning, we enjoyed a redwood forest and took a tree-top walk above the forest canopy.  The girls were more interested in the swinging, suspension-like bridges (23 total) than in the views themselves.  We walked along some trails below as well, with the rain showers getting heavier.  Then we headed south to Lake Taupo, but with the rain, there wasn’t much to see.  We had lunch at a fairly forgetful restaurant and then parted ways with Lucy and Alan, who had an early-morning flight to catch back in Auckland. 

Christine, Anastasia, Talula, and I spent about ninety minutes in the small but kid-friendly Taupo Musuem and then drove along the eastern shoreline of the lake to our hotel at the southern tip, which featured some geo-thermal pools in which Christine and the girls soaked briefly.

The fog really encroached on us Sunday as we drove south from Lake Taupo to Tongariro National Park.  We hiked through a rain forest (and yes, it was raining all right) to the “greenstone lake,” Lake Rotopounamu, at the base of Mount Pihanga.  Through all the fog, though, we couldn’t see any of the volcanoes in the park.  It was that bad.  We stopped at Whakapapa (the “wh” in Maori is pronounced as an “f,” thus making “Whakapapa” sound obscene in English) to get informed at yet another nice visitor’s center, but again, we couldn’t see the huge Mount Ruapehu looming in the dense, wet, cold fog.  So we drove onward, stopping at a roadside diner for lunch where the waitress had the personality of someone in a dead-end job at a crappy diner in the middle of nowhere.  Then we continued our five-hour drive to Wellington at the southern tip of the North Island.

Day Twelve, Monday, we spent in Wellington, driving around the harbor in search of seals and penguins.  We saw penguin-crossing signs, but nothing else beyond a few gannets, flocks of seagulls (80s reference!), a dead fish that Talula picked up and played with, a dead starfish which Talula picked up and played with, and several dead sea urchins that Talula decided against touching.  Then we hit Te Papa, the fabulous and enormous Museum of New Zealand.  Highlights included the Earthquake House (a simulator), a huge dead squid (Talula climbed on top of the glass but couldn’t touch it, no matter how much she wanted to), and some informative exhibits about volcanoes.  We didn’t even see half the museum, unfortunately.

Tuesday morning, we woke up early to catch a flight to Christchurch on the South Island.  From there, we drove westward across the country, stopping at Castle Rock for a brief hike in a valley covered in huge rocks, into the Southern Alps across Arthur Pass with its famed viaducts (an engineering marvel), and enjoying lunch at the Pass, where a kea bird swooped down, landed on our outside table, and stole Talula’s pizza.  There’s a sign admonishing patrons against feeding the kea, and the waitress clucked at us a bit.  I am certain she didn’t believe our story.

We hit the west coast at Greymouth.  The road into town necessitated a drive across a long, narrow train trestle.  That was fun.  We drove up a ways to the Pancake Rocks at Dolomite Point in Paparoa National Park, where we ventured on another hike along the cliffs overlooking the ocean.  The rocks there have layers resembling, in a way, pancakes—thus the name.

Wednesday was a long drive south, with occasional stops for food or for hiking along riverbeds and by waterfalls and lakes nestled in the steep mountains.  And bad things happen in threes.  First, a weird orange icon in the shape of a wrench appeared on the dashboard of our rental car.  After determining that it was not a directive to beat the car with a wrench and after checking the gas cap, I read the manual and learned what I had originally suspected:  just time for the vehicle’s regular maintenance (or ignore it).  Then there was the DUI checkpoint—at 10:00 in the morning.  That part wasn’t a problem, of course, but then the cop wanted to check the girls’ seatbelts.  He didn’t like where Anastasia’s seat belt cut across her neck (which is why she had been wearing that part behind her), and he didn’t think Talula’s booster seat was strapped in tight enough.  Nothing, however, was against New Zealand law, but he still lectured us on child safety.  That was fun.  Third, after a few sharp twists and turns down a mountain, Talula finally succumbed.  The only warning she gave—“My throat hurts”—wasn’t fast enough or clear enough;  she barfed all over herself.  

So after about seven hours of driving and about ten hours total, we reached our next hotel in Cromwell, which I knew in advance was basic but this was one tiny cinderblock room in a huge campground, with bunk beds.  The girls were excited, though, to have bunk beds and to have the bathrooms just a short walk away and to have a kid-filled noisy playground across the campsite.  I went to sleep that night, on the bottom bunk, on a sagging old mattress, hoping that tomorrow would be better.

We left early for the four-and-a-half-hour drive through Queenstown to Milford Sound, stopping en route for a breakfast picnic of gooseberries, strawberries, avocado, and bread.  The girls have made a game of looking for “Peek-a-Boo Snow,” the brief glimpses of snowcaps on some of the taller mountain peaks.  At Milford Sound, we took a two-hour boat ride through the fjord out to the Tasman Sea (separating New Zealand from Australia, almost a thousand miles away).  We saw numerous waterfalls, seals, and dramatic cliffs—even as the rain and fog clung to the fjord.  It was much clearer on the eastern side of the mountain range.  We made our way back over the mountains, including a fun one-kilometer, one-lane tunnel through a mountain at 900 meters, and to our hotel in Manapouri, which had a terrific view of the bluish mountains beyond Lake Manapouri from our room window.  A much better room and location than the previous night, although Anastasia was upset because the TV remote was missing.

At the start of our third week in New Zealand, we awoke in that room with a view of the mountains and an incredible bonus:  a bright rainbow, in full, with one end of the arch at one side of the lake and the other end at the other side.  Plus, behind the hotel were two alpacas, and Talula got a kick out of feeding “Bossy” and the shy one.  Our drive this day was no longer mountainous terrain, no switchbacks or tight curves, just scenic countryside, rolling hills, sheep everywhere.  We stopped at Dunedin to check out the stone architecture of the elaborate train station (and a small art gallery inside), and then we drove north to the Moeraki Boulders Scenic Reserve, huge, perfectly-spherical boulders on the coastline that are the stuff of legend (reality is lime salts that accumulate around a hard core and take millions of years to form, but isn’t it more interesting to think of more mythic possibilities?  The Maori certainly thought so).

We ended our day’s driving in Oamaru, home to quite a bit of steampunk art, not just at the museum (the fascinating and unusual and fun Steampunk HQ) but also in the playgrounds and scattered around town.  The girls loved the playground, especially the “hamster wheel.”  They certainly got their exercise!  It was good for them to get some fresh air and run around after several days of intensive car rides.  And I had one of my better meals at the adjacent steampunk-style Galley Café:  a loaded double pork belly burger with hash browns and coleslaw—all of it in a huge sourdough bun.  Very tasty and filling.  And tasty.

The evening concluded with the arrival of the blue penguins, the smallest of all penguins, as they rode waves onto the shore and waddled up to their nests by an old quarry by the harbor.  On our night, the official count was 166 penguins.  Anastasia’s eyes were bulging when they first emerged from the water.

The following day, we drove north back to Christchurch, to complete our circle of the South Island.  We stopped for a picnic lunch along a river, plus a visit and tasting at the Lone Goat Winery before hitting our hotel, the Chateau on the Park.  It was a nice place, in the shape of—you guessed it—a chateau.  There were beautiful gardens surrounding the hotel, quite a pleasant atmosphere, and the girls hunted for garden fairies there.  That evening, we had a fairly elegant dinner at the hotel.  While the girls ate chicken nuggets and rice, however, followed by ice cream sundaes, Christine had some nice scallops and I had some good venison.

In the morning we took the short flight back to Wellington on the North Island’s southern coast and spent the afternoon walking about the city.  We took the famed cable car from Lambton Quay up to the botanic gardens (120 meters in a steep incline in just five minutes) and the planetarium—both enjoyable stops.  We had dinner that night in a semi-outdoor food court featuring international cuisine—but mostly Asian (Filipino, Malaysian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, but also American-style barbeque, fish and chips, Armenian, Italian…no Mexican fare, but there are a few Mexican restaurants in town).

Monday was Day Eighteen in New Zealand for us, our last full day in the country.  We had a lazy morning for a change, letting the girls sleep in.  Our day was mostly spent at the Te Papa Museum, catching some of the exhibits and even a few floors that we had missed the previous week, and the girls had a chance to romp about the playground nearby again.  The weather was warm and sunny—a very pleasant day to get a little sun and fresh air breezing in from the harbor.

The next day was overcast, windy, and chilly.  One summer day in Wellington, people are dressed in tank tops and shorts, and the next day, winter coats and hats come out.  The bad weather followed us, too.  On our fourteen-hour flight between Brisbane and Abu Dhabi, we had about eleven hours of turbulence.  It was a very bumpy ride to end our holiday, but we were thankful to be home, even if it meant winter and back to school.  After all, Anastasia and Talula were excited about getting home so they could finally celebrate Christmas, in mid January.