Tag Archives: Landscape

Tongariro! (IYKYK)

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Sunday 22 February 2026 – Warning! Long Post Alert!

We left the Reef Resort in good order with nothing but a leisurely journey in front of us. Jane had mined Google Maps for some Things To See on the way and it was nice to be able to take our time at the various viewpoints (they’re called Lookouts over here).

The first one was at Hatepe Esplanade Reserve, which sounds grand but was really a tiny cul-de-sac off State Highway 1, down by the side of Lake Taupō. It offered a better view of Motutaiko Island, the Sacred Island that we’d glimpsed on yesterday’s cruise.

The reason it’s a sacred place to the Māori is that Rangituamatotoru, major chief of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa tribe during the 18th century, is buried here. A cave on the island is supposed to be the home of the taniwha Horomatangi, a supernatural being from Māori mythology.

As we wended our way southwards through the hills in the area, we exchanged one big lake for two smaller ones; Lake Rotopounamu is the smaller of the pair, but we never really got a sight of it. However next to it is Rotoaira, for which there was a lookout.

It’s the caldera of a volcano, as is the case with many of the lakes hereabouts, even Taupō. The primary event causing that huge lake was a massive super-eruption, the Ōruanui eruption, some 25,500 years ago. This was one of the two largest volcanic events on the the planet, spreading a blanket of ash and ignimbrite not only over New Zealand, but also over the Antarctic ice.

The State Highway had a few places to stop and gawp, many of which were formally signposted and provided with parking.

A valedictory lookout north to Lake Taupō over the Tongariro River

We also found lookouts that showed Mount Tongariro (more of which later)

and Ruapehu, the next one along, which is tall enough to have snow on it, even now (late summer/early autumn). Google Maps says that there is a skifield on it; the impression we got from skipper Jimmy is that skiing seasons are getting shorter and shorter on the North Island.

The Mahuia Rapids provided an attractive setting,

as did the Tawhai Falls.

The pool that the falls empty into is known as “Gollum’s Pool”, as it was used for the “Forbidden Pool” scene, in which Faramir and his archers are watching Gollum fish in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”. It’s quite impressive.

Our accommodation was the Plateau Lodge, at Waimarino in the Tongariro National Park. We had one of their “King Pod” cabins, which are competently accoutred; not luxurious, but very well-organised.

They even have an external bath!

which we decided might well come in handy in due course. Stay with me for why.

The time was around 1pm by this stage, so we made the necessary phone call to confirm tomorrow’s activity and then went for a walk. Obviously. The main objective was to get to a local store to buy provisions for breakfast for the two mornings we’d be here; the secondary objective was to investigate eateries. Evelyn, the lovely lady who checked us in (having given us a bit of scare when at first she couldn’t find a booking for us), recommended the Schnapps Bar just down the road, so we headed that way, via a local store and a chat with the lady running an optimistically-named coffee stop

who dispensed coffee and some tips about our activity for the morrow.

The Schnapps Bar is just behind a rather dramatic sculpture of a kiwi

and, since it was open

we looked in and had a drink.

It looked like a decent place for a bite later, despite some of the less healthy items on the menu

Cheesy Bacon Garlic Bread? Beer-Battered Fries? Poutine?

and indeed we did call back a bit later. The food was very tasty and the portions gargantuan, but that set us up for a quiet evening to relax and prepare for the morrow.

For it was on the morrow (that’s yesterday, now, 21 Feb) that we had what was certainly the biggest adventure of the trip so far, and possibly of the whole thing, although we’re not going to know for another four weeks about that. The Adventure was a hike, but not just any old hike, in fact quite a chunky one. In the weeks leading up to our departure, Jane had persuaded herself that it was too ambitious for her and that she would seek something less arduous. For my part, I was gung-ho, sure that it would be something I could cope with.

Then, only about 24 hours before the scheduled start, our attitudes reversed; Jane decided that she would give it a go, whereas I was increasingly uncertain as to whether I would make a fool of myself. In the end, we decided that We Would Both Do It and to hell with uncertainty and cowardice.

The hike is the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Like the Camino de Santiago, it’s a well-known route among the people that do this sort of thing. If You Know, You Know.

The Camino is a multi-day or multi-week endeavour; the Tongariro crossing is done in a single day, but it’s quite a strenuous hike – 20km, 800m ascent, recommended time at least seven hours. We managed the Camino OK, but that was two and a half years ago, we were younger and had practiced in preparation. For today? Not so much. Also, my knees had been occasionally giving me gip and there is one section of the Tongariro Crossing called “The Devil’s Staircase” – a 300-metre ascent in just one km, with the bulk of the ascent being up actual steps; that was what was worrying me. Also, the weather had been looking a bit cloudy and windy, which would make the high section anything from unpleasant to downright perilous. In the end, the lovely Evelyn, who’d checked us in to Plateau Lodge, convinced us that the weather outlook was good and that we’d be OK, so reinforcing our decision to go for it.

We weren’t foolish enough to undertake such a potentially dangerous crossing by ourselves; we were booked on to a guided tour with Adrift Outdoors, who specialised in guiding mad, impetuous fools hikers on the route. So we checked in at their offices, which were just down the road from our accommodation.

Nice people were there to check us in, check our gear over and make sure that we signed our own death warrant a waiver form. These formalities had to be completed for us and the dozen others who would be part of our group: two other Brits, two Dutch, two Germans, two Americans, two Brazilians, an Iranian-born lady (called Paris – go figure) and an Indian chap. I would guess that we were the oldest and that the Indian chap, Ara, was the youngest. He was certainly the fittest, since he did lots of hiking around Zurich where he was currently living.

We all hopped in the bus to take us to the official start point of the crossing, about half an hour away. On the way over, we got a lovely clear view of Mount Ruapehu, Tongariro’s neighbour, the top of which had been obscured by cloud yesterday. Seeing this made us sanguine that perhaps the weather would indeed be clearer than yesterday.

The group had two guides: a lovely young lass called Cami, who briefed us by the entrance to the walk, in front of a pou whenua, a traditional Māori carved post representing Te Ririo, a guardian of those walking the crossing. She talked about the symbolic meaning of parts of the carving, which encourage respect on the part of people on the mountain.

Our other guide was Simon,

who looked every bit the part of a seasoned guide. Both of them were full of useful information about what we were seeing as we went along. Cami, particularly, was capable of talking non-stop while yomping up the steepest slope. Ah! What it is to be young and fit!

So, off we went.

Simon explained that it used to be 19.4km, but a volcanic eruption in 2012 destroyed a hut on the route and caused a diversion to be put in place, this making it a little longer. More of that later.

The first few kilometres of the hike are a gentle climb along a well-defined path.

After about 3km, one reaches the first toilet stop,

which inevitably has queues of people who should have gone back at the start when the loos were a bit more civilised. Beside the track, among the native grasses, is heather

introduced from Scotland, and now becoming, like so many introduced species, something of a pest, as it rather likes the conditions. Some of the initial track is boardwalk

and leads past Mount Ngauruhoe,

which has an illustrious film career, having starred as Mount Fiji in one of the Mission Impossible films, and as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings series.

The easy part of the walk ends at a place called Soda Springs,

named for the water that wells out of the mountain at this point. This is about 5km in, and there are several toilets available, so it’s a convenient place for a breather.

There’s an interesting parallel with the Camino de Santiago here. On the Camino, it’s common to encounter the same people at many stages along the way; some people even develop a “Camino Family” of familiar faces as they go.  The chap sitting front right in this photo was nothing to do with our group, but we encountered each other several times during the rest of the day. There were other hikers for whom this was also the case. A notice in the loo confirms that the easy part of the day is behind you.

Moving on, the next section is the start of the dreaded “Devil’s Staircase”.

After a short stretch of it, to give you a feel of what is to come, there’s a kind of decision point,

where common sense or formal guides might suggest, gently or otherwise depending on individuals, that going back is more sensible than going forward. Cami and Simon decided that we were all up for going forward, though I heard Simon quietly saying to Cami that it might be worth trying to get the Brazilian couple at the front to keep them up to speed, as they seemed to be hanging at the back of the group.

As warned by the signs, it got tougher,

with the compensation of some splendid views back along the track.

Eventually, we got to what looked like we might be within reach of the top.

The view of Mount Doom changes a bit – one can easily make out deposits of iron ore towards the summit.

There are more toilets at the top of the Devil’s Staircase,

which bear some bad news.

You’ve made it to South Crater, but your hard work is not over yet! You can see the next section of the climb in the distance.

If you look carefully, you can see some ants crawling up. They’re actually people.

Before you take this on, you have to cross the floor of South Crater, which looks like (and quite possibly is) a desert.

At the far side of the desert is another stern warning.

The next section  is even tougher than the Devil’s Staircase, over rocky ground, exposed and with quite substantial gusts of wind.  Even on a beautiful, clear day such as we were blessed with, care was needed, and Cami was at pains to suggest that we should keep an eye on the footing, rather than looking round for photos. By and large I followed her guidance, but I did sneak a couple of shots back over the South Crater desert.

So, you breast this slope triumphantly and….

guess what – there’s more to come! The view from this point is pretty sensational

and it was clear that the effort of the climb thus far caused Jane to take leave of her senses. She had a selfie!

We pressed on to what, really, was going to be the highest point of the hike. And…

Wow! The Red Crater. After all the effort to get there, seeing this makes a real impact. The view of it actually improves as you move on.

and at the very highest point, there’s a cairn,

which I christened “Yes, We Cairn”.

The route from this point is downhill.  Really, really, downhill, down a steep slope of loose scree.

It’s actually very difficult to convey in a photograph what this section is like. Jane had been dreading it, as she is uncomfortable on scree when it is loose stones over rock and very skiddy. But here the loose stones were quite deep and it actually it turned out not to be quite as difficult as she’d feared.  It’s steep, and you have to take it carefully and be prepared to skid a bit; and it’s the part of the hike where most accidents happen, unsurprisingly, but we all made it down OK. I saw a couple of people fall, but not seriously. Again, we were really lucky with the weather; doing this section in rain, high wind or cloud would have been a significantly more challenging proposition.

As you go down you get a fabulous view of the next landmark,

the Emerald Lakes. This was to be our lunch stop, so we had about 30 minutes resting here and eating the packed lunch that Plateau Lodge had prepared for us. Much of this was also spent waiting for the Brazilian couple who were annoying our guides by insisting on hanging back and taking loads of photos. The German couple, unimpressed by the delay, forged on ahead without telling our guides; we eventually met up with them much later along the route, but more time was wasted looking for them before we left Emerald Lakes!

Jane took a photo of the scree slope we’d just come down, in an attempt to convey what it was like.

It gives you some idea, and I also tried from a bit further away. This is photo from quite some way away.

If you look carefully, you can see that there are people going down the slope (actually, some idiots are going up as well!).

Now look even closer…

To get to the point where I took this photo was quite a straightforward walk along the track from the Emerald Lakes.

There’s a climb at the far end – not particularly welcome, it has to be said, but not too brutally steep – which takes you to a view over the Blue Lake

where there are some toilets, with their ever-useful summary of progress.

Halfway, then. The next part is downhill so it must be the easy bit, surely?

Erm, nope.

The track starts off a gentle downhill, and offers great views over Lakes Rotoairo and, in the distance, Taupō

and one can also see Lake Otamangakau.

The views are the only consolation for what turns into a horrendous drudgery of a walk down.  It starts off as a gentle downhill gravel track and one thinks, “ah, this is fine”. But then comes what turns into the hardest part of the day: the downhill steps that punctuate the path at frequent intervals. It’s often said that the downhill part of the Tongariro crossing is the hardest, and people nod knowingly, because, yes, going down can be tough on thighs and knees. No-one mentioned the bloody steps! If it’s the Devil’s Staircase on the way up past Mount Doom, then it Sauron’s Revenge on the way down. The thing is that the descent is 1100 metres vertical, whereas the ascent is 800, so you’re going down far longer than you came up.

There’s a breakpoint by some toilets, near which one can see evidence of volcanic activity.

These toilets are new, and replace the last ones, which were destroyed by a boulder ejected from the last eruption, which was in 2012. Much of the ground is not safe to go near, hence rerouting the path, which is longer, more meandering and has more fucking steps in it.

There’s only one thing worse, after several kilometres of going downhill over loads of steps, and that is

reaching a stretch where there are some uphill steps as well. I found this (relatively short, it must be said) uphill stretch really, really hard. And then the downhill carried on, as the landscape changed and became increasingly foresty.

But still with the goddamn steps, both down

and up.

Jane found this final stretch really hard, and was genuinely worried that her knees were going to buckle under her. But we kept grinding on, and eventually – hurrah! – emerged at the end of the track,

where we found others in our group sitting in a kind of stunned silence, overcome with the enormity of the downhill torture.

And that was it – some nine hours after we started, we climbed into the Adrift bus to take us back to their offices.

I’m glad that our King Pod at Plateau Lodge was on the ground floor. I don’t think I could have managed a staircase, if my life had depended on it.

When I was trying to find out, a year ago as we were planning this trip, how tough the Tongariro crossing was, I sought to compare it with Day 1 of the Camino, which is, I think, the toughest day’s walking I’d experienced. The figures would have you believe that the Camino is tougher: 1,400 metres ascent for the Camino vs 800 for Tongariro; 25 kilometres vs 20; 2,900 calories expended vs 2,600; 39,000 steps vs 31,000. And I remember having trouble with the stairs at Roncesvalles on the Camino; but I think the extra 300 metres of descent down those benighted steps is what marks the Tongariro crossing out as being probably the most difficult day’s walking Jane and I have done.

However, did it we did! And we got the satisfaction of that, and the fantastic views as we went. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, which was perfect all day, and the nectar of the Gods has nothing on the mug of Twining’s Finest Earl Grey when we got back to our accommodation.

We had the one more night at Plateau Lodge and the next stage of our trip is to get to Napier, a journey and destination that we were looking forward to. Stay with these pages to find out how it went.

Mud, mud, gurgling mud

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Monday 16 February 2026 – Having checked in yesterday and indulged in a cup of Twining’s Finest Earl Grey, we found ourselves with a little time on our hands. So we went for a walk. Obviously.

We had a bit of a side trip as part of my tiresome tireless search for an electric toothbrush, because the cheapo Colgate battery-driven number I’d bought in Auckland turned out to be pretty rubbish.  Our walk to Woolworth’s took us past quite a fine mural.

Shame about the graffiti on it, though.  However I know that you will share my (and Jane’s) delight that my search for a toothbrush proved moderately successful!

Our hotel is pretty much beside the lake, so it was a short walk to take an overview. Its geothermal pedigree is on clear display (and, of course, you can smell it, too – there’s a distinct “rotten eggs” niff of Hydrogen Sulphide in the air.

Jane had discovered that there is a walkway beside the lake out to a place called Sulphur Point, so we took it

whilst being sure to be careful because of the not-inconsiderable danger of death that seems to lurk round every corner.

As we walked along, we noted a vast flock of gulls by the lakeside.

I had assumed that the waters of the lake would be too toxic to support aquatic life, but apparently there are fish in the lake for the gulls to eat alongside insect and plants.

The walkway led past some black swans

who were doing the duck dive thing, which I’ve not seen before.  At Sulphur Point there are a couple of pieces of art

“Waters of Rotorua”, by Rory McDougall. No, me neither

lots of gulls, some greylag geese and swamp hens.

There’s also been a strong effort to make the loo look pretty.

It was getting late by this stage,

and the light on the lake was lovely.

We hastened back to the hotel, walking through Government Garden and passing the museum, sadly largely covered in scaffolding and sheeting, but the exposed areas of which look very attractive.

Government Garden is a handsome place

and houses, among other things, a Māori Teahouse.

That was yesterday. Today was set to be Geothermal Day. Our itinerary took us to Orakei Korako, a geothermal park. When I visited New Zealand back in 1988, I based myself in Auckland and explored by simply driving as far as I could on day trips, one of which was to Rotorua, which is when I experienced its heady aroma for the first time. In those days I was neither culturally aware nor in possession of a guide book; all I wanted to see was some boiling mud. If memory serves, I did, although I can’t place exactly where I found it. But I must have seen some, otherwise the angst of having gone all that way and not found any to look at would have stayed with me for those intervening 38 years. So, I had high expectations of a boiling mud persuasion for today.

Orakei Korako is about an hour’s drive from Rotorua, through some typically quirky North Island scenery

and past significant evidence of vast amounts of logging.

It’s astonishing the amount of planting that has gone on of Monterey Pine trees, which are grown for the making of paper, since Eucalyptus doesn’t flourish here. There are impossibly steep slopes covered in these pine trees; I couldn’t imagine how they were even planted, let alone how the logging was done. But, clearly, it is done, and is a significant industry in the area.

Geothermal activity is a brutal thing, involving huge temperatures and pressures (and, I was hoping, boiling mud, of course). Orakei Korako has managed to put an entirely charming and low-key package together to showcase it.  One parks lakeside, and is given a friendly but serious safety briefing (basically not to stray from the  boardwalks, as this can be fatal) when collecting tickets, and is then transported across to the actual brutal bit on a cute little ferry.

The walk round the park takes 60 – 90 minutes, and is very well laid out, with maps and info boards to show you where you are and what you’re seeing.  It was pleasantly quiet, with just a few people wandering about in the park. The boardwalks are easy to navigate,

though there is quite a bit of up-and-down as you pass and view the various sites.

It is a typically “blasted landscape”

with considerable evidence of sulphur, and steam rising in many places, often above boiling pools.

Some areas have names; this, for example, is called the “Artist’s Palette”.

It wasn’t particularly colourful today, but apparently under some circumstances it can be overrun by boiling water, which is an ideal growth platform for algae of a wide variety of colours.

I was feeling that there was a bit too much emphasis on pools of boiling water, when we came across this sign.

So, after a quick look at the cave

we hastened down so I could get my fill of boiling mud, mud, gurgling mud!

If you want to see the mud in action, I included it in this overview video of the place wot I produced,

which also gives a better idea of the scale of the place than any of the photos we took. It’s very nicely laid out and pleasantly uncrowded; we enjoyed our visit immensely.

We had to get back to the hotel in time to be collected and taken to our evening’s activity, a Māori “cultural experience”, a description apt to send a shudder up the spine. Ours was to be hosted at Te Puia, which John at Kiwi Dundee had described as “legit”, so I wasn’t absolutely dreading it.

A bus came to pick us up at around 5.15 for the short journey to the place.

We filed in through the arch and joined a whole heap of people who were there for the evening’s entertainment to witness a Māori welcome ceremony. In real life, of course, it has the possibility of going sadly wrong unless you know what you’re doing, but we had a host marshalling us around; he picked a sucker volunteer from the crowd to be the “visiting chief” and made sure that he didn’t get stuck by an angry challenger.

His job was to approach the pavilion which houses the “natives”.

 

…who come out to look you over…
…and send a couple of chaps down to challenge.
A fearsome display, then…
…placing a token to assess your intent
It’s important to pick this up calmly…
…and retreat. This is the point at which it could go wrong.

Some final display then leads to the visitors being accepted and led into the pavilion. I have video, but you get the idea.

Inside, we are treated, as you might expect, to an exposition of native culture – a welcome speech from the “chief”, singing, dancing, explanation of the cultural and practical significance of dance accessories and weapons, and, of course, the haka, which is probably the single most famous Māori cultural export of New Zealand. If you’re a rugby fan. Again, I have video, so, erm, here is some of it.

It was by and large a jolly pleasing noise, but one thing struck me as unexpected. Not that I wish to accuse anyone of cultural appropriation, but there were a lot of familiar western harmonies in the songs they sang….

Following this was a part of the evening which I least expected and most enjoyed – a visit to the centre’s resident geyser*, Pōhutu. It was preceded by a session around a firepit where Māori cuisine was discussed as a prelude to the “Māori feast” we would have later, and then we all trooped down into the Te Whakarewarewa geothermal area in the centre to hope that Pōhutu would do its stuff before we had to troop back and eat.

It took a while – some twenty minutes of gradual buildup – but it was pretty spectacular when it finally came to the party.

The meal was set out as a buffet, and quite a massive one at that. Jane and I had been allocated Table 12, and were both pretty glad to find that it was a table for two. We partook reasonably lightly of the buffet, unlike the couple next to us, who came from (I think) Finland and could reasonably be described as comfortably upholstered.  She had a dessert between two visits to the main course buffet stations, and he had just started on his third main course plateful – the third being after a dessert – as we left. A short bus ride took us back to the hotel, and that was it for the day, and a very enjoyable one it was, too, loaded as it was with many things geothermal of which we don’t see much in the UK.

I said that the Haka was New Zealand’s most famous cultural export, but there is, of course, an even more iconic, erm, icon of the country. This is what we shall learn about tomorrow. See you then?

 

 

*  Pronounced “guyzer”,by the way. A “geezer” is who was taking photos of it.

Transfer to the Coromandel Peninsula

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Friday 13 February 2026 – Jane had ensured that the room we had at the Auckland City Hotel had a kitchenette, which gave two advantages. Firstly, of course, we could prepare mugs of Twining’s Finest Earl Grey* at times of our choosing; and secondly, we could prepare our own breakfast, since the buffet at the hotel was OK but short on fruit and not particularly good value. As well as the longed-for dental gear, we’d also stocked up with fruit and yoghurt so that we could breakfast at leisure and reasonably healthily.

The mission for yesterday was simple – check out of the hotel, pick up a hire car and drive to our next destination, Whitianga, on the Coromandel Peninsula. We manhandled our bags for the 10-minute walk to the car hire office. It’s actually an 8-minute walk, but one tends to spend a lot of time standing around waiting for the lights to change at busy and large intersections. On occasion I’m tempted to ignore the lights and just walk across if it’s obvious that there’s no reason to wait. But four or five lanes lugging baggage encouraged caution, so I waited for the lights with barely-concealed impatience.

At the Budget offices, the hire process appeared to be going smoothly until Kevin, the chap sorting us out, queried the end date of the booking, which he had as 22nd March. This is, indeed, the end date of our trip here, but we only need this car until we get to Christchurch on the South Island, at which point we hop a train. We were supposed to have a booking for a new hire car for when/where we disembark the train and thus the rest of our stay, and it seems that the local agents for Discover The World hadn’t twigged this.  Fortunately the sainted Kevin (he of the arcade?) and his boss, Sue, sorted the situation out for us and we’re grateful for their staff work. The queue of customers building up behind us probably weren’t, though.

So we took possession of a brand spanking new Mitsubishi ASX, with just 35km on the clock, which will be our steed for the next three weeks or so. It’s a bit larger than I’m used to (though not the utter monster we got in A Coruña when we walked the Camino Finisterre) so we started a bit gingerly whilst I got used to the car. Being Japanese and in New Zealand, the indicators and wipers are the other way round from UK cars, so driving round roundabouts with the wipers going will be a feature of the next few days – and the first few days of driving back in the UK, no doubt.

Anyhoo… our exit from Auckland was smooth and through only slightly congested traffic, and then we had the decision to make as to whether to take the more direct route to Whitianga or go the pretty way. We decided on the latter. And it was a very pleasant drive, through lots of typical North Island landscapes.

We (of course) saw sheep.

New Zealand is often quoted as having more sheep than people, and ChatGPT tells me that this is still true, though not as much as in the 1980s, when there were some 22 sheep per inhabitant. These days it’s nearer four or five.  What surprised a little, though, were the numbers of cattle.

The area we were driving through, round the bottom of the Firth of Thames, being flat, was obviously very well suited to either dairy or beef farming.  I read that there are about half as many cattle as sheep on the island, and they’re split roughly 60-40 in favour of dairy animals.

I guess many people will have read of the enormous amounts of rainfall that have been suffered in the North Island, and saw for our own eyes some evidence of its effects.

We stopped for coffee (OK, yes, and ice cream) at The Pink Shop at Kaiaua,

which is a very individual kind of place, serving as cafe, ice-creamery, eatery, corner shop, post office and second-hand bookshop.

They claim to serve the best coffee in Kaiaua, and I think this might be because there isn’t another cafe there, but it was a welcome break on the journey and the ice-cream was very good.

A little further along the road there actually was another cafe, but we decided not to stop there.

We carried on, through ever-impressive New Zealand landscapes but darkening weather.

After one leaves the flat plains south west of the Firth of Thames and starts up the Coromandel Peninsula, the roads become quite twisty, with climbs and descents, so sometimes one is by the coast

but more often into more hilly countryside. As one might expect, this gives rise to some more handsome scenery, and the roads feature lots of places where it’s safe to stop at the side to take photos.

It really was lovely scenery and it made the journey a pleasure.

We arrived at our accommodation, the Beachfront Resort in Whitianga, at around 4pm yesterday, and were greeted very genially by Paul on the reception and taken to our suite, which is comfortable and is set up entirely for self-catering. So we had a cup of tea, obviously, and then headed out for the fleshpots of Whitianga in search of (a) understanding where we had to get to for the items on our itinerary whilst we’re here, (b) sustenance for the day and (c) breakfast for the subsequent days we’ll be here.

Our schedule includes a couple of planned activities: a half-day cruise around the local coast and an all-day hike. In both cases we have to get to the local wharf, and for the hike we have to catch the shuttle ferry across to the other side (a place engagingly called Ferry Landing).

Having understood how all that worked, our next priority was to find a restaurant for an early dinner. Jane has good instinct for these things, and so, despite the fact that it was raining, we made our way past several eateries in order to get to a place called Salt,

which is a cocktail bar and restaurant. And a very good restaurant, too: we had a great meal based around snapper (yes, I had fish’n’chips) for outstanding value. Whilst we ate, the rain came lashing down, right through the screen that was supposed to protect us,

But it was only a shower, albeit a biblical one, and it was interesting to see the screen once the gusting wind had cleared the rain.

All we had to do then was to find a supermarket to get comestibles for the morrow, and there’s a substantial Woolworth’s in the town so that bit was straightforward.

And that was yesterday sorted.  Today we were supposed to be going on the cruise, but it, sadly, fell victim to the windy and wet weather,

but the hike should go ahead tomorrow, and can maybe be engineered to see on land some of the sights we would have seen from the boat. The practical upshot of this is that much of today has been a day (thus far) of splendid relaxation and further trying to get over jet lag (I’m getting there, slowly).

However, sloth for an entire day is not an option (I’m told. In no uncertain terms); we are travelling and so we Can’t Just Sit Around All Day (bugger!). What do you do on a rainy day? You go to a museum. Fortunately, Whitianga has one. What luck!

Whitianga might be a tiny place, but the area has some significant history. Just around the corner – the other side of that ferry journey – is Cook’s Beach, where he moored the Endeavour in 1769. He witnessed the transit of Mercury whilst here, and hence gave the name of Mercury Bay to the area. He also attended a powhiri, a welcoming ceremony with a local chieftain, where they exchanged gifts (Cook donated the potato to this new land) and established a meeting of minds between the two nations. The interpreter, by the way, was a gifted local linguist.

The museum covers the period from 950AD when the first humans, a Polynesian called Kupe and his crew, set foot on New Zealand; but it wasn’t until 150 years later that Polynesians came in numbers to colonise the new land.

Obviously, there’s Polynesian history figures in the exhibits, with models of the boats they used

This is a model of a 20m replica, Te Aurere, built in the 1990s to demonstrate the voyaging capabilities of these boats.

and examples demonstrating the skill in carving.

There’s a lot of information about Cook, of course, and a rather uninspiring display about HMS Buffalo, a convict and timber transport vessel which was wrecked in Mercury Bay in 1840 (the year of the Treaty of Waitangi), It gave its name to Buffalo Beach, beside which I am typing the very words. Other things covered in the museum include: inevitably, the Kiwi

among displays of other local birds

including, let us not forget, the Giant Moa

an enormous (extinct) bird with an improbably small head; information about historical aspects of the area, including mining; and information about the Kauri tree, an important conifer, particularly to the Māori, who historically used its timber in boat construction (pub quiz fact: it’s the only native timber that floats) and its gum for a variety of purposes. A European-driven industry grew up around it in the 1800s, similar to the Huon Pine we saw in Tasmania, and by the 1930s most Kauri forest had been logged. It’s also significantly threatened by Kauri Dieback, which is transmitted via tiny spores, very often carried on the soles of shoes. This kind of ecological threat explains why biosecurity is taken so seriously on entry to New Zealand.

There is something of a disconnect between the opening hours of the various establishments in Whitianga; the museum stays open until 4pm, but the restaurants, as far as we could tell, don’t open until 5pm (and the cafes closed at 2pm). So we pottered back to our accommodation for a couple of hours before venturing once more into town.  Having looked at the options, we settled on a place called Get Stoked and headed there through some reasonably heavy rain.  It turned out to be a cheerful and slightly noisy place, and provided very tasty salads and fish, though a Greek would not have immediately recognised the salad bit. We ended up chatting to a couple of old codgers on the table next to us for a few minutes before we left. It was a swift but very amiable meal and the pissing rain had stopped by the time we left, which was a plus.

We’re on a tour involving some hiking tomorrow, on the Cook’s Bay side, and have to get across the ferry betimes to meet our guide, so we’re back to early starts for a couple of days. The forecast is basically damp – anything from showers to deluges, temperatures in the mid-20s and humidity in the mid-90s. I hope we don’t get too badly drenched, but you’ll have to come back to find out how the day unfolded.

 

 

 

 

*  To their credit, the Auckland City Hotel provided Earl Grey tea in the room and large cups from which to drink it. It wasn’t Twining’s Finest, but it was perfectly decent; evidence, should one need it, that New Zealand is a civilised country.