New Zealand PTR - Day 15: CREDZ

[gavin]

I got back a few weeks ago, so I suppose it’s time to shove this in here. This definitely wasn’t a coaster trip since New Zealand really doesn’t have much, so there will be lots of scenery and s**t, with plenty od extremely repetitious pictures.

Day 1 – Arrival in Auckland

I landed at some point in the mid-afternoon and got a bus that dropped me off right outside my hotel, so that was all very easy. The hotel was ludicrously expensive because Ed Bastard Sheeran had a concert that weekend, so everywhere had doubled their prices. After a bit of passive aggressive moaning, I got upgraded to a suite though, so I sort of ended up paying the “right” price if that makes sense; I’d paid suite prices for a standard room. It was a fairly low floor, but on the corner, so had a decent view.

I went for a wander, but sacked it off after about half an hour since it was pissing down. Great f**king start to the holiday so far.

Day 2 – Auckland and Crystal Mountain

The next day was gorgeous after the rain the day before, so I started again from where I’d sacked things off. Here are some pictures of the exact same stuff, but with a blue sky.

I was in two minds about bothering with the tower since I’m generally quite sick of them and they’re always overpriced, but I ended up next to it right at opening and there was nobody there. The lift had a glass floor, which was fab.

There were two observation levels, which didn’t offer anything drastically different. They have one of those controlled “Skyjump” things, and an outdoor walk, but I didn’t do either.

From there, I just continued walking down the main street (Queen Street?) to the ferry pier, getting a ferry across to Devenport to walk up Mount Victoria for the views.

Definitely worth the effort. The “mountain” was only small, but there were excellent views back across to the city.

I was probably up there for around an hour before walking back down, through Devenport’s main street and getting the ferry back across.

From there it was a bus to Mount Eden, another extinct volcano. It’s really just a green hole in the ground, but I thought it was fab. Here are lots of pictures that all look the same:

It was about 3pm by this point. There was a +1 at Crystal Mountain that I wasn’t going to bother with, but the cred anxiety kicked in, so I got an Uber and headed to it.

Crystal Mountain has a Crystal Museum, which was s**te. Honestly, there were more impressive things in the gift shop, which was also about twice the size.

Anyway, CRED!

Yay.

I decided to just walk to a nearby train station (around 20 minutes) to head back into the city. Here it is in case you’re planning a trip. There was even Wi-Fi which was surprising.

Thus concludes a day in Auckland. I was back right at the end of the trip for my flight back, and had an afternoon/evening free, so saved the “major” park until then, which means you’ve got two weeks of tedious sightseeing to get through first.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

2 weeks without creds, what a country.
Looks nice though.

 

[witchfinder]

There shouldn't be anything tedious about 2 weeks of pics of NZ. Beautiful country!

 

[gavin]

Day 3 – Hobbiton and Waitomo Caves

This hadn’t been on the cards really since I wasn't particularly interested. I’d definitely seen the first two LotR films, may have seen the third but I can't remeber, and didn’t bother with The Hobbit series. However, I was looking into how to get to the next place I wanted to visit, and found a trip which left Auckland, did Hobbiton and some caves that everyone goes on about, and then had the option of a return to Auckland or a drop-off in Rotorua, which is where I wanted to be. There were obviously other options, but I figured that at least doing it this way I’d get to see a bit more. I'd have only wasted the day lazing around the hotel until kick-out time and getting a late bus anyway.

Hobbiton is pretty much hidden in the middle of a huge sheep and cattle farm, deliberately so so as not to draw attention during filming.

It had been a temporary set during the first trilogy, but the farm owner struck a deal with Peter Jackson for the production company to turn it into a permanent one for The Hobbit so that he could use it as a tourist attraction. I recognized it from the films without really remembering much detail.

Regardless, it was all very nice and at least I had a passing knowledge and familiarity with what it was all about. Apparently, 60% of people who go have neither seen a single film nor read a single book. Well, LotR films and books; I’m sure they’ve seen and read others.

The inside of the Green Dragon pub/restaurant was all built purely for the tourists.

Yep, all very nice and worth the effort. There was an excellent buffet lunch thrown in as well. I was expecting it to be heaving since it’s quickly become one of New Zealand’s top tourist attractions, but it was actually fine. You can only access it as part of a tour, and everything is timed quite well, with limited numbers per group (around 25 in mine) so that there aren’t too many people there at any one time.

From there, it was quite out of the way to the Waitomo Caves. You can’t take any pictures inside, but it starts as a walking tour and ends in a short boat ride into the “glowworm” caves, which obviously has a s**tload of glowworms. It was decent, the boat part especially, but quite a detour for what was really quite a short tour.

Hobbiton to Rotorua is only an hour’s drive, but it took an hour and a half from Hobbiton to the caves, then another 2 hours to Rotorua after that. If you haven’t seen a cave before, go for it, but I was a bit over the whole thing by the time I got to Rotorua, though admittedly New Zealand is gorgeous to look at through the windows.

 

[Hixee]

It does feel rather cliche to do the whole "Hobbiton" thing, but I think it actually looks really fab and I'd love to go. Novelty value, and all that. I'm impressed by how relatively quiet it was - I fully expected it to be rammed, which has always put me off a bit.

 

[gavin]

^Yeah, it wasn't really on the cards for me, but like I said, it turned out to be an easy detour on the way to where I wanted to end up anyway, and I ended up really liking it. I don't think it will ever be properly rammed since you have to access it as a tour, which apparently gets booked up pretty far in advance at peak times, and they do a good job with timing it so you only ever really see another group or two other than your own, with a decent distance between them.

Day 4 – Rotorua

I’d arrived the evening before, but just had a little wander around the town centre – not much open at that time – and got food. After paying a s**tload for the hotel in Auckland, I’d gone to the other end of the scale here and was staying in a f**king dump. It was a hostel - private room, I’m not an animal – and the room was tiny and gross. It was well-located at least.

Buses all dropped off and picked up right in front of the tourist information office – everywhere in NZ has these “iSite” places and they’re really useful – so that made things easy.

Anyway, I was up early the next day since I only had the one full day here, getting a quick, easy bus to Te Puia in the south of the town. It’s part geothermal crap and part Maori culture crap.

You get the idea, but here are more pictures of steam coming out of the ground.

It was spread over a decently-sized area, but all very walkable. I got there just as it opened, so there weren’t many people. There’s also a kiwi house (birds, not fruit), so I got to see my first one, though since it’s nocturnal it was impossible to get pictures. There’s a large Maori arts/crafts school on site as well, which you can have a nose at. It’s all about the steam coming out of rocks though.

I was there for a good few hours, and really liked the place. As with most things, it’s way more impressive in person than in pictures. A bus back to where I’d started and a quick walk from there through some gardens.

Beyond that was a path to Lake Rotorua.

Why bother looking at scenery when you can bother animals instead?

I was thinking about going slightly out of town to some cable car area with a few bits of stuff to do, but I was starting to flag and knew that I’d be doing similar stuff in other areas later, so sacked it off.

There was another small, city park very close to my *shiver* hostel *shiver* which I’d ignored, but it turns out it also had some small, steaming holes in the ground, so I just headed there instead.

And by then it was evening again and I had an early bus the next day. I liked Rotorua. I’d been debating allowing a second day there, and I could’ve found stuff to do if I’d done that, but I managed to get enough done in the one day. Oh, I forgot to mention that the whole town f**king stinks like rotten eggs, and you don’t really get used to it.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Hope the locals get used to it.

 

[gavin]

Gotta plough through this thing before I take another couple of trips next month. Ugh.

Day 5 – Waiotapu and Taupo

I was getting a bus from Rotorua to Taupo and realized that there was a stop at Waiotapu, which I’d seen posters/flyers for, so decided to stop off there for a few hours and get back on the next bus in the afternoon.

It turns out that the bus stop is nowhere near the s**t that you want to see there, so I ended up dragging luggage for 2.5 km. Waiotapu was fab though. It’s just more geothermal bollocks, but was different enough from Te Puia to make it worth the effort. It was spread over a bigger area as well.

Geyser first. Unlike the one at Te Puia which naturally went off every hour or so, they force this one once a day by chucking some chemical into it.

I haven’t shoved enough pictures of steaming rocks and pools into this report yet, so here are some more.

I’d probably spent around 3 hours here, which was long enough to get around everything. I know I seem less than enthused, but that’s more down to my willingness to write this crap than the place itself, which I loved. I couldn’t face pulling my suitcase back another 2.5km to the bus stop, so accosted a couple in the car park who kindly dropped me off.

I got to Taupo in the mid afternoon and decided to knock off one of the sites there, Huka Falls. This was 6km away, but was a really nice walk along the river.

I spoke to people later who said that the falls were often heaving with people, but I got lucky and there was barely anyone there. It was around 5pm by this point, so I guess the timing had something to do with it. Here’s a bunch of pictures of water.

I’d thought to just get a bus back into town, but nothing was showing up on my phone. When I asked at a little food/drinks kiosk in the car park, it turns out there are no buses at all. Ugh. The woman was just about to close up though, and offered me a lift back into town, which was lovely.

I’m so used to the general aloofness, rudeness and selfishness of the c**ts in Hong Kong that I found the New Zealanders’ constant friendliness and helpfulness rather jarring. Bus drivers actually look at you and say “Good morning” and everything. Weirdos.

More Taupo in the next bit.

 

[Hixee]

Well A+ for quantity of steam pictures! I can tell you seem tired of writing this by now, but I am enjoying the pictures! Falls look equally impressive too, actually.

My brother spent a few months in New Zealand and really enjoyed it - I wish I'd have been able to go out and see him at the time (sadly overlapped with my time in Abu Dhabi). I really would like to go one day!

 

[Gazza]

I found the New Zealanders’ constant friendliness and helpfulness rather jarring.

Yeah Kiwis are nice....Nicer than Australians.

 

[gavin]

Day 6 – Taupo

This was a pretty uneventful day. I was supposed to be doing some hike outside the town – Tongariro Crossing – which takes in a bunch of old volcanoes and stuff, but because of bad weather in the morning, it was cancelled.

Well, the hike itself wasn’t cancelled, but the buses to drop you at the start of the track and pick you up at the end were, so same thing really. I was actually quite relieved since I couldn’t be arsed.

I had a bit of a lie in instead, and the weather wasn’t that bad in Taupo itself once I actually got up, so I ended up just walking around part of the lake.

Doesn’t look like much, but it was nice enough. The whole thing is actually enormous, but I just stuck to one small area near the main town. At one end there was a marina with various boat trips, so for lack of something to do I just went on one of those.

And that was it.

Day 7 – Skydiving and Fly to Wellington

This was still in Taupo. I knew I wanted to try skydiving at some point, and this is a decent place to do it since you get amazing views over the lake. There are options of jumping from 9,000, 12,000 or 15,000 feet. I went for the 15,000 since you (obviously) get the most freefall time.

It was fab. It’s a bit scary jumping out, especially as you’ve sat and watched the 12,000 feet people getting chucked out first before you climb even higher, but once you’re falling, it’s fine. You don’t really get a sense of the ground getting quickly closer since you’re so high up (though you freefall for about 3.5km); it’s just really windy and cold.

Definitely worth doing and I’d probably do it again at some point.

Have a video an' all:

The skydiving place uses the regular Taupo Airport, so I’d timed it to be able to finish the dive and just walk over to the terminal for a flight to Wellington. The airport was hilariously small and I was the only person in the whole place; there weren’t even any staff.

About half an hour before my flight, somebody showed up, asked “Are you Gavin?” and then shoved my suitcase onto a tiny plane that had just arrived. Since I was the only passenger, we left early, literally just me and a pilot.

Wellington airport was weird:

It was an easy bus ride to the hotel and that was it. Wellington sightseeing guff coming up next.

 

[davidm]

^ that's very cool ; do a sky-dive, wander over to airport, get picked up for the next flight...
and I gathered from your video that the sky-dive was "awesome"
(views looked fab too)

 

[Hixee]

I saw that video on Facebook - I do rather like your various expletives. Especially as the parachute is pulled! Brought back some good memories of when I did one, maybe I'll try to do another one soon. Looks like a great time!

Also, very jealous of the [essentially] private plane! Good work.

 

[witchfinder]

I'm enjoying this trip report as you're pretty much doing the exact same trip as me and my wife did in 2008 so far, though we didn't do any skydiving in Taupo and drove from there to Wellington via a couple of places. If you continue in the same vein we did I'm assuming you're heading to the South Island next, down the West coast to Queenstown and then back up to Christchurch, but we'll see soon enough

Shame you missed some of the fun activity stuff in Rotorua like Zorbing and the Luge...

 

[gavin]

If you continue in the same vein we did I'm assuming you're heading to the South Island next, down the West coast to Queenstown and then back up to Christchurch, but we'll see soon enough

Different way around, but covering those places yeah.

Shame you missed some of the fun activity stuff in Rotorua like Zorbing and the Luge..

"Skipped" rather than "missed" since I knew there was another luge thing later anyway. The cable car/luge in Rotorua was open for a couple more hours by the time I was done with other stuff, but I just couldn’t be bothered by that point since it had been a really long day and I’d walked around 20km.

Next bit then.

Day 8 - Wellington

I only had one full day in Wellington, but that was enough really. In the past, I've always given myself too much time in places and ended up trying to fill time, so I went the other way with this trip. The evening I arrived, I had a quick walk around the area of the hotel, got some food and called it an early night.

I got up early the next morning though and got to the cable car (5 minutes’ walk from the hotel) as it was opening, skipping the crowds that apparently form later on.

The top of the cable car – it’s a funicular really – is at the top entrance to the botanical gardens. Nobody has ever taken this picture of Wellington before. How do I sell it to Lonely Planet/National Geographic?

Back down the hill, through the botanical gardens then. All very pleasant and very few people at that time in the morning. I won’t put too many pictures in though; it’s just trees really.

From the bottom it was a quick walk around to the NZ Parliament building, which is f**king hideous.

And then to the waterfront.

I popped into the Te Papa Museum for a couple of hours since it was there. It was decent, but a bit of a mishmash of everything from Natural History, a temporary war exhibition, Maori culture to modern art.

Carried on around the waterfront for a bit, intending to climb up some hill for the views, but it was stupidly windy by this point, and getting quite misty, so I figured the views would be crap and sacked it off.

The weather here was very “San Francisco” – one minute it’s bright sunshine and instant sunburn, turn around and it’s grey and miserable with gale force winds in your face. Weird. I just walked back into the city centre instead. Nothing wrong with the place, but it was just a generic city centre really.

I love it when nice architecture gets ruined with s**te.

Again, I’ve made it sound like this all took a couple of hours or so, but it had been a whole day of walking by this point. I ended up going out for a few drinks that night since it was a Saturday and I hadn’t actually had a night out on the trip so far thanks to being generally knackered and lots of early mornings. Turns out that because it was the Easter weekend that the bars all closed at midnight anyway. Slightly annoying, but probably for the best since I had another early morning and it was fun for the few hours I was out.

So yeah, Wellington. Meh. Nothing wrong with it, quite pretty really, but felt a bit bland and generic after everything previously being pretty spectacular.

 

[gavin]

Days 9 – Travel + Kaikoura

Wellington was the last stop on the north island. My original plan was to fly from there to Christchurch, but then decided to take the ferry across since I’d heard good things, then make my way down with a stop off around halfway at Kaikoura.

The ferry ride was really nice. The boast itself is pretty big, but apart from a brief snack/coffee break in one of the cafeterias, I spent most of the trip on the outside decks. Bunch of pictures that don’t look like much after the fact:

The ferry arrived in Picton, which looked nice enough, but I didn’t spend any time there.

There’s a small bus station right outside the ferry terminal. There is/was a train line that runs down the east coast to Christchurch, via Kaikoura, from here, but it’s been out of operation since the earthquake in 2011. Anyway, the timing was all quite good. The Picton-Kaikoura-Christchurch bus left around 45 minutes after the ferry arrived, taking around two and a half hours to get to Kaikoura and arriving around 4pm.

The bus ride was really nice, mostly following the coast all the way down. Once I’d left my bags, I just went for a walk for an hour or so down part of the coast and back.

This old cinema looked fab, but has been closed since the earthquake.

My accommodation for the night, which was actually way more comfortable than it looks, but it was a bit further out from the town centre than I’d thought. Only a ten-minute walk or so, and right off the main road, but I was sick of lugging a suitcase around by this point.

I was getting back on the same bus the next day, to get to Christchurch, so had most of the next day free to actually see s**t.

Day 10 – Kaikoura

Kaikoura is famous for wildlife, so I’d booked myself onto a whale-watching trip the next morning, leaving my luggage at their reception centre.

The boats actually leave from a completely different area, so they shove you on a shuttle bus to get to them. It makes sense to have the actual reception area in town though and it was all very well-organised.

First we caught a quick glimpse of some killer whales, but we didn’t hang around because there were reports of something else further out.

A blue whale, but only a small one. Cool to see one though since they’re not as common in the area as others.

Then it was quite a bit further out to sea to catch a sperm whale.

This was very cool since they hang around at the surface for half an hour or so, reoxygenating before they dive for ages.

Going back to shore, we ran into the orcas again.

The bus was waiting to take us back into town, but I had pretty much a whole afternoon until my bus, so decided to ditch it and walk back to town along the coast. Good decision since it was lovely. There’s a bit of a climb up, but then the path follows the tops of the cliffs around a peninsula.

As you go back down, you hit an area with a seal colony, which was fab. At first, I only saw a couple, but moving further out from the road/path, there were loads. They weren’t bothered by me being there at all, but would “bark” if I got closer than about 5 feet away.

I spent a good hour and a half just chilling with the seals, before I realised that the tide was coming in and I was getting cut off from the road.

It was around another 40-minute walk back into town, going back to the whale watching office to get my luggage, then onto the bus to Christchurch, just getting food at the hotel and having a lazy evening once I got there.

Yep, Kaikoura was definitely worth doing. Considering it was a last minute detour between Wellington and Christchurch, it actually turned into one of the highlights of the trip.

 

[Hixee]

The seals are fantastic! Very impressed.

Also, good work with the money shot of the whale watching! Very jealous, I'd love to see something like that one day. Got spited by a whale watching trip in Iceland and only saw a load of dolphins (cool, but not whale-cool).

 

[gavin]

A bit of a photo dump for this bit.

Day 11 – Arthur’s Pass

My first day in Christchurch was spent leaving Christchurch. There’s a train that connects Christchurch on the east coast with the west coast of the south island, with a stop at a small town in the mountains called Arthur’s Pass. It’s completely aimed at tourism rather than used as actual transport, and was priced accordingly, taking about two and a half hours.

The train ride itself is stunning and the train is designed with that in mind with huge windows and a couple of outdoor carriages. The outdoor carriages filled up once we hit the scenery, so I decided to leave them until the return journey, figuring that everyone out there on the way out would be less likely to want to do the same on the way back as well.

Once I was at Arthur’s Pass, the weather turned quite sh**ty. It was just raining and miserable, though luckily not to heavily. There’s a bunch of hiking trails, so I spent a few hours on those.

There were barely any people around at all, which was great, but f**k knows what the train load of people ended up doing. There are a couple of coffee shops near the train station, but sitting around in those for five and a half hours until the train back couldn’t have been much fun.

As I’d predicted, nobody on the return journey was using the outdoor carriages – they were obviously exhausted from spending the day sitting in the coffee shop rather than risk getting a bit damp and actually seeing s**t – so I spent a big part of the trip out there.

As soon as we left the Arthur’s Pass area, it was back to bright sunshine again, so that was just f**king perfect. To be fair, I think it was down to the geography of the area rather than any change in weather over the course of the day.

From the train:

It was dark by the time the train got back to Christchurch, so I just got some authentic New Zealand Mexican food from a restaurant behind my hotel and called it a night.

Arthur’s Pass then. Hmmmmm dunno really. The train journey there and back was gorgeous, but stupidly expensive, and the ****ty weather once I’d arrived put a bit of a downer on the whole thing. The scenery once you’re there, which would normally be very impressive, quickly became another “Oh, New Zealand has nice scenery” kind of place. I’d recommend it for anyone staying around the Christchurch area who maybe isn’t taking a long trip and seeing a bunch of other stuff I guess.

I had a flight out of Christchurch the next afternoon, so had most of the day to see stuff there.

Day 12 – Christchurch and Fly to Queenstown

I’d only see a tiny bit of the place on the previous two evenings, and honestly wasn’t impressed. At night, it was just totally dead and felt a bit sketchy, though I’m sure it actually wasn’t. Turns out that it’s actually a pretty nice little city though.

There’s still a lot of damage from the 2011 earthquake, with buildings still ruined and a few memorials scattered around.

Just beyond this downtown area is a kind of museum district near a huge park. All very nice.

I popped into the art museum since I was there. Nice enough for an hour or so.

Then it was into the park and following the river for a bit.

It was a much nicer city (more like town really) than I’d initially given it credit for, and it was interesting to see the mix of still-ruined buildings along with the renovations and stuff that hadn’t been touched.

I had a flight that afternoon to Queenstown, the final stop of the trip. Well, sort of, I had another night in Auckland before flying home. The flight was fab, excellent views coming into Queenstown and loads of fun turbulence.

Since this was the last stop, I’d splashed out on a decent hotel with a room overlooking the lake. View from my balcony:

I had a quick walk into town (5 mins along the lake from the hotel) for food, but left most of the place for the next day.

More of Queenstown in the next bit. In case you’re curious, it involves more hills and water. Not too long until the CREDZ.

 

[Hixee]

Even given the distinct lack of creds, I'm thoroughly enjoying this report. It's quite refreshing to see a report on here that isn't just parks.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Seals > New Zealand Creds