As last week was rather quiet on my blog, I would like to publish the travel report about the afore-mentioned road trip in the North Island piece by piece.
It all began with planning and thinking. The dicision between North and South Island was made, some travel companions couldn’t make it for different reasons and thus, it was us two in the end.
As you know, it is the hard-out winter these days and we didn’t get much encouraging words from the locals. It doesn’t snow much in the North Island, so we would get rain as the typical winter’s weather…
Our plan: To suss out the North Island and get just the most out of it. For for Celine this was the last opportunity to see the North Island in it’s whole beauty. We took it a good thing, both having seen the east coast already and leaving it out of the equation without harm…
We didn’t have a meticulous plan, just a list of things we would love to see and a direction. Northbound, that was. THe first two hostels we pre-booked and for the rest we decided upon mood, mode and the weather. 🙂
But I will write about it as if it was all planned. 🙂
That crisp Saturday morning we met in Wellington city. It wasn’t far to the car rental, so soon we found ourselves in front of our small but excellent ride. Luckily we thought about music CDs and the phone charger for the cigar lighter. Of only the latter had worked, we would’ve had a few less commotions on the way…
All bubbly with wanderlust we entered the car and went. Further and further away from Wellington beloved.
We were most sure about one thing: Without any doubt you will get to know each other very well on these trips as a pair. That’s to mention that we had many most delightful topics to discuss.
“STOP RIGHT HERE!” very often let the talking cease and meant that we were about to make one of the ca. 310 photo stops on the way. It goes down like this: You stop at the side of the road (make sure there’s enough space), jump out of the car, ferociously shoot some pictures, say your Ah!s and Oh!s and drive off.
The saturated green of winter will turn to brown in the soaring summer’s sun. One more reason to see the North Island in winter…
TO GLORY!!
This iconic gumboot sculpture in Taihape we found only by accident following roadsigns leading us to it.
First station was Tongariro National Park. Our hostel was situated in the little settlement named ‘National Park’. As excitedly as I talked about the rapidly changing landscape in the post ‘Outta da House!’ in January, we now had the chance to behold the phenomenon up close. The Tongariro area is not green and there are no meadows for the sheep, but the great mountains. Covered with snow and all majestical. We even saw a brown golf court. 😀
We certainly were puzzled by the sight of this military exercise. Why do tanks exist in New Zealand? 😀
Before we arrived at our destination, we had to adapt to the winterly street conditions. Because of landslides a section of the highway was closed and we took the scenic route as a detour.
So this is the equivalent to snow here, as it seems. Luckily, our way was altered this way but once…
Having arrived at the hostel, we had a simple backpacker’s dinner (spaghetti and tomato sauce from the jar) and also there were those Table Talkers… That is a simple collection of personal questions and we tried it: They are just perfect to get to know each other closer. 🙂
Thanks to the off-season we had a six-bed room to ourselves. 🙂
On the first day we had some splendid views on the side of the road, two glorious sculptures and many stunning panoramas of the Tongariro mountains and the national park itself. The nourishing travel atmosphere and long talks made for a healthy and dream-ridden sleep then…
