New Zealand Part 1: The North Island

Kia ora!

When I came to Australia, I knew that I had to visit New Zealand while I was on this side of the world.  And for those of you who have noticed my two week absence, that's where I have been, the Middle Earth land of Lord of the Rings. For those of you not acutely aware of New Zealand geography, there are two islands and I spent a week in both of them. Both were too spectacularly beautiful to fit in one blog. So have patience with me in my post holiday daze.

Starting in Auckland and heading down the center towards the ferry in Wellington I managed to navigate the winding left hand road, right hand drive roads....

First night was an unplanned stop in Te Aroha ("place of love"), a beautiful, quiet town on the side of a "mountain" (a hill in reality but still beautiful. It was an old leisure spa retreat with thermal hot pools the highlight of this Edwardian domain.

And a short hike up gave a beautiful view of the Ireland-esque country side.

Now Zealnad lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire where two tectonic plates meet and create earthquakes and volcanic activity. Rotorua is the tourist highlight of the thermal action, and we went just south of there to Waimangu Volcanic Valley, the site of the newest volcanic action. It was created in 1886, with the most recent eruption in 1981.

Steamy Frying Pan Lake

 Inferno Crater

South of Rotorua is New Zealands largest lake, Lake Taupo.

And just a little bit further south is the town of National Park (not a very original nae for a town in a national park) in the middle of the Tongariro volcanic mountain range. Stay tuned for more on this!

A rainbow of a view of Mt Ruapehu from National Park

 

The other side of Mt Ruapehu

They have bumble bees in New Zealand!

To get to Wanganui, we took the windy and spectacularly rural River Road where the only villages we past had a few Maori maraes, one church, and a cafe.

I welcomed 2015 in Wanganui, where they can't decide to spell is Whanganui or Wanganui so they use both. It was strange to be in the first country to celebrate the New Year, 18 hours ahead of New York City. No ball dropping, no Ryan Seacrest or Dick Clark countdown. The TV did pause for ten seconds to countdown with digital numbers before immediately returning to regular midnight programming. And by the time y'all were celebrating back in the U.S., we were on to a new day and a new city!