New Zealand - Hastings, Te Urewera National Park, cultural Rotorua and ride to Taupo.

ExploringRTW

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6th- 13th January 2008

New Zealand - Hastings, Te Urewera National Park, cultural Rotorua and ride to Taupo.

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With the hope of seeing the gannets now behind us, we head towards Waiora for the start of a gravel track which will take us into the Te Urewera National Park and to Lake Waikaremoana. Sylvia and I discussed the possible impact of a rough road on her arm and I agree that if it was too uncomfortable for her that we would turn back and set our sights on another destination.

30km’s in the track remained very gravely with deep piles in the centre where it had been parted by the 4-wheel drive vehicles. Most of the time I drove on the right hand side of the track as the gravel had best been cleared by other vehicles. The only problems came with opposing cars going too fast around the corners, forcing me to switch lanes quickly across a pile of gravel lining the centre. This was made doubly worse by a few towed-boat owners who thought 50-80km/hr along these tracks was fine. :yikes

I checked with Sylvia how she was finding the track to which she responded that the jolting was not a problem but was more worried about falling off. I considered the track so far and was reasonably confident we’d be ok and so after a brief discussion, continued as planned.

We arrived at the “Motorcamp” situated on the side of the Lake and requested a quiet pitch. We were allotted site 53 as I remember but when we arrived there it was occupied by a speed boat which I said the owner could leave there. The owner was to leave the following morning and was grateful not to have to move it. He gave us a couple of beers in the end as a thank you…to my genuine request of can we buy some. :nod My request to pay really was genuine as we couldn’t carry them on the bike and there was no where to buy them. Site 53 wasn’t that nice anyway :augie, the grass was brown and it was hemmed in on three sides.:augie I’d seen another site near by and decided that we’d have that. :D

We’d brought the ingredients for a slap-up bolognaise so we could have an easy meal on our second day there which was to be a trekking day. We met a couple in the camp kitchen and ended up spending an hour or so talking to them before I got around to cooking dinner-In the end I think we ate at around 21:00. When we returned to our tent which was in a very busy area earlier, we were amazed to find everyone around us was in bed and quiet at 22:30. We were delighted and went to be too.

As you would expect, poor Sylvia was having a few problems with her arm. The main problem the following morning seemed to be as a result of it being unsupported during the night and so I made a support from our sleeping bag liners for her.

We’re not really up for a big trek. The weather wasn’t great and neither were we particularly ! We did hope and plan to do a 5 hour trek(or ‘tramp’ as NZ’ers call it.) but after faffing about we instead settle for a shortish walk to a local waterfall and Moari information centre. In the end it proves enough for both of us.

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Views from our trek.

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The waterfall we wanted to see.

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Obviously the fern is very symbolic here and we saw the various types of fern represented in many different art forms.

In the evening we become friendly with a family whose Son is healthily talkative. :jibber The net result is he gets to sit on the Adventure and Mum & Dad(a keen biker himself) come and talk to us. In the end we spent the evening with them and they share their beer & wine with us…:beerjug: which was very kind and for which we were very grateful.:thumb2 In fact, it turns out that they live very near Hastings, and have 2 quad bikes we could use to see the Gannets. Apparently you can gain access to see the Gannets via the beach at the right time…as long as you have suitable transport. We were invited to stay too. At this point we said we’d love to and we’d contact them as soon as we knew we’d been in their vicinity.:bounce1 (In the end, as a result of Sylvia’s arm and enjoying ourselves too much, we couldn’t make it back to them in time.-I did however send them an e-mail thanking them though.)

The following morning we leave the National Park & travel around 90km’s in the rain and on the remainder of the gravel track to Rotorua.

Rotorua is famous for two primary things. It is home to one of New Zealand’s larger(est?) Geo-thermal areas, and is New Zealand’s Moari capital. The day was been quite long in the end and so we stay in a Motel having a spa using the geo-thermally heated water. Whilst novel, the experience was too hot for me not long after I got in :spitfire. Sylvia can take heat better than me and so managed to enjoy a few more minutes before ‘having’ to leave herself. We did try to cool down with some Sparkling wine but that didn’t seem to help ! We had a relatively simple tea and retired to bed.

I’d really hoped for a decent sleep in our ‘real’ bed but the bed was very spongy and my sleep pretty poor. I’ve so often written about poor sleep on our entries but it is such a pain when you use so much energy during the day to awake almost as tired as when you went to bed, only to face another day of riding sometimes.

Once up, we set about finding somewhere for Sylvia to have her second X-ray done to see all was going ok. (As it was now a week since her fall.) The Tourist Information site in town was very helpful and rang the local health-care people to clarify a few things and prepare them for our visit.

The health-care clinic was just around the corner and so we were soon lining up to try and get the X-ray arranged. However, the receptionist said that she needed a letter of authorisation from a Dr before she could authorise an x-ray, but as we already had a letter confirming the need for a review in Masterton, she may be able to help us avoiding the costs of an initial consultation with a Dr. :confused::confused::confused: In the end it was getting quite confusing :confused::confused::confused:and it was deemed necessary to comply with standard NZ practices which we understood, albeit primarily a bearucratic requirement. :rolleyes:

The Dr was very nice and informal. And after a preliminary chat gave the letter required. Sylvia was X-rayed and we were soon back with the Dr discussing the results. He affirmed that she couldn’t have broken it in a “better” place and recommended seeing a Pysiotherapist as early as possible for advice on how to keep the muscles & joint as flexible as possible and thereby assist in a fast recovery. I rang and made an appointment on Sylvias behalf for the following morning at a centre only a few minutes from our camp site.

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The Clock-tower in the centre of Rotorua & an amphibious vehicle used to visit a number of local lakes(I think :rolleyes:).

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Rotorua looking at a replacement airbed as in my EXPED bed kept going flat even though I’d already repaired 3 or 4 punctures. :spitfire The outlet store, Kathmandu, had a sale on with 50% off their airbeds. Those in the sale of a suitable sleeping dimensions were too big when packed down. We went to the 2 other out-door suppliers in town but one had nothing suitable whilst the other had a similar thickness of material to the EXPED. Finally I gave up and decided to try and repair the EXPED one more time. In the evening I took it to the swimming pool and identified as many points, 11:spitfire:spitfire:spitfire, until my marker pen gave up. I then patched them up and hoped for a deflation free night. …. After watching TV and learning of Sir Edmund Hilary’s death, we returned to the tent to find my air-bed flat again !! Arrggghhh. :spitfire:(:spitfire

Even after re-inflating the bed when we went to sleep, it was flat by morning and I was hacked off. :spitfire We got up early the following morning to get to the Pysiotherapist’s for Sylvia. The consultation went ok and Sylvia was given a series of exercises to do over the forthcoming weeks.

In the end I decide to buy one of Kathmandu’s smaller air beds as I was sick of waking up in the night and morning with stiff everything. Before throwing the EXPED mattress away though, I decided to photograph it next to Sylvia’s Thermorest(which had been used for the same time and in the same circumstances without any problems) and then cut out the worst punctured section with a view to giving it back to EXPED at some point in the future. Their beds are not cheap !

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The Air-bed crisis reaches fever pitch :spitfire: !

Over the next few days I have a go at a few of New Zealand's adrenaline sports which I have detailed in the next entry.

In the midst of my adrenaline days, we we visited Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland where we got to see a mini ’Old-Faithful’ which goes off every morning at 10:00 am. We take an hour or so’s walk around their park and have some lunch.

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'Old faithful-not' but this geyser does perform every day at 10:00 am.

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Cleared your blockage yet ?? :D

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Some of the many sights we saw at Wai -o-Tapu

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The trickling of waters over this area had formed a calcium-looking terrace rather like a minature farming terrace that you might see in the Andes.

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No surprise that the warning is so big when there this size eh ? :D

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After my last adrenaline packed afternoon in Rotorua and Sylvias Maori village experience, we have one last thing on our agenda for today and so we hurry back to the campsite. I grab a quick shower and we get picked up by Tamaki, a tour operator who would be giving us a ‘genuine’ Maori experience this evening, including dinner.

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Some of the Maori traditional carvings Sylvia saw at Te Pui.

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Some of the Geo-thermal activity that Sylvia witnessed at Te-Pui's site.

Part of the evening is that the coaches that collect the guests are to be seen as representing the dug-out boats that the Moaris would have used on their long journey to New Zealand so many years ago. In line with this, the coach driver has to pick a Chief from and for our bus for the evening as part of the meeting ritual held at the Maori village we are to visit.

After greeting us in 56 languages, he announces that real men are only found in NZ and play rugby:D-‘He accepts can’t all be real men as not from NZ’ ,but is prepared to settle for a rugby player as sufficient to be a chief for the bus.:D There were no current Rugby players on the coach and it turned out that I was the nearest to his definition of a real man :augie (as I had played Rugby) and so was elected the Chief for our bus which gained applause from the other much-relieved men. :D

The beginning of the ceremony was part of an introduction that would/did have determined if the visitors were friendly or hostile(a fact made all the more important as the Maori’s were cannibals before the introduction of Christianity). It consisted of a series of Huka-style movements with spears and the such-like. It was impressive and a little funny to see in this day & age. We had been asked not to laugh at anything or to put our tongues out in response to them doing so, and I along with the other chiefs from the other buses abided by it.

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The opening ceremony - to test if thier visitors friendly or not ? .. It'd be hard to find out if that's the way they carry on I reckon !! :D

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Once the ritual/meeting was accomplished, we had to lead our tribe/bus into their village “Hall” where we treated to some traditional song and dance. It was done very well and we all enjoyed it. From there we led our tribe into a mock village which was excellent. From there we led our tribe into dinner and ate as much as we wanted of hangi-cooked food. (Hangi is food prepared in a ground oven heated by stones which themselves have been heated to white-hot). The evening was finished off by a few songs and a small gift given to the chiefs for their participation. We were given a lift back to our campsite by our driver and enjoyed the whole evening. After a glass of red wine each we went to bed exhausted.

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The Maori song & dance was very well done.

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These shots, above and below were taken in their village, which looked very authentic.

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The following morning, and after much debate, we finally leave Rotarua at around 16:00 having taken most of the morning to pack and most of the afternoon using the Internet for web updates and e-mailing.

On our way to Taupo, our next stop, we stop at the world’s first geothermal power station that has 5km of piping which can expand/contract as much as up to 15m. :eek We also get to see the Huka falls along the way, which are very impressive. We finally get to Taupo and find a camp site overlooking the lake at a reasonable price. As it turns out it has some of the nicest facilities we’ve come across anywhere.

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The World's first geothermal power station.

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We arrive a bit late one way and another and so settle for a Pizza each in a local restaurant along with a couple of beers. :D

When we retire to bed hoping for a quiet night, there are a group of three half-cut guys watching a DVD on a lap-top in their tent ..which is too close to ours, and they keep laughing out-loud every now ‘n again. In the end I got up and had a word with them. :spitfire They were sorry and attempted to reduce their noise a bit. :rolleyes: They finally went to bed about 45 mins later.

Mike
 


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