itsallgoingdownunderfromher-blog

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Piha & the KiteKite Falls. Day two in Auckland, we hired a cheap car for the day and drove to Piha National Park. The park is about 45minutes drive from Auckland city so makes the perfect day trip. We packed sandwiches and hit the road!

First stop was Lion Rock at Piha Beach. A huge rock formation that you can climb up, we didn’t because of the rain. The weather wasn’t on our side, humid, hot and throwing down by the time we hit the walking tracks, but we went swimming anyway so while it was an uncomfortable drive home cold and wet it was still worth it! 

We took a 40 minute walking track through the rainforest with spectacular views of the full 80 metre falls. We ended up at the base of the falls where you can swim in a large plunge pool. Water was chilly but surprisingly ok to swim in, warmer than I remember the falls in Brisbane being! We then took another 30 minute hike to the top of the falls were you can swim some more. A huge rock pool sits just above the drop of the fall so you get incredible views of the valley while you swim.

After that the rain got even worse so we made the 40 minute walk back to the car and headed straight back to Auckland CBD for a hot shower!  That evening we had a beautiful Mexican meal together and some free drinks at the hostel bar to end our time in Auckland, and New Zealand! We are currently awaiting check in to open at our transit hotel in Kuala Lumpur. We are on a 10 hour layover to Tokyo. We’ve done Auckland _ Gold Coast and Gold Coast - Kuala Lumpur. We’re tired but super excited to explore Japan and Rome before coming home!  Will try to keep you updated with photos from Tokyo where possible :)  xxxx

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Auckland! The final NZ stop. As you know we’re coming home! (And so excited about it also). Our flight was booked out of Auckland and as Shib & Jamie also flew from Auckland the same day as us we decided to go a couple of days early to explore a little and spend soem time together away from Wellington before we part ways.  Everyone we’ve met travelling has said that Auckland is “just a big city” and we definitely felt that during our stay in the CBD. Especially having lived in Wellington which has been named the world’s coolest capital and is also the world’s smallest capital city! Seemed like a lot of tall buildings and commuters to us. So we decided to spend our two days out of the city! We jumped on the ferry to Waiheke Island as soon as we landed on Wednesday afternoon. About 30-40 minutes away from mainland, Waiheke is NZ’s largest island and has an incredible sub climate that makes it the perfect holiday destination. It’s full to the brim with wineries and olive gardens, fancy restaurants in beautiful grounds and beaches around every corner. We decided to treat ourselves to a bottle of wine at the Mudbrick Vineyard (pictured above) and then Cable Bay vineyard later in the evening with some snacks. Most beautiful setting you could wish for with views of the Auckland skyline in between the clouds on the horizon. We stayed there a while and walked around the island as much as we could before getting on a late ferry home.

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Moving on. As you know we are coming home! Here’s all the info of what we will be doing until then: We’ve both finished work here in Wellington and tomorrow we fly to Auckland. We plan to visit Waiheke Island and Piha National Park as well as see the city so it will be an intense couple of days.

We will spent 2 nights in the city with Shib and Jamie before we part ways. They fly to Indonesia and we fly to Japan via a days layover at Kuala Lumpur airport. We will see them in around 6 months time when they finish their travels! We are due to land at 10:30pm local time on Feb 3rd at Tokyo Haneda. We will stay in Tokyo until the 6th February before travelling to Osaka for 4 nights. From Osaka we will also do day trips to Nara and Hiroshima.  On February 10th we will travel to Kyoto for 2 nights before heading back to Tokyo.  We fly to Rome from Tokyo on February 13th arriving 7pm local time. We have a lovely little Airbnb apartment in the city until February 16th when we will be flying home! I will do my best to keep you up to date while on the road but will not have a lot of time. So maybe we can just show you our Japan photos when we come and see each of you in person....The countdown is on!! Love to you all, cannot wait to see you. 

xxxx

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A bit delayed, sorry! Here’s some photos from our last day trip before we sold our car. We took it two hours away to the Putarangi Pinnacles, another filming location for Lord of the Rings!  It’s an incredible dried out riverbed with a walk way through massive rock formations. Complete with a stunning beach view on the other side. Hottest da ever though, definitely should have brought more water!!

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Staff party!  At Coene’s we had our Christmas party mid January due to the hospitality industry having no time to party during the Christmas period!  We had a private charter boat that took us out to Sommes Island (just off the coast of Wellington) complete with a big BBQ and lots of wine! Such a wonderful day with friends.

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Bonus - Bonfire Night in Wellington.  Wellington does a big firework display from a pontoon on the water to celebrate bonfire night - a bit weird as I wouldn’t have imagined they’d celebrate it, the Australian’s certainly don’t!

 Wasn’t all doom and gloom though, look at the view we got from work! 

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Day trip 4: Zealandia Zealandia is one of a kind, a conservation area for New Zealand plant and bird life that spans as far as the eye can see, yet is fenced in to protect from pests and cats. The birds are not enclosed and are free to come and go as they please, but have learnt that Zealandia is the perfect habitat for them as they are safe. Therefore it has become home to nearly every breed of bird known to NZ. Once you are in the gated Valley it feels pretty much like a pint sized Jurassic Park. It’s so much fun bird spotting as you explore the valley, and has amazing viewpoints across the reservoir and forest. 

It is also one of only two areas in New Zealand that are home to wild Tuataras. Tuatara, pictured above, look like small lizards but actually date back even further in time and have a direct connection to the dinosaurs. They also have a third eye concealed under their scales in the centre of their forehead, many skeletal features that are linked to fish, and nicknamed the “Living Fossil”. They’re really special to Maori culture and history, Tuatara translates to “peak of the back” in Maori language. A famous and well loved Brewery in Wellington is also called Tuatara Third Eye (know we understand that!). It’s a rare and special siting to find one of these creatures in the wild so we feel pretty lucky.

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Trip 3: Moa Point, Wellington We drove about twenty minutes from home and took a walk to Moa Point. It’s the location of a huge amount of unique species of fish that can only be found in the area so really popular for swimming and diving. The complex of rock pools are fascinated, going from small pools full of sea life and plants to larger, 10 foot deep crystal clear water where the sea life and plant life have been blocked or filtered out. Only a wall of rocks block the swimming holes from the ocean but the water is completely different due to the rocks filtering and protection. Will probably head back once the temperature rises to explore and have a swim! 

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Trip 2: Chris’ work party was a camping trip to Corner Cove about 2 hours drive of Wellington, these are literally the only two photos he took, but he was a broken hungover mess when he came back

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Update time! Apologies for not posting sooner, been working a lot more and keeping our heads down to save money! Rest assured however we are having a great time day to day in Wellington. Both of us are loving our jobs and the weather is flawless currently. Also all the spring/summer wildlife is about, so it’s changed from penguin and seal spotting from the balcony at work to Sting Rays and parrots! There’s ongoing incentives at work in new wine sales which I’ve now won two months in a row, good to flex my sales skills (with the added bonus of money and wine prizes of course). We haven’t ventured out of the Greater Wellington region since our weekend away to Taupo and Rotorua, but with so much to do in the immediate area we’re not bothered! In between long work weeks we’ve managed to get out and about a little. Day trip 1: We took a drive to Martinborough, the wine region of the area approx. 1.5 hours away from home with 20 plus vineyards. We hired a tandem bike (or the relationship maker/breaker as the hire guy told us) simply for the laugh. Thank god we were actually pretty good at it and all the roads are straight!! We did a couple of wine tastings and had a beautiful lunch in the vineyard.

On the way home we accidently found the Rivendell filming location from Lord of the Rings, turns out its a stunning secluded camping ground with a river safe to swim in with fire pits along it. We’ve since decided to camp there on Christmas day with Shib and Jamie to celebrate in the most Kiwi way possible: Camping with a picnic, a fire, Kiwi beers, in the summer sun at a LOTR location!

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Day 4: The Red Woods - final stop Before a long drive home we visited the Red Woods in Rotorua, stunning forest and views. We took a 2 hour hike through the woods and up to the top of the biking tracks to see out over Rotorua and the geothermal plant.  In the final photo you’ll see that the stream is frozen. It’s actually frost and frozen branches/leaves inside the water that look spectacular, although it’s the only one in the area and at the time of the photo 18 degrees! It’s permanently frozen, they’re still trying to work out why.

When we left the Red Woods it was time for the 6.5 hour drive home. Annoyingly we ended up with a flat tyre 2 hours out of Wellington which delayed us and cost us some cash, but looking at the tyre it seemed it was going to happen at some point! We still made it home in time for pizza and a movie before work the next day! 

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Day 3 Cont.  Wai-O-Tapu cont.  1/2: Devils Bath 3/4: Frying Pan Flat 5/6: Lake Ngakoro

These were maybe half of the actual lakes, pools and streams in the area, all of them mesmerising and colourful. Wai-O-Tapu is 100% one of the most unique places we’ve ever visited.

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Day 3 Cont.  After the creek we hit Wai-O-Tapu - the geothermal wonderland. This was definitely my favourite part of an already incredible trip! Inside the park you find countless hot pools, mud pools, sulphur lakes, creeks, caves and woodland. The woodland is bleached white from the sulphur steam or stained orange from algae produced in such an environment. It stinks, but it’s beautiful! Photographed here from the top:

1: Woodland 2: Devils Home 3/4: Champagne Pool 5/6/7: Artist’s Palette

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Day 3 Cont. After lunch we drove to Rotorua. Stopping at Kerosene Creek on the way. Another incredible geothermal hot spring creek with two waterfalls and a swimming hole. The best and cheapest way to relax in New Zealand! 

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Day 3 Cont.  The boat tour of Great Lake Taupo. It was gorgeous weather on the lake which made for the perfect conditions for this tour. We had clear skies and great views. The Great Lake Taupo is the largest lake in NZ, approximately the same size as Greater London! It’s got pretty townships and bays dotted all around the lake, and some fascinating hot water beaches. We also did some “extreme duck feeding” to pass the time on the way out.

We visited the Maori Rock Carvings which were spectacular. Carved into a huge rock face at Minors Bay, the carvings can only be accessed via boat. As you can see the main event is the face in the cliff side, but the rocks around it also have sea creatures and faces carved into them.

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Day 3: We spent the morning hanging out at the campsite with the animals after a very early breakfast, before heading back over to the marina for the boat tour.

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Day 2 Cont. After a nice picnic lunch we headed to the marina to get on a boat tour we’d booked earlier that day. However due to high winds they rearranged to the following morning. So instead we headed to Craters Of The Moon. A peaceful walk through geothermal Jurassic Park-esque land. The weather turned a little and it got super cold, but the area was really interesting and spooky to walk around.

From there we headed to A geothermal Hot & Cold spring nearby. It was a stunning small pocket of geothermal hot spring water that fell into a shallow rock pool before mixing with the freezing cold water of the Huka River. It was fascinating to sit in hot water but have your legs in cold water! No photos of that one unfortunately, but the sun returned and it was a great way to end the day!