Bailey's Tours- Adventure and Travel.: New Zealand,Twelve days on North Island

After our scary experience getting over to New Zealand it is nice to say the last 12 days have been yet another great experience.

Our first night in Auckland we stayed in a Bed and breakfast, which was in a residential area about 20 minutes taxi ride from the Rugby ground. However on the internet it did say 20 minutes’ walk (misprint I think). It was not our favorite place we have stayed to date, but it was in Auckland and the accommodation was like gold dust.

The build- up to the rugby match was electric, which is what we anticipated when knowing that we were playing the Scots. We met loads of lovely ex pats Scottish and English who now live in New Zealand who were very excited about the game. After a drink or two we arrived at Eden Park we were still compasmentous even though Steve kept giving lots of people knighthoods, before and after the game. (He was allowed as he was dressed as St George and I was his English maiden. )Apres match was good and an after the game celebration was in order. Not good the next day as we both had a bit of a hangover.

We left Auckland late Sunday afternoon, after hiring a car for a week. We then headed for Turangi which is an area renowned for skiing of which was our next plan. We arrived at a holiday park called Turangi holiday park, which was situated next to a residential area. Due to a bit of rain we decided it was not yet time to take out our tent (which was carried all the way from Bejing to Hong Kong). We stayed in a cabin which was a small wooden hut, very basic, it had one double bed and a heater. What more could we ask for on a rainy night?We stayed there for a couple of nights, which gave us time to check the area out. The country side was absolutely stunning. The place is well known for famous walks, tramping as they call it, white water rafting, skiing and we also found out to our delight that there were thermal mineral pools, which feed off the hot natural springs. This was something else!

Steve in thermal pool fed off the springs below 42 degrees

Outdoor natural thermal springs

We decided to go up market for a couple of days after that while we were waiting for the ski slopes to open.We therefore stayed in a static caravan in Mutuoapa situated on the lake called Taupo, (the largest lake in New Zealand). This place was only 10 minutes North from the last campsite, but it was a nicer holiday park and was on the lake. The holiday park had a communal kitchen, which was ideal to use for cooking, you could also watch tv whilst slaving over the stove. This was the first time we had watched Tv for over a month. We made potato and leek soup and spag bol which was the first thing we had cooked for quite a while!.

Static carvan at Mutuoapa

Lake Tapu

View from the caravan onto lake Taupu

When we were looking around at the accommodation in New Zealand this seemed to be quite the norm to have kitchen facilities. Over the past 12 days the facilities on the camp sites have just got better and better. Most of the sites have a communal living room, kitchen, barbecue area and fantastic grounds. We especially looked for sites situated near water, so you can imagine there are lots to choose from.

Unfortunately the ski slopes were closed for two days, but when they did finally open wow! They were very impressive and not too busy. We did find out about the hole in the ozone layer as both Steve and I ended up with beetroot goggle eyes.

To make the journey back to Auckland a bit more interesting we decided to stay at Raglan, a small surfing and beach resort on the East Cost of North Island, a lovely site on an inlet to the sea. It was the first time we had fish and chips for ages. We had a good Friday night, with pre match drinks getting ready for the big build up again on Saturday.

We set off early on Saturday for Auckland and arrived there by 1pm we decided to treat ourselves to a studio with self- catering facilities, quite posh. Back home in January, when trying to pre book any accommodation it was impossible as everything on the internet was showing it was full, so we were fairly lucky to find accommodation as nice as this

Studio Apartment in Auckland

After the game Steve sulked and wanted to go straight back to our apartment (our world cup dream is now over)

On the Sunday after the game we decided to head up North and do a bit more touring, we have now to concentrate on our travels, as we don’t have to stay within a 4 hour radius of Auckland, we won’t be going to any more live games, but will still follow the rugby through the Tv, wherever our destination will be.
Our first destination was Ruakaka, this place was absolutely gorgeous; it was definitely like something from a post card, so unspoilt. It is unbelievable how quite all the parks have been so far, not what we expected while the world cup was on

Ruakaka- view from the tent

We have already fallen in Love with New Zealand, each journey surprises us by its beauty, the friendliness of the people and the organisation of the country which is exceptional. What we also like are the roads which are well signposted and easy to get around. There are numerous amounts of walks in each area all of which are signposted stating expected duration of the walk. As mentioned earlier all the campsites we have seen so far have communal kitchens, barbecue areas and TV rooms. When travelling about there are also loads of picnic areas equipped with barbecues and picnic tables. What more could we ask for? The only snag we have seen during our 1600km journey so far is there is great distances between each town and petrol station so you have to be well orgnaised with food and petrol. The other little snag is there are also not a lot of bars.

We stopped by the road one of the days to find this picnic area,

The weather has been a bit British but mild as it rain ones day and then is boiling the next, but it is their spring so this is what is expected at this time of year.

Bailey's tours had three fairly strange things happen to us this week!

We had to pick up our tent still erect and move it to a different place on a campsite, at 1pm in the morning as at the time we felt a bit vulnerable. We were the only people with a tent and situated in a field on our own, the noises of people chanting and running in the field next to us was fairly frightening. It sounds a bit daft now but it felt we were going to be under attack. It wasn’t much really once we found out the next day what it was as it was just a bit of anti-social behavior with some drunken mouries, but at that time of the morning we were a bit scared, better to be on the safe side and hide behind the caravans.
The second campsite we arrived at which was at Ruakaka,( the most picturesque campsite so ), we could not believe it we were woken up to a loud siren going off which sounded like something from an air raid, you can imagine at the time panic set in, all sorts of things went through our mind, earth quake, tsunami?? We found out the next day it was a practice alarm as a warning to people if there is a forest fire. How were we to know
The third strange thing this week was when we went for a walk to find Waipu caves, it was about one hours walk up in the hills, stunning views and the foliage was something else, we haven’t actually seen ferns so big.

We were enjoying the walk and then out of nowhere there came big black and white bird which started to attack us, we had to duck a few times and then run into hiding. It was definitely out for attack. There was no way we were going any further as this bird was not going to let us. When we finally found the caves we got talking to some of the locals and they highlighted that these birds were a nightmare, apparently it is the Australian Magpie, bigger than ours back home. They said that these birds will attack when protecting their young, apparently we must have been in their territory. It was like something out of a Hithcock movie scary! We carried a stick all the way home, it reminded us of the walk in china when we were defending ourselves from the monkeys