Last day on the north island. Another beautiful sunny day and our last chance to enjoy our view of Wellington Harbor:

Days Bay had been a great place to stay, calm and beautiful, but now we had drive around the entire bay to reach the ferry terminal in Wellington.

I realized I hadn’t called the campervan company. Oops. They were supposed to pick us up at the ferry terminal in Picton on the south island and I had never told them which ferry we were coming in on. I called them and the woman on the other end of the line seemed very relieved to get the call. She would be there at the terminal when we arrived.

We had booked the 10:25 ferry. We wanted time to get out of Picton once we were on the other side and also be able to see the great views from the ferry during the day.

It took time to find the rental car agency, and once we found it there was a waiting line to return the car. When it was our turn we were told that the Europcar return parking was full and that we had to drive down to the ferry terminal and deliver the car there. All this back and forth ate up our time buffer.

As we approached the terminal we could see the ferry:

We are used to the ferry from Oslo and Denmark and this was a ferry of about the same size.

We hurried to get all the luggage out and get the car delivered. Inside the terminal was a check-in that looked very much like an airline check-in. We had to check in our luggage and allowance was more or less like on a plane: 2 pieces of luggage per person, only small hand-luggage on board. It seemed a bit strange, given the size of the ferry, but we were very glad to get rid of our large back-packs for the duration of the trip.

After we had caught up with our own breath we realized the deadline we had raced to meet was the check-in deadline. Suddenly we had plenty of time to wait for boarding…

The trip over to Picton takes roughly 3 hours. The weather was pretty good:

It almost felt like being on a cruise ship:

There was even ice cream available:

We crossed the Cook Strait and when we started making our way through the sounds of the south island  the color of the water changed to a magnificent turquoise :

Coupled with the blue sky the view seemed almost artificial. If I had been a painter I would probably have made a painting at this point.

After a fantastic 3 hour cruise with breathtaking scenery we reached Picton. We didn’t spend much time there, but our impression was that of a small not very beautiful coastal village that has been lucky enough to get the ferry terminal.

We were picked up and driven over to the offices of Pacific Horizon to meet our home for the next 3 weeks:

Now where we do we put everything?

The interior reminded us very much of the interior of a small boat made for sleeping over. I guess the design needs to solve the same problems. You need to maximize the use of very little space and also make sure things don’t move around too much when the vehicle starts to hump and bump.

Iseline was thrilled by the combined dining/sleeping/kitchen room:

but found the restroom a bit small:

There was also a bed over the driving compartment:

It took us some time to get everything in place and get ready to leave.

We had spoken to several of our friends who had been to New Zealand and also read lots of recommendations on the web. Traveling around the south island in a camper van was simply THE way to do it. The advantages were seductive:  Stop wherever you want and sleep over in the middle of nowhere. You always carry everything with you and can stop to make dinner or go fishing wherever and whenever you like. We had been sold and had booked one without really thinking twice.

We have never used a camper van before and now we started to quickly realize some of the disadvantages. Anything that was fragile or could move about had to be secured in some way. Storage space was limited and we had to make sure things we needed frequently was easy to get to. Once we were installed somewhere we wanted to sleep over and had taken all our stuff out to e.g. have dinner, we did not have a transport vehicle unless we packed everything down again.

Once we got on the road we realized this large vehicle was about as agile as an overweight elephant. And the g-forces in curves, not to mention the humping and bumping, was way stronger than in a regular car.

We drove out of Picton and up through Marlborough sounds. The road was full of curves and bumps. Everyone was tossed in all directions and Iseline very quickly got car sick and threw up. It was impossible to keep a normal speed with such a vechicle on these roads and we used about half as long as we thought we needed to reach our goal: the small village of Portage.

We were starting to wonder if we really wanted to do this for 3 weeks.

At least the landscape with lots of bays and sounds was gorgeous:

We found a small self-service campsite run by the DoC (Department of Conservation) and settled for the night. The whole system was based on honesty. Calculate your rate based on the prices on the sign:

Put the money in an envelope and put it in the cash box. It reminded us of the Norwegian system of self-service cabins in the mountains where you take the food you need and leave payment.

We had a look around. The tide differences are huge here, up to 3 and a half meters (11 feet). The tide was low and we could walk a bit out into the bay (although you cannot really see that from the picture. The next morning this spot was two meters under water).

Firs meal in our camper van:

OK. Let’s try to calm down Iseline, who is super over-excited about being in a camper van. Let’s also cheer up Helene while we are at it:

Now that’s better. Thank you for holding her down, Adrian. Sorry I didn’t manage to wake up Viktor

We went to bed, full of expectations of discovering more of the beautiful Marlborough Sounds in the morning.

Eirik

—–

We woke up to a beautiful day and our great view of Wellington Harbour (the bay here is called Wellington Harbour):

Today´s goal was Te Papa, the national museum. Inside this building lies an extraordinarily cool museum:

I was well prepared with an empty memory card and two extra fully charged batteries for the camera. Unfortunately we were met by large signs telling us that it was absolutely totally very illegal to even think about taking any photographs in the museum. Awhhhh…

The museum was impressive and we learned a lot more about New Zealand and its history. There was a huge Polynesian section on the first floor.

We learned where the Maroi name for New Zealand, “Aotearoa,” comes from. Originally “Aotearoa” was the Maori name for the north island, but it is today used as the name of all of New Zealand.

According to legend, when the famous sea discoverer Kupe discovered New Zealand, it was his wife who saw the first sign that they were approaching land. When she spotted a long white cloud in the horizon she exclaimed “He ao. He ao. He ao tea. He ao tea roa,” which means “A cloud. A cloud. A white cloud. A long white cloud”

As I have mentioned previously New Zealand was settled by humans in the 13th century as the last significant landmass on earth. One of the reasons why the Polynesians hadn´t discovered it before was that it did not lie in the direction of favorable winds for voyaging. The great Polynesian expansion had been done in an east, south-easterly direction until then. Legend has it, and this sounds probable, that the Polynesians in the Society Islands observed migrating birds leaving them every year in a south-westerly direction. They then concluded that there had to be land in that direction and went looking for it, despite the unfavorable winds.

The islands of New Zealand are also called “Te ika a maui”  (fish of Maui) and “Te waka a maui” (canoe of Maui) in Maori.

The legend says that the demi-god Maui used the south island as his canoe when he caught and pulled up a very large fish. This fish then became the north island.

The fish had a nice and flat surface for people to live on and farm, but Maui’s brothers started quarreling over the fish and cut parts of it for their own comnsumption. The fish then wriggled in pain and this created the mountainous landscape.

What I find interesting about this old legend is that the south island does look like a canoe and one can easily imagine the north island as a fish (especially a ray). This then means that the Maori early on must have been able to map New Zealand since they obviously knew what its shape looked like, and they knew this without a writing system and without any known medium they could use to draw maps.

As with many other peoples the common heritage and knowledge was passed from generation to generation in oral legends and stories. They were using the capacity of the human brain for remebering stories, a capacity which is much better than remembering dry facts. Modern day memory tricks use the same phenomenon to make it possible to remember numbers and facts. As a teenager I learned a system for translating all 10 digits into letters. To remember two digits I put their letters together and find a word which starts with these two letters (wovels do not count, making it easy to always find a word). I can then make up a story where the words appear in succession representing sequences of digits. There is much more information in the story then in the digits, but for some reason the human brain is much better at remembering the story. I can still remember phone numbers of friends in high school because I remember the stories connected with them.

This incidently was also how all the information necessary for becoming an expert Polynesian navigator was stored. A navigator had to be able to recite many stories contining information about the position of stars, the occurrence of ocean currents, wind and cloud paterns etc, etc.

The Polynesians arriving in New Zealand also had to adopt to a very different and much colder climate than they were used to from the Pacific islands. They needed to get used to a different flora. Coconuts were no longer available, nor were the bark used to make fibers for clothing. The flax plant became very important. This very common plant here, with very long flat leaves has very strong fibers and was used for clothing and for weaving of many useful objects.

In my infinite naivety I have always thought that fishing lures were a modern invention, I mean the kind that imitates a fish or an insect in the water. Not so, they had 2000 year old Polynesian lures made from sea shell on display!

There was a huge impressive section on tectonic plates, covering volcanos and earthquakes.

We also learned a lot about the flora and fauna of NZ and the reason there are so many endemic (only found here) species.

New Zealand was once part of a very large continent which has been named Gondwana. It consisted of what is today South America, Africa, India, Antartica, Australia and New Zealand. About 150 million years ago this continent started to split up. When it split up each piece carried on the flora and fauna of Gondwana and evolution brought new variations of them and new species as time passed.

When New Zealand was separated, about 80 million years ago, it happened to be very close to the South Pole and had a very harsh climate. Thus very few species existed there when it got isolated. Crucially, not a single mammal lived there. When humans (the Polynesians) arrived in New Zealand the only mammals here were bats, which presumably had flown over from Australia.

In this mammal-free environment there were few predators and a very different genetic pressure than in the other parts of Gondwana. Many flightless birds evolved. Why spend energy on flying when you don´t need to get away quickly? Insects also became abnormally large (what a shame I cannot show pictures here, Gwen), New Zealand´s giant weta is the world´s largest insect and weighs more than most mice. In fact, the weta occupied the same ecological niche as mice on New Zealand.

Some birds, like the now extinct moa, became very large.

Very large animals are also referred to as “the megafauna.” About 100 000 years ago there were many very large species of animals that are now extinct. Their history is the history of mankind´s proliferation across the earth. Archelogical records show clearly that as soon as humans conquered a new piece of land the megafauna quickly died out as it was hunted for food by humans.

The museum was the most child-friendly museum we have ever been to, hands down. There were many separate kid sections and playgrounds and activity centers all over. One part was so cool we risked our freedom and took some pictures. Here they are. So sue us!

That is a 1:1 model of the heart of a blue whale, and you can crawl though it. Isn´t that ultracool?

They were preparing an exhibit of a giant squid. A 4.2 meter monster which had been caught close to Antarctica in 2007 and frozen. We saw a movie about it and could also barely see its contour in a partly covered tank. It will be the only complete specimen on display anywhere. In fact it is the only complete specimen ever found.

We spent our whole day at the museum and could easily have spent one more. What a fantastic institution they have made here. And entrance was free!

There was even free wifi:

Our last full day on the north island was over. Tomorrow new adventures avait us in the south.

Eirik

—–

Il est temps d’aller explorer Wellington. Nous prenons le ferry de Days Bay, un joli village le long de la baie de Wellington, prés de Eastbourne. Avec ses plages, ses cafés et lieux de pique-nique, c’est un endroit très fréquenté le week-end. Mais des gens y habitent toute l’année et prennent le ferry pour se rendre en ville. Nous faisons donc comme les locaux ;o)

Viktor sur le ponton, avec Days Bay à l’arrière plan. Notre B&B, Fern tree hideaway (http://www.ferntreehideaway.co.nz/, est) perché dans les arbres, au milieu de la photo.

L’auteur néo-zélandaise, Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), connue pour ses nouvelles, était originaire de Wellington et une habituée de Eastbourne.

Le ferry s’arrête en route sur l’île Somes island, une ancienne station de quarantaine transformée en réserve naturelle et devenue un lieu de promenade et de pique-nique apprécié.

Nous arrivons en plein centre de Wellington environ 45 minutes après une belle traversée de la baie.

En approchant du port, nous pouvons voir le bateau de croisière Queen Elisabeth. Nous croyons d’abord qu’il s’agit du même bateau que nous avions vu aux îles Canaries en 2003 pour son premier voyage. On apprendra plus tard dans la journée qu’on avait vu le Queen Mary  en 2003 et que le Queen Elisabeth, lui, est tout neuf. Pas facile de s’y retrouver…

La situation de la ville rappelle celle d’Oslo, avec la mer, la baie avec ses îles, le port, les ferries, etc. Quand je disais grande ville hier, c’était un terme relatif. Mais après avoir séjourné dans des atolls avec quelques centaines d’habitants, 164000 habitants (424000 pour la région), ca parait beaucoup. Wellington est en tout cas la capitale de la Nouvelle Zélande, et est fière d’être une ville culturelle et artistique. Elle a aussi acquis le surnom de Wellywood après le succès des films “Le Seigneur des Anneaux” et d’autres grands films à succès tournés au pays kiwi.

Eirik nous laisse pour aller à son rendez-vous chez l’ophtalmologiste.

Les enfants jouent un peu sur un terrain de jeu près du port.

On se balade dans les rues, on va faire une course au magasin de Games Workshop, puis on se dirige vers le funiculaire qui monte de Lambton quay jusqu’au jardin botanique.

De lá, la vue est splendide.

Au sommet, ce gars-là nous attend:

Il est déjà temps de manger un casse croute, nous nous arrêtons aux jeux d’enfants pour pique-niquer et attendre qu’Eirik nous rejoigne.

Nous nous dirigeons ensuite vers l’observatoire Carter qui s’avère être un planetarium très intéressant, refait à neuf en 2010. Un trésor caché, vraiment.

A l’extérieur, il y a un cadran solaire eliptique, appelé “Sundial of human involvement”.

A l’intérieur, nous regardons deux films sur écran 360 degrés: l’un sur l’entrainement des astronautes et l’autre sur les étoiles visibles dans l’hémisphère sud.

L’exposition sur la création de l’univers, version scientifique et version maori, est très bien faite. Il y a plein d’autre expositions intéressantes pour les adultes comme pour les enfants.

Nous redescendons en nous promenant à travers le jardin botanique.

Les hortensias sont magnifiques:

Voici la rocaille de succulantes:

Les massifs près de l’entrée Centennial sur Tinakori Road:

Attention, plante carnivore!

Des fleurs de lotus avec leurs drôles de pommeaux de douche:

En arrivant dans le centre, nous traversons le Bolton Street Memorial Park, qui est le cimetière le plus ancien de la ville, créé en 1840 lorsque la colonie de Wellington fut fondée, et fermé en 1892. Une partie de ce cimetière a été déplacée en 1978 pour faire place à une voie rapide. Il est maintenant coupé en deux, les deux parties reliées par une passerelle.

La ville à 17 h un samedi est d’un calme plat. Il y a très peu de monde dans les rues, les magasins sont presque tous fermés. Cela nous rappelle l’Allemagne, ou encore Oslo dans les années 80.

C’est seulement de retour au port que nous trouvons un peu de monde et quelques restaurants. Viktor choisit un restaurant italien pour fêter ses onze ans.

Nous prenons le bus pour rentrer, le ferry ne circulant plus après 17h le samedi. Viktor et Iseline en ont plein les pattes…

Encore une bonne journée qui est passée trop vite. Ca fait du bien d´être un peu citadins pour un jour ou deux…

Aujourd’hui, étape de transport. Nous quittons l’hotel Park Travellers’ Lodge au village de National Park vers 10h30 et attaquons les 300 km (et 5h de route) qui nous séparent de Wellington. Pendant les premiers 100 km, la route tourne beaucoup et Iseline a constament mal au coeur. Nous appréhendons un peu le reste de notre périple en Nouvelle Zélande si elle doit être si souvent malade en voiture…

En route les paysages sont très beaux et verdoyants.

Ces jolies ruches nous ont fait penser encore une fois à Hal.

Nous nous arrêtons pour admirer ces mini-Iguazu, les cascades de Raukawa:

A l’approche de Wellington, après plusieurs heures de route, les enfants ont mérité leur glace:

Une fois arrivés à Days Bay, les enfants découvrent la surprise qu’Eirik leur a préparée: l’accès au Bed and Breakfast qu’il a réservé se fait à l’aide d’un funiculaire privé! Voilà quelque chose qui conviendrait bien à Mamilyne. L’alternative est un petit chemin goudronné très raide qui monte en épingles à cheveux jusqu’à la maison. En descente, ca va tout seul, mais en montant et avec les bagages, le funiculaire est très apprécié.

La maison est ravissante, perchée dans la forêt surplombant la baie. Le jardin est très fleuri et touffu, on est vraiment en pleine nature. Juste derrière la maison, commence la forêt. Un emplacement fantastique!

Pour la vue, pas à se plaindre non plus. On voit l’île Somes island  au milieu de la baie et Wellington en face.

L’intérieur est tout aussi charmant, la chambre claire et agréable.

Les meubles sont spéciaux. Ils ont été confectionnés par un ébéniste local, avec du bois d’ici et en suivant des methodes traditionelles.

Après s’être installés, nous descendons dans le village où nous avons réservé une table au restaurant du coin, Cobar, qui s’avère excellent. Ils font entre autre un pain sans gluten exceptionnel. Pour une fois, je me suis régalée de pain. Même les autres en ont voulu, c’est dire…

Ensuite, au dodo. Demain, à nous la grande ville!

It was Viktor and my turn to do the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The 19 km hike would be a new record for Viktor.

Since Helene has blogged about this trail already I’ll try to focus on the areas she hasn’t focused on.

The Tongariro National Park was the 4th national park established in the world (1894) and is on UNESCO’s world heritage list, and one of only 25 locations being protected both as a natural and as a cultural site. The three volcanos and mountain tops here, the Ruapehu, the Tongariro and the Ngauruhoe, are all tapu (holy) and very important to the Maori.

There was a sign at the beginning of the trail explaining the origins of the park:

It sounds like a very nice gesture, but it was actually a desperate attempt at saving these sacred mountains from European exploitation. The Maori understood what was happening to their land and the three mountains were donated under the condition that the area would remain untouched. It worked. The national park was established and the area protected from exploitation.

We are now still in the Taupo Volcanic Zone which also includes White Island and Rotorua. The volcanos here are active and the latest eruption occurred in 1975.

Adrian, Iseline and Helene joined us in the morning for the first flat part of the crossing. We needed to get Iseline out a little and the other two needed to use their aching legs after yesterdays strenuous hike. The weather was perfect, but a bit chilly and windy. We could notice that we were in a mountain area and not in a tropical climate anymore.

Then the sun started heating us up:

After a few kilometers it was time to say good-bye to the others. The sky cleared as we started our ascent:

After the first flat part there is a very steep climb. We couldn’t complain about the quality of the trail, This was a highway compared to walking in the Norwegian mountains:

Well deserved break. Did we just walk all the way up that path?

When we reached an altitude of 1600 meters (5250 feet) there was a very informative sign showing the lava flows of previous eruptions and giving advice for what to do if one or more of the volcanos should decide to erupt. “Stay away from the valleys” Sounds like good advice if lava is flowing.

The part showing the lava flows was interesting. We were standing on lava rock considerably younger than me when we read the sign:

After a further climb we reached the flat crater and finally got the side-view of Mt. Ngauruhoe where we could recognize it as Mt. Doom from the LoTR movies. In our famous series of photos called “Viktor and…,” her is “Viktor and Mt. Doom”

After a while I developed serious blisters on both of my heels. I had forgotten that my walking shoes had been bought in Argentina when we thought we had lost our luggage. I have been using sandals on the islands in the Pacific, so the shoes hadn’t been worn in yet. Proud of being well-equipped and a seasoned trekker I got out the compact first-aid kit from my back-pack. Now, where were those band-aids? Full stop. Grumble, mumble, I now remembered that I had taken them out when Iseline needed a band-aid and I had forgotten to put them back in again.

There was no way I would be able to finish the trek without some sort of protection for my heels. I had a second look to see what was at my disposal. I found some strips (thin strong tape, used when you cannot stitch a serious wound) and some sterile wound pads. I cut the strips even thinner with my knife to make more pieces. Presto, heel-saver:

This is incidentally the only photo taken of me during the trek after we left Helene, Adrian and Iseline behind.

The next day Helene searched through the same kit and found some Compeed; specialized band-aid for foot blisters. No further comment.

We did our lunch break at 1900 meters (6200 feet) altitude:

It’s better to crawl when you have a cliff on the other side :

We climbed down the steep gravel road towards the colored lakes:

When we passed the blue lake the weather changed in a few minutes. Clouds covered the sun, a strong wind set in and a few drops of rain fell.

But soon we could see lake Taupo far away. The worst was over and we knew the rest of the trek would be a very long descent.

On our way down we passed close to the Ketetahi Hot Springs and were met by this sign:

So, it seems we should be very grateful to the Ketetahi Trustees that they allow us to pass their land, even though we are in the middle of a national park and the land we are talking about is just plain wilderness.

We have seen it several places, the concept of owning land here seems to be very close to the one that also exists in the US. For someone like me, who has grown up in Norway, the idea that you can legally forbid someone to walk on wilderness land, just because you own it, is a strange and sad one.

How can you have a free country when people cannot use the land?

In Norway the right to use anyone’s land is spelled out in the law. If land is not cultivated or inhabited anyone has the right to walk, ski, bike and ride a horse on it, camp on it and collect berries and mushrooms that grow on it.  This right is called “allemannsretten,” often translated as “The freedom to roam.”

Somewhere along the descent we were overtaken by two other wanderers. They were curious about what language we were speaking and what we were talking about.

Since the very beginning of the trek Viktor and me had been playing the game of 20 questions. The rules are simple. One person thinks about a concept or object, and the other person asks yes/no questions. You have 20 questions to find out what the other person is thinking about. It is fascinating how often it is possible to find out.

We were playing a simplified version where the target had to be an animal and we only got 15 questions.

When the two wanderers heard about our game they joined in. They were Kim and Julia. Both were Dutch, but Kim had moved to New Zealand when she was just  a few years old. Julia, her cousin, was now here to visit and they were doing a road trip together.

They became our walking and talking companions for the last hour and a half of the trek. Here they are:

Kim had worked for 3 months at an orphanage in Rwanda, because she wanted to make a difference to at least some of the children who are suffering in this world. She was planning to go back and stay longer this time. Her hope was to be able to start her own orphanage.

I could sense her young enthusiasm and non-disillusioned idealism. She really wanted to change the world to a better place and was doing something about it. This planet needs more people like her.

We finally reached the end of the trek and said good-bye to Kim and Julia. We had used a little under 8 hours and Viktor had been fantastic on his personal record trek. Not once did he complain or loose his energy.

Our feet hurt, though, and Viktor fell asleep very easily and very early in the evening.

Eirik

—–

Une des raisons principales pour venir dans le parc national de Tangariro est de faire la fameuse traversée d’une journée qui s’appelle Tongariro Alpine Crossing et qui passe au pied de plusieurs volcans. Les paysages en eux-mêmes sont magnifiques. De plus, c’est un des sites de tournage les plus importants  de la serie de films “Le Seigneur des Anneaux”, celui du fameux Mount Doom. La motivation des marcheurs était donc au top. Mais la randonnée étant trop longue et difficile pour Iseline, nous avons fait deux équipes. Hélène et Adrian sont partis mercredi, pendant qu’Eirik est resté à l’hotel avec Viktor et Iseline pour faire l’école. Demain, on inversera et ce sera au tour de Viktor et Eirik de marcher. L’hôtel organise le transport des randonneurs, le point de départ n’étant pas le même que le point d’arrivée.

Voilà donc Adrian au départ de la balade, à 8h45, près pour une rando de 7 à 8h.

Dénivelé à la montée: 800 m, et 1200 m à la descente.

L’itinéraire est le suivant: (“you are here” sur cette carte étant le point d’arrivée)

Nous avons commencé au parking de Mangatepopo et remonté la vallée du torrent Mangatepopo jusqu’à sa source, Soda Springs.

Le sentier est très bien indiqué et aménagé sauf certains passages dans les coulées de lave où il faut grimper un peu.

Au dessus de Soda Springs, on attaque l’ascension, très raide, dans la coulée de lave du volcan Mont Ngauruhoe, dont la dernière éruption a eu lieu en 1975.

Vue sur la vallée du Mangatepopo.

Et voici le Mont Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom), alt. 2291m.

Après cette ascension on arrive sur un replat et on découvre le cratère sud.

Adrian devant le fameux Mount Doom du film. Cooool!

Vue sur la vallée de l’autre côté du col. On s’attend à tout moment à voir des orques surgir de derrière les rochers…

Deuxième partie de l’ascension, le long de la crète qui mène au Mont Tongariro (pour lequel il faut rajouter 2h de marche, ce qu’on ne fera pas).

On découvre en haut de la crète le magnifique cratère rouge. On dirait qu’il vient juste de recracher des cendres et de la lave, mais l’activité volcanique ici se limite à quelques fumeroles et une odeur de souffre qui nous retrouve de temps en temps, au gré du vent.

Le point le plus haut de la balade, au dessus du cratère rouge, est á 1900 m. Effort bien recompensé, car on a maintenant une vue imprenable sur les lacs emeraude et le lac bleu, plus loin.

Dans cette partie de la marche, le sentier est mauvais car la terre s’effrite et roule sous les pieds. Pour la descente sur les lacs (le long de l’arrête sur la photo ci-dessous), c’est très raide et il vaut mieux avoir de bons genoux, car il faut pratiquement courir dans la terre qui recouvre les chaussures.

Nous avons ensuite mangé notre casse-croûte au lac bleu, où le brouillard nous a rejoints.

La descente de l’autre côté est facile mais longue.

Après 1h de marche nous sommes arrivés au refuge de Tetekahi.

et un peu après aux sources du même nom:

La derniére heure de descente se fait dans le bush

puis dans la forêt

Et voilà! Nous avons terminé notre rando en moins de 7h. Nos jambes nous portent encore bien, et nous nous réjouissons de profiter du jaccuzzi de l’hôtel. La journée a été superbe, nous recommandons cette marche à tous ceux qui sont en forme physique pour la faire. Le paysage est varié et magnifique.

Adrian et Hélène

The time had come for our second helicopter trip during the voyage. Just north of Rotorua, 48 km (30 miles) from the coast, lies a volcanic island called White Island. The Maotri name is “Te Puia o Whakaari,” which means “the dramatic volcano.”

White island’s highest point rises 321 meters (1053 feet) above sea level, while the volcano itself has its base 1300 meters (4265 feet) below the sea, making it the largest volcano in New Zealand.

It was Captain Cook, aboard the Endeavour, who gave the island its English name on October 1, 1769, because it was always covered in white fog. The ship did not go close enough to discover that the fog was actually volcanic gasses.

The island is mentioned in several Maori legends and the Maori used to go there to fetch sulphur deposits which they used as fertilizer.

The first non-Maori to set foot on the island was a certain Rev. Henri Williams on December 1, 1826. Records of eruptions have only been kept since then but it is thought to have been active for a very long time.

The volcano is about 150 000 years old and 16 000 year old ashes have been found inside the crater.

The most active period of eruptions was from 1976 to 1982. The last minor eruption was in 2001, and the last major eruption was on July 27th, 2000, when a new crater formed.

We were going to be helicoptered over to the island and then be able to walk inside the crater of an active volcano for about an hour. Now how cool is that?

Of course there is risk involved when you visit an active volcano. The eruption in 2000 could easily have killed many tourists, but it luckily happened at night. The volcano is being intensely monitored 24/7 with webcams, microphones and seismographs., so only an eruption without any warning would be dangerous to us. It was a calculated risk and statistically probably much safer than driving around in a car, or was it?

We got up early and had breakfast in the car:

We did an easy 10 minute drive into Rotorua where we checked in at the office of the helicopter company. Just as in the States they were very focused on weight. I had to give them the combined weight of everyone when I ordered the trip on the web. With Helenes help I had estimated the combined family weight to be 280 kg. (617 pounds).  I was fearing getting information I didn’t necessarily want when we were now going to be weighed. To my surprise the weighing in was done on a large scale integrated into the floor. We were all asked to stand on the same colored carpet and the woman behind the counter cried out: 282 kilos (621 pounds). Neat. I will never get to know how many percent of that came from me.

There was a very nice dog in the office. The scale is hidden under the colored carpet just next to Viktor.

We were told to wait outside. The office was right on the beautiful Rotorua lakefront and we were scratching our heads wondering where the helicopter was going to land. We didn’t see a single logical landing site as far as the eye could reach.

Soon we could see the helicopter coming towards us. It landed on a small floating pier, which seemed impossibly small for a helicopter. Impressive:

All aboard:

Viktor got the front seat:

We got some great views of the surroundings of Rotorua:

before we circled the volcano Mount Tarawera. There was a vey large eruption here on June 3,1886, it was in fact the largest recorded eruption in New Zealand. The mountain and the terrain around it cracked open that day, in a 17 km (over 10 miles) rift that spewed out hot mud, red hot boulders and immense amounts of ash. Several villages were buried and over 100 people died. The eruption also destroyed what had been New Zealand’s most famous tourist attraction, the pink and white terraces. These were beautiful terraces with natural pools created from the pink and white silica deposits of a geyser. Heated water poured down the terraces, so people could bathe in them. Even at a time when New Zealand was very hard to reach, rich tourists travelled from Europe at to see these natural wonders.

We could see the crevasse formed in 1886:

We then headed offshore where we passed some small islands. Our pilot and guide, Dave, was a relaxed and knowledgable fellow.

Soon we started to see White Island ahead of us. First it seemed more black than white

but seeing it closer and at at a different angle changed that perception

We circled the island

and flew straight over the crater. The green thing you see there in the middle is a pool of boiling water saturated with arsenic and sulphuric acid. It has a pH of around 0.6. If you take a swim you will die from three things at the same time: being boiled, poisoned and having your flesh dissolved in the acid.

We landed in an alien and lifeless landscape:

Because of the poisonous gasses constantly venting out of the volcano we had to carry gas masks. The smell of hydrogen sulphide, the same gas that develops when eggs rot, was omnipresent.

The inside of the crater changes with every eruption. It is covered with sulphur deposits and small streams of hot water that comes up from the ground at various points. There are also hot mud pools, formed by rock that has been dissolved by the acid coming up from the ground. These pools are boiling hot and very dangerous. We had strict orders to only walk where Dave said it was safe.

We followed Dave into the crater

Sulphur gas is constantly coming out of these vents:

Don’t walk too close to those mud pools, Viktor!

Adrian getting ready to put his finger in boiling hot water:

We walked over to the edge of the crater hole with the lethal pool. Must… resist… urge to jump in…

The sulphur and other rare chemicals created natural works of art on the ground

We walked over to the open end of the crater and the ruins of the sulphur mining operations which operated here a long time ago. In 1914 part of the crater wall collapsed and the resulting landslide killed all 12 workers. Only the cat survived. The operation was restarted in 1923, with workers coming in by boat every day. The company running it went broke during the great depression and everything was abandoned in 1933 and left to the forces of nature.

It was time to leave this fascinating place. Dave had been a great guide. He was relaxed and let us take our time. Walking to the helicopter I realized we had been in the crater for almost an hour and a half, even though the tour description said one hour.

He took a photo of us before we left:

And here he is with his helicopter:

On the way back a proud Iseline got to sit in the front.

Good-bye, White Island, it was a privilege to visit you:

It had been an adventurous and memorable morning.

Back at the shore of the lake we had a few more sandwiches and the kids played on the playground before we headed south into more volcano country. New Zealand, like Iceland, is placed in between two moving continental plates. The north island has an active volcanic zone cutting more or less through the middle of it.

After a while we could see lake Taupo, New Zealand’s largest lake (surface area: 616 km2 (238 sq mi)), and the second largest lake by surface area in Oceania (after Lake Murrey in Papua New Guinea):

This lake is actually a volcanic crater initially formed by a gigantic volcanic explosion roughly 26 500 years ago. This eruption is the largest known volcanic eruption to occur in the last 70 000 years.  An estimated 1170 cubic kilometers (280 cubic miles) of material was ejected. 1170 cubic kilometers is about 75% of the estimated volume of mount Everest. Yup, 75% of the entire volume, from sea level to the summit, of the world’s highest mountain, ejected in one single volcanic explosion. That must have been some fireworks display, folks!

Since then there have been 28 eruptions here.

New Zealand was settled some time in the 13th century, so no humans were here to witness the latest major eruption which ejected a mere 120 cubic kilometers and devastated more or less the entire north island. Still we know that it took place in the year AD 186. Both the Chinese and the Romans recorded that the sky turned red from the ashes of the eruption. This eruption was probably the largest eruption to occur globally over the last 5000 years.

There is still volcanic activity beneath the lake and one day it will almost certainly explode again.

At the vista point, where the photo above was taken, there was an ice cream stand selling really cool ice creams:

We continued on until we reached Tongariro national park, where we would do a famous walk between volcanoes.

Eirik

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Ce matin, Iseline s’est chargée des oeufs pour le petit déjeuner car elle a appris à faire des omelettes et des oeufs brouillés à l’école (Nettskolen). Elle s’est installée avec les meubles pour enfants qu’elle a trouvés dans la maison et a fait table à part.

Aujourd’hui, la géothermie était au programme. Il existe de nombreux endroits où on peut voir et sentir l’activité volcanique de la région. Nous avions choisi le parc de Te Puia car il permet de combiner un programme culturel maori à un domaine géothermique intéressant. Il abrite aussi l’institut Néo-Zélandais de l’art et l’artisanat maori.

Pour tous ceux qui trouvent que les mots en norvégiens sont trop longs et difficiles à prononcer, essayez-donc celui-là…

Au début de la visite, on peut assister à une cérémonie de bienvenue traditionnelle. Elle a lieu dans une maison réservée aux rassemblements de la communauté, richement décorée. Nous avons vu de très beaux exemples aux musées d’Auckland et de Wellington. La cérémonie commence à l’extérieur, où le groupe de touristes voulant rentrer doit choisir un représentant. La tradition voulait que deux tribus se rencontrant soient représentées par leur chef respectif. La cérémonie servait à déterminer si la tribu qui rendait visite venait en paix ou non.

Dans cette danse, les femmes font tourner des pompons blancs et rouges. Non, ce ne sont pas des saucisses volantes que vous voyez…

Le public était invité à participer. Viktor apprend ici une danse où les hommes doivent impressionner leurs visiteurs, entre autre en tirant la langue et écarquillant les yeux. C’est une grimace que l’on retrouve dans les statues maori.

La grande attraction de la zone géothermique est le geyser Pohutu, “éclaboussement permanent”, qui crache de la vapeur d’eau en moyenne 3 fois par heure.

Les bassins de boue sont une autre attraction importante.

Inutile de dire qu’Eirik a passé un certain temps à essayer de photografier les bulles de boue juste au bon moment. Il y est finalement parvenu!

La température et le niveau d’activité des bassins est variable. Il y a aussi un bassin où l’eau bout. Les Maoris utilisaient ces chaudrons naturels pour faire leur cuisine, et on peut encore gouter à leur cuisine traditionnelle.

Il y a de nombreuses fumeroles et on se promène librement dans ce grand parc. C’est agréable, sauf l’odeur de souffre…

De retour dans le village traditionnel, on peut visiter les ateliers de sculpture et de tissage.

La sculpture traditionnelle comporte un certain nombre de motifs récurents. Les enfants pouvaient essayer l’effet relief en frottant un crayon à papier sur une feuille posée sur le motif.

Regardez la taille impressionante de cette souche. On en voit souvent dans la campagne. Les arbres ici atteignent une taille remarquable.

Dans l’atelier de tissage, on pouvait voir des femmes travailler les fibres de cette plante pour confectionner des costumes, des décorations, des sacs, des tapis, etc.

Après la visite de Te Puia, les enfants n’avaient pas envie de visiter un autre site géothermique. Il faisait beau, nous sommes donc rentrés à la maison pour les laisser profiter un peu de la piscine avant de faire quelques heures d’école.

Demain sera un grand jour, nous allons faire une excursion exceptionnelle. Tenez-vous bien!

La nuit dans l’hotel s’est bien passée, nous avons dormi comme des hobbits. On s’est réveillés avec les pieds tout poilus et des grandes oreilles…

La région de Waitomo est comme un gruyère, il y a plusieurs centaines de grottes calcaires qui ont été formées il y a plus de 2 millions d’années. Nous avions réservé une visite guidée dans une grotte avec Cave World. Ils assurent le transport depuis leur bureau dans le village jusqu’à la grotte. En voici l’entrée:

Les grottes sont habitées par les fameux vers luisants. Ce sont des insectes qui dans leur phase de larve, durant entre 6 et 12 mois, vivent dans des grottes ou endroits abrités en forêt. Ils fabriquent un nid en “soie” et tissent jusqu’a 70 fils qui pendent entre 30 et 40 cm du plafond de la grotte, formant des pièges pour d’autres insectes. Les vers luisent dans l’obscurité et ils sont plus brillants quand ils ont faim. La lueur attire les proies, sans doute en donnant l’illusion d’un ciel étoilé, que les insectes utilisent normalement pour naviguer dans l’obscurité. Quand le plafond d’une grotte est recouvert des vers luisants, on croirait effectivement admirer les étoiles. Ce n’est malheureusement pas facile de les prendre en photo, alors il faudra venir voir de vous même!

On peut aussi admirer de nombreuses formations de stalactites et stalagmites.

La grotte esit belle, bien aménagée avec des sentiers et des passerelles à l’éclairage très soft pour ne rien gâcher au spectacle. On a seulement regretté de ne pas avoir choisi une visite avec approche en bateau. On le fera sans doute dans la region de Te Anau sur l’île du sud.

Après la visite de la grotte, Iseline et Viktor ont inventé un jeu avec les moyens du bord.

Le propriétaire de Woodlyn Park, qui comprend l’hotel des hobbits, Billy Black (Barry Woods de son vrai nom), est un homme original avec plus d’un tour dans son sac. Tondeur de moutons professionnel, il est détenteur du record de tonte de 675 agneaux en un jour avec son équipe dans les années 80. Saviez-vous que la tonte de moutons est un discipline très répandue dans les pays élevant des moutons? D’après Wikipedia, un tondeur professionnel tond en moyenne 100 à 150 moutons par jour, et certains champions australiens atteignent jusqu’à 300 moutons. Nous avons donc vraiment eu affaire à un champion en la matière…

Billy est un drôle de personnage qui n’a pas peur de sortir des sentiers battus. Voici le panneau indiquant ses horaires d’ouverture:

A part les différentes parties de son hotel, il a construit une ènorme grange qui abrite une salle de spectacle et un restaurant dans lequel il peut recevoir des groupes. Le batiment est truffé d’antiquités de toute sorte.

Tous les jours à 13h30, il propose un spectacle qui retrace l’histoire et les traditions locales avec une bonne dose d’humour. Nous avons remarqué qu’il raconte tout cela du point de vue des européens qui sont venus s’installer dans la région et ont défriché des terrains pour commencer à les cultiver. Cela rappelle un peu l’histoire d’Isak dans le fameux roman du norvégien Knut Hamsun, “L’éveil de la glèbe”. Jusqu’à maintenant, on avait plutôt vu ou entendu l’histoire de la Nouvelle Zélande et de l’impact que les humains (les Polynésiens puis les Européens) ont eu sur la nature. Des immenses étendues de forêt primaire ont été rasées pour fournir des terrains cultivables et certains types d’arbres énormes ont été abattus jusqu’au dernier pour exporter du bois en Californie par exemple ou pour la construction de bâteaux. Dans le spectacle de Billy Black, les gens qui sont venus s’installer dans la région étaient des gens courageux et travailleurs qui ont fait un travail colossal pour développer le pays (ce qui est vrai aussi).

Nous voici prêts pour le spectacle:

Le public participe au spectacle, ce qui est assez cocasse.

Il fallait bien 2 hommes musclés pour tourner la manivelle de la tondeuse, et encore, ils ont eu du mal…

Billy, lui, n’a pas perdu la main.

Tout son spectacle est hautement technologique et géré par “ordinateur”.

Billy nous a aussi présenté toute sa ménagerie.

Voici un possum:

Même s’il est mignon, le possum représente un gros problème en Nouvelle Zélande. Il a été introduit d’Australie par des Européens dans les années 1870 pour produire de la fourrure, mais s’est répandu comme une pandémie et a atteint en 1980 le nombre impressionant de 70 millions d’individus. Il mange les feuilles des arbres et les oeufs des oiseaux, mettant en danger les populations d’oiseaux locaux et ravageant les forêts de feuillus. De plus, il transmet la tuberculose bovine. Les autorités poursuivent un programme d’élimination d’une partie de la population de possums par le biais de poison et de pièges. Le nombre de possums est aujourd’hui réduit de moitié.

Aprés le spectacle, nous avons pris la route en direction de Rotorua, la fameuse ville avec beaucoup d’activité volcanique, les geysers, les odeurs de souffre, etc. Nous avons loué une maison en bordure de la ville, avec piscine, s’il vous plaît ;o)

Au fond du jardin (qui était malheureusement encore en travaux), Iseline et Eirik ont découvert une ruche. Original pour une maison en location! Celà nous a fait penser à Hal et ses abeilles de Campbell en Californie.

Iseline était toute contente de trouver un coin pour les enfants avec plein de jouets et de peluches. Un peu surexcitée, peut-être?…

Elle a finalement réussi à s’endormir ;o)

Time to move again after some great days in Coromandel.

Back in September, before we left Norway, Adrian had made us aware that there is a hobbit motel in New Zealand, where you can stay in a hobbit hole, just like the ones the hobbits live in in the Lord of The Rings movies. The motel was close to Waitomo, where there are some very interesting glow worm caves, so we added it to our itinerary.

Adrian is a big fan of the Lord of the Rings and one of his hobbies is to play board games with his friends using miniatures (from the movies) which they assemble and paint themselves. He really wanted to visit sites in New Zealand where the movies have been made. However, when we did some net research, we found that when the Lord of The Rings film trilogy was finished all filming locations were returned to their natural state. There are places to visit, but it is often difficult to recognize them from the scenes in the movies.

What Adrian did not not know was that we had been given a super tip by the Swiss couple we had invited over for dinner the other day. The filming of the movie “The Hobbit” is just about to start, and they have rebuilt the entire “Shire,” the village of the hobbits. Not only that, you can join a guided tour of the movie set! In fact the filming was going to start in 2 days (later we discovered it was delayed) and this was the very last chance to see the set. By chance the movie set was more or less in between Coromandel and Waitomo.

We drove through a hilly landscape covered with very green grass. This seems to be very typical for the north island. There is grass everywhere and it looks almost artificially green.

After a while we asked Adrian to have a look at this sign:

The reaction was instant and energetic.

Soon we reached Hobbiton:

This area was hand-picked by Peter Jackson (the director of the LoTR movies) when he travelled around the north island in a helicopter back in 1998, to find filming locations. On the site was a very large sheep farm and he made a deal with the owners. When they started to dismantle everything after the movies were finished, a very heavy rain set in that made it impossible to move in with heavy machines. This time lag made it possible for the owners to contact and negotiate a deal with the film company. In the end they let the hobbit holes stay, stripped of everything but the concrete frames, and let the owner of the farm organize guided tours of the location. The only place in New Zealand where this was allowed.

Now that they have rebuilt everything the owners still have the right to do tours. They boast that this is the only film set location in history where you can visit the set before filming starts.

We got our tickets:

We waited for our tour bus to arrive and had a great view of some of the many sheep here:

In general we have noticed that there are many more animals per square meter of grass here in New Zealand than anywhere else we have seen, probably because of the favorable climate.

Unfortunately we had to sign this contract before taking the tour:

At least they let us take photos, but as you see I cannot show you any of the about 200 photos we took while on the movie set. Awwhhhhhhhh…

There are some photos on the web site of the tour company though, have a look here to get an impression of what it looked like.

It’s really a pity I can’t show the pictures, Dauro, because I was wearing the Brazil soccer t-shirt you gave me. On the other hand it is really tight around my steadily increasing stomach surface.

Strictly speaking, if I follow that contract by the letter, I am not allowed to tell you anything the guide told us while on the set. I have decided to take the risk of being sued, though. Anything for you, my dear readers. Here goes (closing eyes):

The movie set was incredible. Almost 40 hobbit holes had been constructed in the hilly grass-covered landscape. We were extremely serendipitous with our timing. Since filming was due to start in a few days everything was perfect and in place, right down to vegetables in the hobbit gardens and fruits on the trees. The money and man-hours that must have gone into this is simply mind-bogling. All these resources spent to create an illusion and entertain people for a couple of hours.

Our guide told us that they had had many Tolkien fans visiting, with different degrees of insanity. He said many thought they were hard-core just because they could read or speak Elvish (the language of the elves in the movies). He said that was nothing. The most extreme case was a couple who only spoke Elvish between them. To top it the woman did not speak English, so whenever the guide explained something about the movie set the guy had to translate everything into Elvish for her.

They had one visitor who by principle had not seen the movies, because he wanted to keep his images from the books in his mind. He had instead come to visit the movie set to see if Peter Jackson had a good and vivid imagination. He had taken a look around and said that yes, Peter Jackson did have a good imagination. Then he had sat down in the grass waiting for the guided tour to finish, so he could take the bus back.

Another guy had bought a gold replica of THE ring in the souvenir store here. They cost around NZD 1000 (USD 750). He told them he was going to go down to Tongariro national park, where the Mt Doom volcano scenes were filmed. He would then hire a helicopter with a pilot and proceed to drop the ring into the volcano. I have to admit the coolness factor of that is quite high.

We were shown around the set and the details were very impressive. The guide told us that Jackson was extremely detail oriented and always followed the Tolkien books in everything. For instance the books said there were six hobbit holes in the other side of the lake from the village pub. Six had been built, even though only four can be seen in the movies. When fans had complained Jackson could point out that the other two were there, just around the corner of that hill, you just couldn’t see them in the movie.

We were pretty amazed that tours were allowed at all. We were maybe 60 in our group, with one guide and two helpers, and it wouldn’t take much for someone to stumble and ruin something. The guide told us they had already been given two warnings from the film company and one more would mean they would have to shut down. On one occasion someone had stepped on a rock and killed some small plants. These were specifically grown on the rock and it took time to grow new ones. The other occasion had been surreal. Despite being told not to touch anything a group of about 100 people had gone mad. Some people had started to enter a hobbit hole and then others had followed. Kids had started to play with a hobbit swing, etc. The poor guide had not managed to stop it all.

I can imagine the despair of the guide. Human group psychology is fascinating. It seems that when we act as a group IQ often goes dramatically down, approaching that of sheep. “Oh well, if that other guy goes into that house then I must have misunderstood something, and since i really want to do it I will do it too… Baaaah”

After the movie set tour we were given a demonstration of how to shear sheep

and then we bottle-fed some lambs. Sure kid-winner:

After another hour of driving around grassy hills we reached our own hobbit hole:

At last, here is that Brazil t-shirt, Dauro:

A bunch of kids:

There was a pig on our roof!

The motel consisted of several quite original living quarters. There was a boat:

A train wagon:

And an airplane:

I bet you would have loved staying in that plane, Marius. There is a ladder going up to the cockpit, where the sleeping room is.

Eirik

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