North from Wellington

We went to pick up our hire car and i was really looking forward to driving the Ford XR6 or the Holden equivalent.
When we were told we had been upgraded, i thought "Yes", a V8 maybe.
Unfortunately we were upgraded to a Suburu Forester AWD. 2.0L turbo. Gutted, i can tell you.
So this was our vehicle for the next few days as we made our way back North to Auckland.

Our upward journey was into the Tongoriro national park, for an overnight stop before heading off to friends who live on the banks of the Waikato River at Reparoa, North of Taupo.
Debbie had booked a very nice lodge in Ohakune, with a great view of Mount Ruapehu.

View of Mount Ruapehu from our lodge in Ohakune.

 Once we had got ourselves settled in, we headed off into town for a beer and something to eat. What a disappointment, it was a pretty dead place. This area i believe, is packed during the winter but quiet during the summer.
We decided to eat at the Alpine Hut Wine bar and Restaurant, and it was not a good decision. Without any shadow of a doubt, and we all agreed, that this was, by far, the worst meal we had during the whole
 5 weeks in New Zealand.

 We had a quick look round town and as you can read below we obviously went to the wrong venue.

And so we  headed back to the lodge for a few beers at home. 

It got pretty cold overnight and we stepped out to find it was still -4 C at 9.00am. 

It was a bit of a shock to the system but it was nice and crisp.

  Looking at the map and some brochures left in the lodge, it was a shame that we couldn't spend another day here as the walking choices were excellent. But we had to meet up with Janet in Taupo. Janet was a friend of Sheila and Debbies going back 20 years or so. I had never met Janet or hubby Spud before.

  Janet met us as arranged, and guided us to their lovely home in Reparoa. Being directly on the river, all the family are interested in fishing and water sports. It wasn't long before we were in a speed boat heading up river to Spuds favorite fishing spots. We had a great afternoon and then it was back for a barby and a few beers. The early hours very soon came around as we discussed old times. Thanks for a super day.

  The next day we unfortunately had to leave Janet and Spuds. We had booked a beach front apartment in the resort of Tauranga.

Upon arrival, it was noticeably busy in town and then we realised most people had a ribbon around their necks with a card attached which meant they were off a cruise ship. As it turned out there was 2 ships in harbour.

We had another brilliant apartment with great views.

We were here for a couple of days and it's a lovely place. Overlooking the town is Mount Maunganui. 

It's quite a bit steeper than it looked and its a good workout.

We set off up the mount quite early and i am so pleased we did. The day was very warm and on the way down we were passing people that looked like they had just completed the marathon. Lots of water needed consuming. 

The views from the top were well worth the effort all the same.

A very enjoyable morning. Time seemed to be moving so quickly now and the thought that this was our last week in New Zealand was a bit depressing. We still had the drive to Auckland via the Icebreaker Shop in Manukau to look forward to and a couple of tourist days in Auckland itself.

Time for a coffee now and a sit down.

Wellington Pt. 2.

Walking from the top of the Funicular, through the Botanical gardens back down into Wellington, the first point of interest that we came to just happened to be the oldest cemetery in Wellington.
Known now as the Bolton Street Memorial gardens.

This cemetery was quite unique for the period. It's first burials were in 1841. The unusual thing was it was for all denominations. Until 1850 most graves were only marked by wooden grave markers and many of the original plots are now lost. More can be read here.

Old Chapel entrance

The plaque in the Old Chapel of William Wakefield.

Wakefield was an English Colonel and part of the original colonizing expedition of New Zealand. By all accounts he had quite a colourful life.

Walking now into town we visited the Cathedral. I wasn't keen on the design. I much more liked Nelson.

 However inside it was quite spectacular if a little too modern.

 Increadable organ pipes

One of the many stained glass windows.

 The New Parliament Building

And the Old Parliament Building.

The Trio with Statue of Richard John Seddon MP and a previous Prime Minister

Adjacent to the Old Parlament building is the Parliamentary Library. For me this was 

the best building in Wellington. Just stunning.

Government Offices.

 A bit of arty Justice.

 Another fantastic building is the railway station. The station was opened by Viscount Galway on 19th June 1937. Mahatma Gandhi must have been waiting a long time for his train.

 The station ceiling architecture

 And Harry Potters Platform 9 3/4.

What you need to do after all this sight seeing.

More Rubbish

I was reading Robin's fine blog (Blogpackinglight) about Rubbish that had been discarded by mindless morons on the beautiful Peddars Way. It makes me cringe that human beings can do something like this.  Then i remembered that i had taken a photo of a similar kind of mess that had been dumped in Hamilton, New Zealand.
Fortunately we never saw excessive mess in New Zealand, but i'm sure that was more luck than anything else.

Anyway, here's my photo.

 It goes to show that the mindless are illiterate too

and whoever is doing the monitoring needs a bit of training.

Wellington Pt 1.

 We were now a group of four and we had a day and a half in Wellington before having to pick up the hire car and heading North to see some friends.
Debbie had arranged the car which was a Ford Falcon XR6.

Similar to this one.

 Wellington, named after Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, was also named 4th in the top 10 best cities to visit, says the Lonely Planet capital guide. Saying it’s the coolest little capital in the world.

 Well it was certainly “Cool” this morning as we set off to find the start of the funicular railway that goes right from town up to the Botanical gardens and Carter Observatory. It was a real windy day and cut you through. I was so pleased i took the Rab Boreas hoody.

  We found the station quite easy as there are lots of information boards in many of the streets. Fortunately the queue was only short today as we had been told it can get very busy. Maybe the windy weather had put some off. There is some real history on show here which i was more interested in than the actual ride up the hill.

In coming tram

View from the top station overlooking Wellington

The railway construction started in 1899 and was completed and opened to the public in 1902. Designed by James Fulton. Some of the original carriages were converted horse drawn trams which had now been made redundant.

One of the original beautifully renovated old grip carriages.

By 1912 the passenger numbers had reached 1 million per annum and in 1933 the original steam engine was replaced by electric motors. 

I tried to find the original steam engine but failed. It doesn’t seem to have been restored which is a shame.

There is still plenty to occupy the mind though.

A later grip carriage where passengers sat outside. Probably to get away from the driver who looks to have had a few to many in this shot.

As i was now in the midst of 3 O’Connor clan members, they were very pleased that one of the railway pioneers was one Maurice O'Connor

Also, as well as the railway history museum there is the Carter Observatory astronomical unit and a first world war German field gun.

 The 1907 Krupp 135mm field gun 

We had wandered around the museum for about 1 hour or more and it was starting to get a bit busy so we made our exit. 

 Instead of getting the railway down to town we decided to walk through the botanical gardens and then visit some of the wonderful buildings that Wellington has to offer.

That will be in part 2.

And so to the ferry

  After what was a delightful few days in Nelson, we headed off again for Picton where we catch the ferry to Wellington. Sheila and Dorothy are especially looking forward to getting into Wellington due to the arrival from Sydney of Sheila’s sister Debbie, who they have not seen for 6 years.
  I had wanted to do a days walk on the Queen Charlotte track and then spend a night out somewhere around Portage on the Marlborough sound but the ferry was booked and excitement was high about the meeting.
The minor road to Portage is not that far off the highway to Picton and so it was decided to have a drive there and just take in the atmosphere of the area.

  The road into Picton from Havelock is especially beautiful, and although steep in parts, it’s not to be missed.

On arrival at the motorhome park in Picton the lady in reception was a bit surprised that we had taken the large vehicle along that particular road, but i didn’t think it was too bad to be honest.

  It was a really noisy night with our sleep broken many times by freight trains and HGV’s heading to and from the port. This happens to be my 4th night spent on this site and it had never previously been so noisy.

  We woke to a very grey day with the surrounding hills invisible by the low cloud. Having checked the weather forecast it was pleasing that our crossing to Wellington would be under improving skies.
It was also the day that we returned Manuka back to the hive.

 Once on the ferry we headed for the private lounge that we had booked. Don’t get any ideas here, it wasn’t that much more money and it included extremely comfy seats, NO KIDS, and free food and drinks. Worth every dollar.

  Another 30 mins after docking and Manuka was back with the rest of the hive having a well earned nap.
We were quickly greeted by staff from Britz who had been reading the blog and so knew the problems we had been having. Compensation was agreed Mr S. and in a fair way. But and there is always a but isn’t there. A sting in the tail was to follow.

  Once the refunds were put back on the card we were asked if we would like to take the shuttle bus back into Wellington. We said "yes that would be great". We were told it would only be a few minutes and it would arrive right here. Brilliant.

  A very pleasant chap dropped us to our hotel 20 minutes away and we thanked him. I was about to tip him when he said that’s $50 please. What! we couldn’t believe we had been so stupid. We thought it was a Britz free shuttle bus but it was just an everyday taxi but without the taxi signage.
 I think Britz need to make this clear to customers in future as it could have been very embarrassing if we hadn’t got $50 at that moment.
The driver said “ No it’s not free from them (Britz), they are not like the others”. What ever “like the others”  means. Anyway a lesson learned. I hope Britz read this too.

  So, we met up almost straight away with Debbie, who had got a taxi from the airport at a cost of $10. Now that sounds more reasonable and had a very pleasant evening catching up.

Nelson City.

  No it's not a football team. Nelson is a small "City" on the north shore of NZ south island.
On our travel with Manuka back to Picton for the ferry, we decided to have a few days at Nelson.
This is one of the oldest places in NZ, being named after our very own, great Admiral.
All, or I should say, a lot, of the streets are named after Nelson's battles or acquaintances.
http://www.nelsonnz.com/things-to-do-see

  When Sheila suggested a city break i thought the worst, not being a fan of busy places or city motor home parks i wasn't particularly looking forward to it.

  The drive to Nelson included a trip down the coastal scenic route which included Ruby bay, and as we sat in sunshine we watched the rain sweeping in along the coast to Nelson. Just our luck we thought.
Fortunately it cleared as fast as it came and left us with a good view across to the surrounding hills.

Ruby Bay.

  Our arrival in Nelson was in wall to wall sunshine and blue skies. We found the motor home park very easily as the city uses a grid road system and we were very pleased with our first impressions of a very tidy site.
In the reception we were given info of what to see and do in and around Nelson and i admit, there is far more to do here than i ever imagined. I couldn't wait to get going but that would have to wait a day as we needed to get a few bits and bobs from the supermarket and generally tidy up the van.
  The walk back into the centre was about 15 - 20 mins but not at all boring.

The following day was another day of contrasting weather as we woke to quite heavy rain, but at least it was warm rain. We had set our sights on a walk called the Centre of New Zealand which although quite steep shouldn't pose any problems for Dorothy to do.

 A lovely walk along Hardy St, (from the kiss me Hardy fame), we came to the Botanical gardens where the uphill starts and Jesus was with us as Dorothy likes to bring him along whenever there’s a steep bit.
 Due to the recent bad weather there were numerous land slips and fallen trees along the track which had led to some sections of the route being closed but enough had been cleared to give access to the top. Thankfully.

The above photo's are from the lovely walk along Hardy St.

A local chappy told us that this calm river Maitai was monstrous just 4 weeks ago during the floods and very hard to visualise now that it had all subsided.

  The name of this walk, Centre of New Zealand, reflects the work of John Spence Browning the Chief Surveyor for Nelson in the 1870's.  He used the top of the hill as the central survey point for doing the first geodetic survey of New Zealand when earlier isolated surveys where combined.
  A survey in 1962 did locate the centre of New Zealand as 41deg. 30min S., 172deg. 50min E., which is a point in the Spooners Range in the Golden Downs Forest. The survey did not include the Chathams.

  We very soon came to a closed path, at first i thought the council must have heard that Sheila was on her way but it turned out to be the problems from the landslip. The huge trees had been chain sawed to allow access, but not removed completely. When you see the size of these trees they must have made a frightening noise on the way down. I hope nobody was in the vicinity at the time.

Just one of the many fallen huge trees on the way up to the summit lookout.

 As we gained height the wonderful views across the Maitai valley opened up and shows what a lovely

area this is. 

One trail leading of into the Maitai comes out at the river where there are some wonderful swimming pools along the way.

Once at the summit, which is gained well within the hour the 360 deg views across to the mountains which include peaks such as The Devils Thumb and The Twins are well worth the effort.

The Centre of New Zealand pinnacle.

The way down, due to the landslips had to be a reverse of the way up but this area has lots of possibilities to spend a few days hiking here.

We had time to spare and the day was very warm so i took some photo’s in the Victoria Garden.

  Francis Trask Mayor of Nelson,was instrumental in the Gardens being dedicated to Queen Victoria’s 50th jubilee celebrations. He did a great job. They are very peaceful and also include an eel pond.

 Nelson surprised us quite a lot. It’s a beautiful place to live and has easy access to some tremendous outdoors life. The climate is amongst the best in NZ with the most sunshine hours.

 The Cathedral is also spectacular and worth a visit alone.