Blue birds and Guinness lambs

While we're waiting for our Guinness and lamb stew to cook, I'll use the time to tell you about our most recent investment. A car! We are now the proud owners of a 1996 Nissan Bluebird SSS. Green in colour it is in very good condition except for a small dent on the left hand side. But that's just aesthetics and we don't care about that.

Our new ride

A funny thing happened when we were finalizing the deal. Turned out that the seller was a good friend of my flatmate Matt! None of us knew that until the seller Sam turned up with the car at the house the day the deal went down. Sam stepped out of the car and said "This is my mate's house! I thought 23A Valley Road sounded familiar!"

What a coincidence! Anyway, we were all the more happy to hear this. Now we can ask Sam for help if a problem arises (he's an amateur car mechanic).

Of course we had to take the green lady for a spin this weekend. In fact, we took her for several spins as the weather has been absolutely fantastic! The summer really is here now, and what we've seen so far promises some scorching heat-waves later on. We reckon it should be quite cold, dark and miserable at home in Finland right now... Anyone jealous?? :-)

Rarrrrrrrrrrr!!! What a monster!

Those wheels are gonna take us around NZ!

Yesterday evening we felt like eating out. Matt recommended a restaurant called Zeytin in the Mount, so we headed there. Zeytin proved to offer excellent mediterranean cuisine at even better prices! It was a true joy to enjoy a beer each, starters and main courses knowing it only cost $63! We'll have to go back there a couple of times at least, because the menu held several dishes worth trying (they have a wood fired oven!). The evening was rounded up by going to the movies to watch the new Bond - Quantum of Solace. Wish we could say it lived up to our expectations.

Today we cruised to a small town called Katikati. Wasn't much to see there except some nice murals, but the drive was lovely. The whole Tauranga area is actually an ancient volcanic crater. Mount Maunganui is one of the lava domes. The mountain rim to the south is the remaining crater wall. In Katikati we drove up to a lookout situated on the crater wall and had a fine view of the greater Tauranga area. It's not hard to understand why a lot of people retire here; the climate is one of the warmest and most pleasant on the North Island.

Snow, rain and freezing temperatures? Quite the contrary!

The green and fertile Bay of Plenty area

Mural art in Katikati

Stay tuned for a story on the farming from Giigan!

Oh, our stew turned out extremely well. Appetizing?

Lamb and beer stew according to Jamie Oliver "The Naked Chef"

Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Last weekend we had what is probably the best experience so far in NZ. On Saturday morning I took a rental car south and picked up Giigan from the farm half way between Rotorua and Taupo. We continued to Taupo before making a stop to buy some groceries for the two days ahead. Taupo lies on the shores of Lake Taupo; the largest lake in NZ. On a clear day, the likes of one we were fortunate enough to be blessed with, you can see the peaks of three volcanic mountains south across the lake. These are in the heart of the Tongariro National Park. It was there we were heading.

The three volcanoes of the Tongariro National Park across Lake Taupo.

The national park lies about 280 km south of Tauranga, so I had plenty of time getting used to driving on the left side of the road. I'm a bit suprised by how easy it actually is - at least with an automatic! I wouldn't want to shift gears with my left hand; that would feel very strange. The only thing I had problems with was the signal lights for turning. The lever for doing this was on the "wrong" side of the steering wheel, so almost every time I was turning, I put the window cleaners on! Then there's the stupid "give-way-to-cars-coming-from-your-right" rule, which doesn't make much sense if you're turning left yourself. Oh well, you just have to be sharp while behind the wheel.

The Tongariro National Park was given as a gift to the people of NZ in 1887 by the local Maori tribe. It is the first national park in NZ and the fourth in the world. It is the first in the world to have been gifted by the country's indigenous people and is today a World Heritage park. The national park is centred on three active volcanoes; Mt Tongariro (1967 m), Mt Ngauruhoe (2291 m) and Mt Ruapehu (2797 m), but is surrounded by herb fields, hot springs, waterfalls, rain forests, alpine lakes and a desert-like plateau.

Mt Ruapehu is always covered with snow and ice and is home to the North Island's only glaciers. There are two ski areas on the slopes of the volcanoe. You may recognise the mountain from the Lord of the Rings movies, since some shots were taken there. The neighbouring Mt Ngauruhoe also featured in the movies and stood in fact as model for Mt Doom, which is quite obvious when you look at it :-) Mt Ngauruhoe is very beautiful with its near perfectly symmetrical slopes and circular top crater. It hasn't exploded to pieces like its two brothers.

"Mt Doom" looks a bit different when snow covered, doesn't it? Almost like a gigantic pile of white sugar.

We stayed at a hostel in National Park Village, on the western fringe of the park. We didn't, however, spend much time there besides sleeping. After arriving around 2 o'clock on Saturday we immediately drove to Whakapapa Village, which is one of the ski areas at the base of Mt Ruapehu. There are many short walks starting from there. We headed out towards the Tamaki Falls; a 2 hour walk to a largish waterfall of about 20 metres. Most of the trail cut through a landscape which reminded us very much of Lapland, except that there were three stunning white-capped mountain peaks in the distance. The walk was very pleasant and served us as a suitable warm-up for what we were going to attempt on Sunday.

At the Tamaki Falls.

On Saturday evening we went for a drink to The Station café/bar/restaurant in National Park Village. It was an idyllic place to relax; its reconstructed interior had a cozy atmosphere and the warmth of the fireplaces drove away the chill from our bones (it is still essentially winter in the national park).

On Sunday morning we woke up early at 6 o'clock and made ourselves ready for the day's walk. Along with a lot of other people we were going on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This is a one-day trek - often rated as the best such in NZ - through steep volcanic terrain. The trek starts and ends at different points, so we had booked transportation with our hostel. The distance of the basic trek is 19,4 km and is estimated to take 6-8 hours. Once about half-way, you can choose to do two side trips if you have the time and energy. You can either climb to the summit of Mt Ngauruhoe (2287 m) or Mt Tongariro (1967 m). There is a poled route to the latter, but not to the first.

We wanted to do either one of them, so as we had only 8 hours in total from the time we were dropped of 'til we were going to be picked up at the other end, we set out at a rather brisk pace from the start at the Mangatepopo car park (altitude about 1150 m). The first hour of the walk all the way to Soda Springs was fairly easy. The route took us to the cleft between Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro before starting to climb at a steep gradient. At an altitude of around 1500 m the trail got covered by snow. This made it a bit harder, but luckily it wasn't frozen and slippery so no clampons were necessary. Once you reach the saddle point between the two peaks and what is called the South Crater, you can choose to climb Mt Ngauruhoe.

Still on the first and easy part of the walk. Mt Ngauruhoe to the left.

We would have loved to conquer "Mt Doom", but it's a 600 m climb from the South Crater at a very steep inclination. In other words: it looked tough! So we didn't do that but decided to instead climb the summit of Mt Tongariro which lies at the northern end of the South Crater. Besides, Frodo and Sam didn't have to climb all the way to the top of Mt Doom, so we are no worse than they are!

The South Crater and Mt Ngauruhoe

From the South Crater the basic trek continues to the Red Crater at 1886 m. The volcanic rock of the crater is red (d'oh!) and there is steam rising from gas vents on the slopes of it. A reminder that this is still an active volcanic area.

From the Red Crater we took the side trip to the summit of Mt Tongariro. This is a 3 km return trip which climbs to 1967 m. It was pretty cold up there because of a strong wind, but the vista before us made the temperature insignificant. I just can't describe how awesome it was to stand there at the summit and see the majesty of the land unfolding before our eyes. Across the South Crater Mt Ngauruhoe pierced the deep-blue sky and from beyond, Mt Ruapehu looked back at us. Far in the horizon we could even see the peak of Mt Taranaki (2518 m) above the clouds. Mt Taranaki is a lone volcanoe about 150 km away on the west coast. We sat at the summit a few minutes eating muesli bars and dried dates before forced to start moving again by the freezing wind.

At the summit of Mt Tongariro. Mt Ngauruhoe (left) and Mt Ruapehu (right) are behind us.

The second half of the Crossing starts by descending from the Red Crater to the Emerald Lakes. These are three small lakes with a beautiful blue-green-turqoise colour. Here we took another short break and enjoyed more muesli bars and refreshing juice.

Descending from the Red Crater to the Emerald Lakes.

Before coming down below the snowline the trail took us over the flat plain of the Central Crater and passed the Blue Lake. Because we had made good time we were able to take an hour's break at the Ketetahi hut, just 1½ hours walk from the ending point of the trek. The hut lies on the northern slope of Mt Tongariro and has an astonishing view north towards Lake Taupo. We ate our late lunch consisting of boiled eggs and golden kiwi fruits there, sitting in the sunshine at the front of the hut. We felt immensely good!

Felt good sitting down for a while at the Ketetahi hut and enjoy some refreshments in the warm sunshine.

All in all it took us 7,5 hours to get from the starting point to the end. Considering that we spent an hour walking the side trip to the summit of Mt Tongariro and another hour at the Ketetahi hut, we were quite fast! Guess we are both in pretty good shape :-) Still, it doesn't stop at least me from feeling the long walk in my legs even today.

So there you have it folks; a recipe for a terrific weekend!

MORE PICTURES from our adventure in the national park are available here!

Thermal wonderland

Yesterday evening I had my first kiwi barbeque experience. Matt invited me to his cousin's place for some BBQ food and to watch the rugby game between NZ's national team the All Blacks and the Wallabies (Australia). It was a pretty decent night, we even saw a live firework show which rivaled the best Vasa has to offer on New Year's Eve (Matt's cousin lives next to a racecourse where there was a big car competition). Since I've decided to have a vegetarian month (at the very least) and still have 1½ weeks to go, there was no BBQ meat on my plate. I really didn't mind as the steaks, chicken wings and kebabs looked quite black and burned to my eyes. I was happy with the feta-filled button mushrooms and kumara (sweet potatoe) slices I had brought and BBQed myself.

I offered some salmiakki-sweets from Finland to everyone to taste, but noone liked them. We have yet to meet the first person on this trip to like salmiakki either as a sweet or in liquid form (salmiakkikossu)! Guess it really is an acquired taste :)

But, I really wasn't going to go into more details of yesterday. Instead I'm briefly (at least I'll try to be brief) going to tell you a couple of things we did about 4 weeks ago after leaving the Coromandel Peninsula.

Heading south from the peninsula we stopped for one night in Tauranga (where I currently reside, you know) before continuing to Rotorua. A major reason for us coming to Rotorua at the time was the national championships in basketball for under 16-year-old teens. Giigan wanted to check the games out.

Backgammon and lots of toffee ice-cream in Tauranga

Rotorua lies in the middle of the North Island's volcanic plateau and there is still a lot of thermal activity in the area. The city lies by Lake Rotorua, which is a gigantic volcanic crater. Pools with either hot boiling water or bubbling mud are spread throughout the town and the surrounding countryside. There are hot springs, geysers and gas vents. Our travel books had warned us of the strong smell of sulphur (rotten eggs) prevailing in the area, but we think the remarks were exaggerated. Sure, from time to time the offensive smell reached our noses, but hardly constantly.

We ended up staying in Rotorua for more than a week. The absolute highlight was one of the first days when we went to the sports centre to watch a couple of basketball games, but soon found ourselves somewhere completely different.

After just 5 minutes of aimlessly wandering around the sports centre a grey-haired man in his 60s approached Giigan. His name was Brian and he turned out to be a nice fellow offering to show us around the hot pools by the lake just outside the sports centre. Before we even could say "cheesecake" we found ourselves outdoors, walking inside the fenced areas among the bubbling pools along with our "guide". Brian told us about the different kinds of pools and gas vents and showed the way where it was safe to walk. From there he offered to take us out in his car to look at some of the larger non-commercial hot pools and attractions that the locals visit and bath in. It was an unbelievable opportunity for us (all commercial thermal parks around Rotorua are rather expensive) so of course we accepted!

Our local guide and acquaintance Brian and Giigan by a boiling mud pool

We drove around 30 km north from Rotorua and visited a small hot lake by the Rainbow Mountain (so named because of the different colours of the stone on one of its cliff walls), a huge boiling mud pool and Cerosine Creek where some people were bathing and enjoying the warm flowing water. At the small car park next to Cerosine Creek thieves had broken into one of the cars just minutes before we arrived. A couple of guys stood there in their towels calling the police. Incidents like that are unfortunately rather common in NZ at places tourists visit, so you shouldn't leave any valuables in the car even if you'll be gone for just a few minutes! We were a bit stunned by this because Cerosine Creek was pretty remote and not a very well known tourist attraction (a couple of kms from the highway along a small unceiled road), but apparently the thieves are quite professional and know their business.

During the drive we learned that it was a hobby of Brian's to in his free time meet up with people from other places and show them around Rotorua - at no cost. He reminded us in some ways of Piri who we met on Rarotonga. Both were generous men who liked the company of new people like us.

Finally Brian took us to a secluded hot water stream with a small waterfall. There were no other people there and Brian told us that it's only locals who know about the spot. It was fantastic and perfect for a bath! Luckily Brian had brought several towels with him. We relaxed there in the warm pool beneath the waterfall for almost an hour, talking with Brian about NZ and Finland. He was very interested in learning about other countries and new customs and we had good discussions with him.

The beautiful hot stream with the waterfall

By the time we were back in Rotorua we had been gone for several hours. It is such a joy to meet people like Brian. People who may have had hard times in life (his wife had passed away in cancer a few years ago) but struggle on and remain positive and friendly beyond imagination towards life and other people. The world needs more of them.

Besides checking out the thermal activity around Rotorua you might want to see a Maori cultural show while in the town. We went on the Tamaki Maori Cultural Experience, which was a whole evening thing. We (and around 150 other tourists) were taken out to a reconstructed Maori pa village. There we saw a good Maori cultural show and had a traditional hangi dinner. Hangi is a Maori feast where the food has been prepared in the traditional earth-oven (called umu) way of the Maori people. Basically it's very similar to rövargrop/rosvokuoppa back home in Scandinavia. We are, however, not quite sure if everything that was claimed to have been prepared in the earth-oven actually had been. The amount of food necessary for all of us would have been very tedious to cook for 5 hours in an earth-oven and besides, few of the buffet dishes had any special "earth-oven" taste to them.

A frightened JBB next to a fearsome Maori warrior

While the main courses were just barely OK, the desserts were excellent. Steam pudding with lovely custard and traditional pavlova. Pavlova is an interesting cake popular in NZ and Australia. It's made up of a thick meringue base, topped with lashings of cream and kiwi fruit slices. An absolute bliss!

Dammit, shouldn't have mentioned pavlova! Now I feel like having something sweet...

We felt that although the Maori cultural show was good and the food acceptable, the whole package was not worth the hefty price of $80 per person. Luckily we didn't pay a cent for the evening! Apparently there must have been some kind of confusion about our payment, since at no point were we asked to slam a credit card or cash in front of anyone. And this time we, eeh, didn't feel the need to be completely honest travelers, but decided to go with the flow instead :)

MORE PICTURES from Tauranga and Rotorua are available here!