New Zealand Travelogue
Part 3: The North Island (follow the link for photos)

DAY 1:
August 2 (Thursday) Mark and I had to wake up at 354 to catch our 5am flight to Auckland. Auckland is hyped up in the south island as being a proper city—skyscrapers, a cool artistic district, tons of places to see shows and to shop, warm and sunny weather. So imagine our disappointment when we get off the plane and see that winter rains have followed us all the way to Auckland. Exciting.

I had to rent AND drive the car as Mark hadn’t bothered going in to the NZ DMV and getting a new driver’s license. It was a good exercise in terror for me as I had not done either of those things before, and Mark was very considerate and patient with my inept driving skills, so the whole thing went rather well. We tried going into Auckland’s “artistic” district (“K” Street) only to find it filled with a dismal array of sex shops, used instrument exchanges, and anemic cafes. Disappointed, we bought the most obnoxiously American thing we could find (Dunkin’ Donuts, boyakasha) and began our tour of the North Island.

Though the NZ cities are dismal, once you get out into the country, everything is the most pristine, the most perfect, and the most beautiful land you’ve ever seen. We drove south to Hamilton, parked (thank heavens I remembered how to parallel park), and had some Indian food. Our car didn’t have a CD player so we looked for some sort of store to buy a cassette, but Hamilton didn’t produce any record stores, so we drove on with nothing but fuzzy radio and conversation to keep us company.

We stopped early in Lake Taupo, a cute city by a lake which seemed to be filled with every hippie in New Zealand. We consulted our Lonely Planet guide on a place to eat, and the restaurant they recommended had been closed for some time, thus reinforcing my suspicion from Sicily that travel book companies rarely update their “newly updated” guides. Instead of something classy and sophisticated like the Italian spot Mark had picked out, I ended up getting my way (Pizza Hut) which was just the level of fat and cheese I needed to keep from despairing of the cold.

DAY 2:
Mark and I get up around 8 and have our Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. Our first stop of the day is Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland, because I am a geology nerd and nothing gets me quite as hard as a good geothermal area. There is no way on earth I cold possibly post all of the amazing photos I took in the Thermal Wonderland, but I highly recommend you peruse the photobucket album and see the extent to which I geeked out. The park was divided into several hikes—red, orange, and yellow, each of which took you by different areas. The first area was mainly champagne pools—bubbling hot springs with orange crusts that steam and hiss like cooking pots. The runoff from these pools created a mineral-tier down to the Frying Pan plateau.

Before exploring trails yellow and orange Mark and I drove over to another part of the wonderland to watch the Lady Knox Geyser erupt. We were, I think, a bit disappointed that the geyser was triggered by adding a sliver of soap. We were sitting in the middle of a very excitable group of Ukrainians, however, and their excitement was infectious.

After the geyser we drove over to the mud pots, which was a gurgling pit of grey goo that splattered and chortle. It was very much like going back I time, and I half expected some sort of dinosaur to rise out of the muck and eat me. What made the mudpots so awesome wasn’t so much the exploding mud-bubbles (though that was really cool), but the noise. The smacks, pops, hiccups, and general cacaphony was so fantastically bizarre that Mark and I spent a good 10 minutes walking slowly around, just listening to the noises.

On our way to the yellow trail Mark and I passed some more marvels—a lake dyed neon green with sulfur, sulfur crystals which formed around the underground steam vents, charred wood that had been roasted on hot ground, steaming and hissing water that looked like chocolate milk bubbles, and various other strange sounds and smells. The whole area positively reeked of sulfur, which I didn’t mind but which made mark slightly nauseated.

After walking around the thermal valley, we joined the orange trail that took us up into the pine trees and gave us a panorama of the whole area. Bits of the forest were smoking where the thermal vents hid among tree trunks. The day was finally hot enough to take off our jackets, so Mark and I stood quietly in a primeval forest with skin exposed to the sun and simply looked at each other for a while. It was a bit ridiculously romantic, but i really don't have enough ridiculously romantic moments in my life.

We drove up to Rotorua, the town where we were going to spend the night. In an effort to find the most ridiculous hostel in town, Mark booked us a roof at Cactus Jack, a hideous backpackers who’s idea of central hating was to expose pipes filled with hot volcanic gas jut above the bed. Could have done with less donkey-cactus-and-toilet murals, I’ll tell you that.

Having dropped off our stuff, our nect adventure was a gondola up the largest mountain in the area which—as it turns out, only took us to the middle of the mountain. Upset at the rip-off, Mark and I decided to at least make the most of the area by luging. The “luge” experience is a bit like go carts but infinitely dorkier. You drive down the mountain in what are essentially sleds with wheels, then take a ski-lift up again. Rinse, repeat. It was actually surprisingly fun, and I think Mark had a good time doing it despite the fact that we were the oldest non-parents there. Oh, and we felt retarded in the helmets.

By the time we had come down the gondola, it was barely 5, so we drove around Lake Rotorua and explored some of the rainforest-like national parks around it. One area in particularly was a big valley surrounded by palm trees while a thick, grassy moss grew in the middle like some sort of Cretaceous swamp. Don’t get the impression that all o this outdoorsy stuff was caused by our deep love for the environment or anything. We had wanted to go to LeisureWorld, a sweet-looking dinosaur minigolf park, but it was closed. That sucked. We ended the night doing Soduku puzzles in an Irish pub, hen walked over next door to see “The Simpsons Movie.” Funnier than I would have expected.

DAY 3: Friday having been our “do” day, Saturday was our “drive” day. The plan was to drive up the NE Pacific highway, stopping at whatever village or beach caught our fancy. Well, it turns out the Pacific Coast of northern New Zealand isn't very populated. In fact, it's practically abandoned. The only "cities" we ran across were places like Tauranga or Taheatua, places carved into rocks and tucked behind waterfalls, places that we drove past only to realize Oh wait hey, yeah, that WAS the city we were looking for. En plus, it rained the WHOLE DAY. It started when we left Rotorua and continued during our brunch in Tauranga, poured down on the drive to Opotiki and overcame us outside of Te Kaha. It rained so much we could barely see any of the scenery we had driven all that way to see, we could barely see the ocean, and I had to drive extra-slowly to make sure we didn't careen off the serpentine roads. No towns meant no radio, and no record stores in which to buy tapes, so we had to talk the whoooooooole way. And talk we did for the 12 hours we were on the road--politics, mostly, and some old reminiscences about college and our years apart. Mark is the most wonderful person to talk politics with--well, now at least. He wasn't always so reasonable, nor so tactful in his challenges to ideas or opinions. Either that or I'm growing less sensitive.

It's a good thing that Mark and I are obsessive about things such as "coffee breaks" and "full tanks of gas" (my mother, for example, will not stop driving a car to fill it up until the "E" light comes on. Mark and I tend to stop when the tank is 3/4 empty and refill, as we hate the stress of seeing a needle creep to empty. Yes, it is a weakness), because there was not a single gas station--or really a cafe--between Tauranga and Te Araroa. Thus by the time we rolled into a cold, dark, and soaking Te Aroroa around 4pm, we were definitly in a state of near-panic. Te Aroroa was, I thought, the site of this ancient native tree I had been dying to climb on. I asked the store clerk where the old tree was and she was absolutely thrilled to DEATH I had heard of their little tree, so she gave me directions and directed me and "my partner" next door to a "restaurant" to eat and rest up a bit. The town was--and certainly felt like--the last place on earth. It was right on the edge of an ocean, surrounded by cliffs, and almost entirely without any color, noise, or motion. The restaurants didn't have bathrooms--everyone was ushered to some public monstrosity by the beach. I almost took pictures for my "Toilets of Europe" campaign, but seeing as NZ isnt geographically European, I didn't. Truely horrible stuff. The food was medicore, but it was hot at least.

The tree, by the way, ended up being some lame 500 year-old spider of a plant that grew out instead of up. Apparently the tree I wanted was back in Opotiki--over 4 hours back the way we came. So disappointing.

The goal was to get to Gisbourne by nightfall. Mark drove down while I slept off my motion sickness. When I woke up there were no lights anywhere around us except for Mark's headlights on the road, and a red tinge to the sky. I felt safe and hidden and protected between those hills.

Gisbourne is the town where Captain Cook first landed in New Zealand, and consequently, the town is filled with more Cap'n Cook statues than you could shake a finger at. It was dead night by the time we rolled into town and we weer exhausted. The first hostel we stopped at (convent-turned-backpackers) was full, and we probably called another 10, but nearly all were booked. We finally found some converted Victorian mansion and shared a room with a Thai surfer. We tried driving around the city looking for a bar, pub, club, or cafe, but everything (naturellement) was closed, so we ended up going to an upscale restaurant by the wharf and ordered drinks and a cheese plates. We had an excellent conversation about "us," a topic I often dread, but some how really enjoyed anyway. I'm really proud of the two of us for staying together despite our romantic relationship ending--he's such an amazing man, I'm not sure what I would do if I hadn't found him.

DAY 4:

Every city i've been to claims the phrase "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes" as their own--Kansas City, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Chicago. It's hilarious, and almost always untrue. The only place I've ever visited that has the right to adopt that phrase (and I believe has) is New Zealand. Before going to bed we saw a weather forcast, and the entire country was covered in one huge stormclowd. Wake up on Sunday, and low and behold, the sky is completely and utterly blue, and the weather is quite warm, as if we haven't just endured the worst day of weather known to man. Sadly, I couldn't really enjoy it, as we had to start the looooooooong drive through the mountains to Napier. We did find time to stop at some random cafe in the middle of the mountains though for bacon and egg tarts and tea.

We made a small detour around the Mahia Peninsula,a little jetty off Hawke's Bay with dark brown beaches, white drift wood, and some of the largest, most spectacular conic seashells I've ever found. The rock formations on the north side were particularly interesting--carved out of something that looked like clay or limestone. There were also pockets where smaller shells and sea urchins had washed up on shore, and I spent a few minutes picking through those, extracting all the cute little shells I could.

Our drive through the mountains was slower than we wanted, but at least the weather was gorgeous and we could see all the white beech(ish) trees. Mark taught me about the wonderful world of downshifting, which had previously been a mystery to me (I live in a flat state, lay off).

Napier was the first town I visited which had something of a recognizable local culture. The whole town was destroyed in the 1920's (avalanche? tidal wave? fire?) and rebuilt entirely in the art noveau/deco styles, making it a nice contrast to all of the metal-box buildings we had seen thus far. We got their early--around 2ish--and checked into our hostel right away. Mark had booked us in a Backpackers that was--I kid you not--a lunatic asylum turned Victorian prison turned hostel. The prison was converted in the early 90's and a few of the original wardens ran the place. Mark and I were sent to the "Conjugal Unit" cell: we had to chain ourselves in, and lock the deadbolt when we went out. There was a sink and a toilet in the room, and outside we could see into the excercise yard from the bars in our windows.

Leaving the barb-wire compund, we walked around Napier for a bit and found that desptie a few cool cafes and a better than average architectural sense, Napier was no better than the rest of New Zealand at providing arts or entertainment. We did manage to find one hidden gem--a place called "TrainWorld!" which was a gigantic replica of the English countryside made entirely by a model-train fanatic. Mark and I rode around the little train that chugged around the whole exhibit, then we went about pressing little buttons that turned signs on and off and caused oil rigs to move up and down. The man that ran it was so passionate--he was describing a young apprentice he had who helped arrange the model after a nasty roof-collapse a few years, and was describing his inventiveness with breathless admiration. "Now I know what it must have been like to see Mozart perfom at age 8!" he said breathlessly.

We went back to our hostel, took a shower in the communal shower room (one of the weirdest experiences of my life--each stall has a door that leaves little privacy, it's coed, and there is only hot water--you can't regulate your temperature), and then went back into town to hit up the movie theatre and look for more codeine-aspirin (like crack for migraine sufferers!). Then Mark decides that the only thing to cure our driving hangover is a Michael Bay movie, so we have a go at "Transformers." I loved the cartoon, don't get me wrong, and the movie was entertaining enough, but was it too much to ask for one female lead that I didn't want to strangle? My gosh, they were all so abhorent!

Had a nice sleep in the conjugal room (surprisingly warm) while falling asleep to the sound of clanking dead bolts and squeaking feet.

DAY 5:

Our last day, we got up early for the drive into Wellington, and walked about the prison, checking out the hanging yard and the un-restored prison cells. The drive to Wellington wasn't the most awesome--the day progressivly got worse and worse, the countryside got less and less interesting, and the traffic got worse and worse. At one point I was surrounded by cows for no reason--they were in front of me and on both sides, in the middle of the highway.

In general, Wellington was much better than Auckland, but my first impression was ruined when I took a wrong turn in the city and found myself back on the highway with no place to turn around for 15 minutes. Nice urban planning, there, Wellington. We parked, then decided to walk around a bit before we had to drop the rental car off around 7.

Wellington is supposed to be more cosmopolitan and urbane than Auckland, and I guess it is. I was hoping we would get a part of town with some weird clothing shops or strange shoe stores or something, but all I saw was chains. I'm beginning to feel like that is the future of the world (though i'm sure this is hardly a surprise to anyone): a collection of the same 20 or 30 stores that are simply inescapable; the same 2 or 3 countries owning them, the same articles in every magazine. It's funny that as our generation pushes for individual needs on demand (pay per view, song downloading, tivo, internet), the society around us becomes more and more homogenized.

The first thing on our list was the Te Papa Tongarewa, the "Museum of New Zealand." Apparently there was a lot of controversy when this museum opened--a lot of north-vs-south island politics, mostly, but according to various sources, it was a complete waste of money, over the top in it's political correctness, and don't get anyone started on that art collection--do you know how much space Maori art takes up?

It turns out, various sources are retarded. The museum was amazing--it was a bit of everything--natural history musuem, art museum, history museum, and planetarium, all of which were NZ-centric. The architecture was very avant-guarde, considering the mainstream audience it was going for, and the whole place was clean, neat, well staffed, well organized, and free. We saw a room full of shark skeletons, a brief history of European/Maori relationships (PC, but not unbareably so), and the art collection was well rounded and generally quite stunning. The Maori art was impeccably chosen and took up a few rooms, not the entire floor, as was told to us. We could have easily spent the day there, and it was hard to pull away.

But pull away we did. mark has to live in New Zealand, you see, long after I am gone, and in his desperation for culture and cool, he wanted to make absolutely sure that there was something worth doing in Wellington, whether it be shopping for records, books, clothing, or getting a drink. So after about half an hour of walking we finally found it: one street, 3 blocks long, that had "indie stuff." We checked out the venues, record shops, looked around. Cool, but I don't think worth a trip up to Wellington to visit. Still, When Mark goes touring up there he'll have some places to go, so it wasn't an entire waste.

Dropped off the rental car in traffic by the wharf on the other side of town. Scary. Caught a cab to the airport, Mark and I talked about high def technology in the airport, read trashy magazines about Britney's latest melt down on the plane, and almost fell asleep in a tangle in the cab ride back to his house.