The North Island

For various reasons (crappy weather being one), I didn't take many pictures of this part of the trip, so I've borrowed some from wherever I could find them.

Sunset time in Auckland, seen from the Sky Tower. (I did take this one) The line in the middle of the picture is the bungyline for the so-called "Skyjump".

Auckland - for the last time

Since Selina and I were not keen on the boys' plan to stand on the gas pedal all the way to Queenstown, we got our own car, and having arranged to meet them sometime the following week, we set off south. (Should you ever be in NZ and in need of a hire car, I warmly recommend Quality Hire Cars. With typical Kiwi generosity and thoughtfulness, they volunteered information to the effect that we could leave one car in Wellington and pick up another in Picton, on the other side of the Interislander ferry crossing, thereby saving us hundreds of dollars - and we hadn't even asked. In addition, the whole company seems to be exclusively staffed by Handsome Fijians. Oh and the cars are good and cheap).
Heading for Taupo, we passed through Matamata, a few hours' drive from Auckland - better known to some as Hobbiton. Although you will inevitably spend your time here exclaiming how much it looks like England, that is not strictly true - it looks sort of like what England would look like if it were the home of heffalumps and unicorns and, well, I guess, hobbits. Either way, it certainly is a green and pleasant land.

Taupo

is the name of a lake and the town beside it, and they are both situated right in the centre of the North Island, is a fairly unremarkable place. It went down in the mythology of this trip as the Place of the Big Night Out. Meaning that we stayed up until past 10 pm. Go us.

The Desert Road
The next day, the road took us across the lower slopes of Mount Ruapehu. The weather was atrocious - you couldn't see the hand in front of you in the freezing fog, so Mount Ruapehu itself remains an unknown quantity to us. Peter Jackson chose these desolate plains for the filming of the Plain of Gorgoroth, in Mordor. For those who want to really experience this bleak, remote place, there is the Tongariro Crossing, one of the best one-day tramps in New Zealand. I certainly plan to do it one day soon.
Selina and I decided to at least give Mount Ruapehu a chance, despite the terrible weather, so we parked at the side of the road and (being, like hobbits, able to eat at almost any time and under any conditions) prepared ourselves a little lunch of bread and cheese and crisps, while we waited for the skies to clear. (This picture gives you an idea of what we would have seen if the clouds had cleared). Which they didn't.
It turned out we had parked on army territory, but the army (which drove by in the shape of a grinning guy in a truck) didn't seem to mind, and we came away alive and well, despite having had lunch in the middle of an infantry training ground.

Otaki and Kapiti

Nothing else of note happened that day, except that we encountered two very small (Selina preferred the term 'diddy') ponies, a scandalously fat dog and The Mysterious Asian, all around the area of Otaki, a few hours' drive up the coast north of Wellington. We also met a lovely old lady when hunting for woollen sweaters in an opportunity shop (what the Brits call a charity shop - Lord knows what the Americans call it) in Otaki. She had come over from England as a war bride in 1946. She still retained a Gloucestershire accent, and it turned out that her home village was not far from where I spent a year working as a nanny when I was twenty, and we spent several happy minutes talking about the pub down the crossroads on the road to Wychwood-Under-Water and waxing lyrical over Hook Norton Bitter.

Selina and I spent that night at a lovely place called the Barnacles Inn, in Paraparamou, where we revelled in the luxury of a heated room by watching DVDs and drinking bad red wine in out jimjams.
The next day we drove to Wellington.

Leaving the North Island

Wellington! Ever since I first started thinking about coming to NZ, I've wanted to come and live in Wellington. It looked beautiful, green hills surrounding a lovely natural harbour. Windy? I'm a Viking. Unfortunately we spent most of our time here chasing my poste restante and hanging out in a freezing ferry terminal. This picture of the Interislander ferry makes the crossing of the Cook Straits look like a pleasure cruise, but let me tell you that it bears no relation to reality as we experienced it. I didn't think a vessel that big could roll that much. Everyone on board was sick; it was a zoo. Thank God for day dreams, and a strong stomach.

Having seen but a tiny fraction of what the North Island had to offer, it was nevertheless time to leave (for now).
Ahead of us lay a whole new island to explore! Let's go there!