New Zealand October-November 2022 Trip report

[Mathmagicland]

Thanks-- and any restaurant recommendations for on our own dinners in Auckland?

I’m not the best source for restaurant recommendations, maybe @Grifdog22 can also chime in here.

If you like Italian food, Portofino’s at the viaduct (across the bridge from the hotel and near where you will catch the America’s Cup yacht experience) was recommended to me by my Time Unlimited tour guide, and it was excellent! I’d eat there again.

https://www.portofino.co.nz/viaduct-auckland/

I also remember not being able to find any place open that was within close walking distance to the hotel after returning from our Hobbiton trip, so ended up with hotel room service that evening. Most places either weren’t open on Sunday evening or were closing early, by the time I started looking for someplace to eat. Hopefully some of the staffing challenges have resolved and more places can be open longer by the time of your visit.

 

[Grifdog22]

Thanks-- and any restaurant recommendations for on our own dinners in Auckland?

Coops corner pub was an inexpensive and simple dinner one night that we enjoyed (post Hobbiton). They are not particularly family friendly - and their reviews back that up. We had excellent service and enjoyed a quick nice meal there. The Oyster and Chop restaurant was our most expensive meal out for the entire trip. It was good, but not great. Unless you are eating raw oysters, they have no steamed oysters and very limited oysters that have been cooked. The steak cuts were good, but again, not great. The meals at the hotel or through ABD were better than this one. We popped into a couple of places for nibbles or while wandering, but not for a full meal, and found all of it good. There was for us a huge variety of restaurants and places open within a short walking distance north or south, all along the viaduct or waterfront area. They all were busy and smelled delicious. We found a number of restaurants closing by 8 pm unless it was primarily a pub or heavy emphasis on alcohol. Even at the Coops pub, reservations were requested and recommended.

 

[Grifdog22]

Day 4.
Waitomo! (Or in Grifdog jargon, wait! Wait o mo! (translation, wait a moment, that was so cool I want to see more).

When touring a country, there is no escaping the need to do overland travel. Not every place has a high speed train, after all. This day began with a 2 1/2 hour bus ride. However, it was a rainy misty day— and the countryside looks surreal in the mist. Every hill is a green vista— hills and dales— and sheep— Relaxing, ever changing, beautiful countryside.

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

Just before getting to Waitomo, we stopped in a small place called Roselands, which was still closed but had opened just for us. Every time we stopped at these places we had terrific food. This stop was no exception. By now we realized that eating at this rate of speed was going to require three seats for each of us for the return flight home to fit, as well as long term consequences, so DW started to cut down to only 2 desserts a day. Delicious. We are saving the food pictures for your imagination...or actual experience, as it was great!



View from Roselands



Where there are no sheep, you have "the bush" which surrounds Roselands. So one point right here - NZ has no poisonous snakes, spiders, etc., and no bears, jellyfish, nothing that can hurt you in the bush except your own failings, or winter. A virtual eden.

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

As always in New Zealand, the people were very pleasant and friendly. We don’t think we heard a harsh word from anyone the whole trip. At first, we attributed it to the facts that we were tourists, and the tourism industry in NZ took a big hit during COVID. Places closed, and then never opened up again. But that was not it— these people are just flat out nice. Across the board.

Back on the bus— and shortly we arrived at the caves. We are limiting the pictures here as well as most of the commentary as you really need to see this for yourself and we try to avoid spoilers.

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

There are two caves— one is the glow worm cave— the other was the “spirit” cave. We broke up into two groups. The folks that run the attraction are local folks— no fancy stuff. They run small groups on private land, so we had the place to ourselves. It was better than perfect. We were driven to the top of the hill, then walked down a winding road of hill and rocks until we reached the stream. The water (like everywhere here) —was clear and clean. It is hard to tell how deep things are, because you can see the rocks on the bottom like looking through glass. River eels live here too and were active in the stream. We encountered birds, up close and personal, such as the wild turkey looking for bugs.

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

Our local tour guide was the son of the owner. He handed out our “coal miner” stye helmets— adjustable with headlights- and he walked us down into the cave to begin our spelunking expedition.






He explained the life cycle of these wonderful cave creatures (no spoilers, but very interesting.) We then climbed into a raft to travel deeper into the cave with the lights out. As our eyes adjusted to the dim light, we saw the room and sides of this cave with veritable constellations of glow worm clusters. They appear to twinkle. Really remarkable!


This was a silent sail, with a fascinating use of resources. Completely silent, nothing to disturb the calm or the water. Make sure you look around and ask how it is that the rafts move up and downstream. No spoilers, but very cool! Grifdog did not want to leave and would have been happy to stay right here for the rest of the day.

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

We left the cave, and walked up the small rise where we were given coffee and tea. Then the groups switched — we headed into the aptly named spirit cave. Someone has been here before us. OOOhhhh!

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

After we all congratulated ourselves on our successful expedition and infused with the Māori spirit, we headed to complete our road trip and meet our Māori family. But en route, another restroom stop to show the humor and laid back fun of the Kiwi people. (Remember the corrugated iron elephant from the zoo on day two?)

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

The Māori people are the historic heart of this country, and we were lucky enough to get to visit one of their Marae houses. We were greeted with a traditional Māori welcome, dance and singing. At the end of the welcoming, we were welcomed as whānau. As such, they had prepared a Hangaii in our honor. This is a traditional meal cooked in the ground with hot rocks or geothermal assistance. They had been cooking it most of the day, and we watched as they dug it up, unearthing the feast. A few of our group helped slice and shred the foods as a part of the communal spirit. From green lipped mussels to lamb, yet another delicious meal. But nothing that evening could compare to the company of the Māori family and their hospitality. It was a wonderful time to share a family meal with their family and hear their stories.

 

[Grifdog22]

continued

After cleanup, we walked out from the Marae by the lake. It was calm and peaceful, the sky turning a deep purple and red, as the sun finally set. Just lovely. Mystical and reverent, reverberating with peace. A totally spellbinding day that left us, yet again, smiling at day’s end as we tucked into bed at Rotorua in a very nice hotel that you’ll need to experience for yourself.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 5 – Save the Kiwis

Today will be our full day in Rotorua. And, we will finally get to see some kiwi birds! At our welcome dinner, the guides had asked us each to share one or two things we were looking forward on this adventure. This is one of the items on Mathmagicland’s list.

After breakfast at the hotel, we were treated to a short tour of the city by our bus driver, Gavin, who lives in Rotorua. We then arrived at the National Kiwi Hatchery.



We learned that there are multiple kinds of kiwis— all are flightless ground dwellers —and as a result they are at great risk of extinction. Kiwis are about the size of a chicken, and related to the ostrich and emu. They are found only in New Zealand.

This is why the work of the National Kiwi Hatchery is so important to their survival. They receive kiwi eggs, hatch them, and then rear the chicks until they are big enough to be released back into sanctuary areas. We had a tour with one of the people who work at the hatchery, and were able to see some baby kiwis being weighed, and a couple of adult kiwis in a nocturnal enclosure (Kiwis are active at night); unfortunately we were not able to take any photos of the kiwis themselves.

After the Kiwi hatchery, we headed over to the Agrodome, a working tourist farm. We took a short tour of the farm, and see both a sheep dog demonstration and a sheep shearing demonstration. We also saw some alpacas and cattle.



A llama -



Before - which sheep will get the haircut?



You can just see it thinking - why me?



Shearing in action !



And, after -




After our farm tours and demonstrations, we had a delicious BBQ lunch at the Bowen house on the farm property. This is one of the meals where we were asked to pre-order our protein, so the staff could be prepared with sufficient quantities of each. Steaks were frying up on the grill outside when we arrived. The proteins were accompanied by a buffet of sides and desserts.

From here, our group split up for the afternoon. Scheduled on the adventure was another ziplining experience, a Rotorua Canopy Tour. This is a different ziplining experience from the one on Waiheke Island, so we are encouraged to experience both of them. The Canopy tours company picked up our group from the Agrodome to get to the ziplining, and would deliver them back to the hotel.

Two in our group decided they wanted to visit Hobbiton, so skipped the ziplining and booked a tour to go there. It is a shorter distance to Hobbiton from Rotorua than from Auckland, but no Second Breakfast, so if you are interested and missed a tour out of Auckland, you can also get there from here.

Two others decided more ziplining was not for them, so the bus took them back to the hotel. No surprise here, Mathmagicland was one of those two. While the tour itinerary indicated an alternate activity of an interpretative forest walk, AbD guide Kira said it would be based on available staff. Considering Mathmagicland would be the only one in our group not ziplining, she wasn’t optimistic about a forest walk, and also didn’t want to ask limited staff to guide a walk for just one person. Thus, it was back to the hotel for some exploration of the city around our hotel. On the way back from the Agrodome, bus driver Gavin pointed out a park area with several geothermal vents. While we’d be visiting the geothermal park tomorrow morning, it still looked like a nice place to visit.

Continued in next post -

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 5 continued -

Grifdog and DW opted for zip-lining— no surprises here either. The group were taken to the forest section owned by the zip-lining company. There was a short forest walk to the site, then the flying began! The platforms established by the company were high in the trees and were attached with great care for the tree itself. This is old growth forest, and some of these trees are between 1200 and 2400 years old. Like most in NZ, this company was very environmentally conscious, and you could see this in all of their set-up and planning in creating this event.

We had several zip-line crossings… All with beautiful scenery talks about the flora, fauna and bird song. The birds came right up to people! No spoilers here but watch your tongue. Each zip gets a little longer, and there are some very high walks between tree platforms. Totally safe— but it’s easy to forget that while you are upon there. At a very high platform, there are several steps to nowhere. You just walk down and when you step into the air you zip away just like Peter Pan.

We were encouraged to press out of our comfort zones, and trust the gear. While walking across a high platform, let go of the harness and lean way over the edge. On another zip, flap your arms like you are flying. On yet another, flip yourself upside down. Yes, each of our crews had some that undertook this (be careful if you have things in your pockets-even one of the zip guides lost things while flipping). We carefully compared this to Arenal volcano zips with ABD in Costa Rica, and believe the extra time spent theming these made them much more fun.







This is a typical landing pad, with the walk to the next take off platform!



Continued -

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 5 continued -

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Mathmagicland set out to explore the neighborhood around the hotel. This hotel seems like it is in more of an area catering to business travelers than tourists, as there are a lot of restaurants around but not a lot of sightseeing places or gift shops. There are very limited shopping opportunities here, so save your shopping needs for another place— there will be plenty. There is a nice visitors center across from the hotel, which has free walking maps and other information about the city.

First stop – Government Gardens, which we’d driven through on our morning city tour with Gavin. This is a lovely garden with a beautiful wooden archway at the entrance, which had been moved from elsewhere in the city to save it from destruction. I found some tulips = wait, tulips in November? Yes, as it is springtime in New Zealand. I also found two WWI war memorials, one of which is dedicated to an all-Maori unit by the Arawa tribes in 1927. WWI is the big war for war memorials in New Zealand, as so many were called to serve. Their military are honored and remembered on ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day each year on April 25.







After this, it’s over to Kuirau Park, on the other side of the hotel. This is a beautiful park with lots of smaller thermal springs and one very large thermal pool at the far side. There are also a few foot baths, where people can sit and soak their feet in warm, not burning hot, pools of water. This was a fun park to explore.









It is fun to wander supermarkets in other countries, to see what sort of products and brands are found, along with pricing. For example, Driscoll’s Raspberries, which are grown about 15 miles from my house, are $13NZ for a 6oz container! There are a lot more American brands than I expected to see. I chatted with a couple of ladies at the Whittaker’s chocolates, who recommended which dark chocolate option was the best and a top choice for locals, so I had to pick up a bar to bring home. Rotorua also has some fun street art, such as this example – rather than a boring metal box for some electrical equipment, someone has painted all sides of it with various ocean fish.






This is probably as good a time as any to mention the lack of street trash everywhere! New Zealand is a beautiful country, and it is very nice to not find trash around. We saw very few pieces of trash on the ground and streets over our two weeks here, and that includes the 2 or 3 ticket stubs grifdog22 & DW picked up on our Hobbiton tour. People just don’t throw trash on the ground here, anywhere. Pride of country in action! Indeed, the harbor waters are so clean there are established places in Auckland to swim.

We had a group dinner this evening at a nice restaurant on Eat Street, a popular restaurant row a short walk from our hotel. This is one of the places where most people changed out of their touring clothes to a polo shirt or nicer shirt, though nicer dress is not required.

We’ve had another busy day, our last full day on the North Island. Tomorrow, we head to Christchurch to begin our time on the South Island.

 

[sayhello]

If I wasn't already signed up to take this trip, I'd be seriously considering it now! This just looks and sounds amazing!

When you did the caves, were you actually walking *in* the water, or just beside it?

Sayhello

 

[Grifdog22]

If I wasn't already signed up to take this trip, I'd be seriously considering it now! This just looks and sounds amazing!

When you did the caves, were you actually walking *in* the water, or just beside it?

Sayhello

We were in a small flat bottom raft floating moving upstream and downstream in the cave with the gloworms. In the Spirit cave we walked through the cave, but not ever walking in the water. You remain dry throughout the caves, except for the occasional dripping from the stalactites.

When you begin to tie all of this activity, interaction with the lands and waters, and unbelievable scenery with the mystical legends and oral histories from the Maori, it helps understand why the Kiwi people are united in so many ways and how this place gets a hold of you. Neither words nor pictures do it justice.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 6 – Island Hopping

Today we will be leaving Rotorua & the North Island, and hopping down to the South Island. But, first, we have a couple more things to see and do in Rotorua before we leave.

Off we go, to Te Puia. Here is AbD guide Kira at the entrance.



Te Puia is on the outskirts of Rotorua and is much larger area with many more thermal areas than the Kuirau park within the city I walked yesterday afternoon, which has just a few bubbling thermal pools and no geysers. Te Puia considered New Zealand’s premier geothermal location, with lots of geysers and bubbling mud pools, along with the New Zealand national school for Maori carvers and weavers and a new Kiwi Recovery Centre. This is home to the largest active geyser in the Southern Hemisphere, Pohutu Geyser. We were met by one of the students at the Maori Arts & Crafts institute, who also work as guides for the geothermal park. We did a walking tour of about an hour or so, stopping at a few points to see mud pools and geysers. We also did a rest stop at heated stone terrace while waiting for Pohutu to erupt; it goes approximately every 20 minutes.










And while we could not take any photos of the Kiwis, here is a beautiful Kiwi feather textile piece they had on display -




After exploring the geothermal park, we were led to the Maori Arts & Crafts Institute. This is a wananga (school) where Maori students train in the arts of pounamu, or green stone, carving, wood carving, and weaving.










We were given about an hour to walk through the Institute to chat and watch some of the students at work, walk through the Institute gallery shop (which has some wonderful pieces and each purchase helps support the institute), and then some gift shop time in the main gift shop.

Continued in next post -

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 6 continued -

Time to head to the airport for our flight to Christchurch on the South Island. See post #9 above for info on this airport experience. After dropping our luggage, we collected our bag lunches, pre-ordered and prepared by our Rotorua hotel, and had plenty of time to eat lunch before boarding our flight.

The flight to Christchurch was a couple of hours. We were met by our South Island bus driver, Rod.



After gathering our luggage, it was time to get to our afternoon activity, Punting on the Avon. Christchurch still has much evidence of British influence from early British settlers, and this is one.

This punting activity was very peaceful and relaxing! We were split into groups and boarded the boats. The boat punters are in period dress, which added a fun aspect to the trip. The river was so clear, we could see to the stones on the bottom. It is not deep, and goes through some wonderful parklands. This is a beautiful area in Christchurch. The boat punter shared some history of the area as we went along. This was about an hour or so.
















After the punting, we went on a short city tour on the way to our hotel. You may or may not be aware, Christchurch was hit by a couple of large, devastating earthquakes about 10 years ago, a 7.1 in September 2010 followed by a 6.3 aftershock in February 2011. Because of the fragility of many structures after the September quake, there was a lot more damage with the February quake. 185 people lost their lives. Over 10,000 homes needed repair, over 3500 homes demolished, and over a quarter of the buildings in the central business district were demolished. Repairs are still underway in many areas, but don’t let this discourage you! There is still lots to see. Christchurch is still in recovery mode; the city and its people are very resilient and will continue to come back from this.

We arrived at the hotel late afternoon, the Crowne Plaza Christchurch. Our guides had several suggestions for dinner within walking distance of the hotel.

After too many large dinners thus far, Mathmagicland needed to walk and not eat (though I did eventually get some fruit at a local market in town suggested by Kira & Victoria, to take back to the hotel as my dinner). Since we’d had a lot of seating time today, between bus, airport, plane, and punting, I was ready to get out and walk around the city. There were some things we’d seen on our city tour and from my pre-trip research that I wanted to check out further, so after dropping luggage in the hotel it was time to explore Christchurch.

Being from Southern California where we get a few quakes each year, and having lived through a few of our large earthquakes including Northridge in 1994, I admit I’m a bit of an earthquake geek. I wanted to check out the Christchurch Cathedral.

The Christchurch Cathedral was built between 1864 and 1904, and was devastated during the February 2011 earthquake. There was a lot of debate in the city, and court case, on whether to tear down & rebuild, or repair, and the church and city finally landed on repairing this beautiful landmark in the center of the city. While some work has been done, it will be years before it is finished. It was both sad and fascinating to me to see what had survived and what had been damaged.



This is a banner of a beautiful rose window, which was destroyed in one of the aftershocks. The banner is there to show both what it was and what it will be when the repairs and restorations are complete.




Continued in next post -

 

[Mathmagicland]

Day 6 continued -

Since the church needs an alternate facility during the Cathedral repair period, a transitional cathedral, also known as the Cardboard Cathedral, was built several blocks away. This is a very unique building, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, and construction materials include several large cardboard tubes.



The cardboard tubes can be seen here -



On my walk, I also saw some fun street art, an old airstream trailer that is a Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop but was not open when I walked by (and would look right at home in the Ben & Jerry's home state of Burlington, VT) and probably the best set of playground swings ever! This playground is in a recovery area, where earthquake damaged buildings have been replaced by parkland.







Continuing my walk, I passed a police building with signage showing it has been there since 1873, and has the royal cipher for Queen Victoria.



Next stop – the Bridge of Remembrance, a Christchurch World War 1 memorial dedicated to those who gave their life in the Great War and also has memorials to those who served in WWII and other conflicts. This area is closed to vehicular traffic, and is a nice area to walk around and pay respects. The arch was damaged in the earthquake and has been rebuilt using many of the original arch stones.





Christchurch has many beautiful murals around the city. Here is one of my favorites – penguins on ice, since Christchurch is the jumping-off point for most missions to Antarctica.



While we are travelling, life goes on at home and we sometimes still need to check in with work things. @Grifdog22 and DW took advantage of our free time this afternoon & evening to relax and catch up on some work.

Next up for tomorrow - one of the best train rides anywhere on the planet, the Trans-Alpine route across the South Island.

 

[abdgeek]

I just finished the Dec. 19th NZ ABD and it was awesome!!! Thanks to @Mathmagicland and @Grifdog22 for sharing their pearls of wisdom. It really helped with my trip planning. They are doing an excellent trip report, so I just wanted to reiterate some things they may have mentioned. I think my trip was the first family trip that went. I have to give a shout out to @traveljunkie and @TravelJunkieHubby who I met at breakfast on the first day of our ABD. They were on the one behind ours, so definitely come in early if you can to do additional things before the ABD. I did the Hobitton tour—which I absolutely loved and the Skywalk at the Sky Tower. Most families that came in early seemed to do those activities and the Allblacks experience, which is across the street from the Sky Tower.

• We were each given water bottles when we checked in with the guides. Although I brought the one that was mailed to me, I didn’t need it and never used it. The Park Hyatt is the only hotel that provides bottled water in the room. Although some bottles of water were on the coach, we were always told to come with our water bottle filled. You could do this from the tap in your room or from the buffet. I bought a couple of bottles of water from different stores as we went, but I didn’t need to. The water from the tap tasted great—and I don’t drink tap water. Each of the activities we did usually has a water refill station.
• On Day 3, you won’t return to the hotel until around 7-7:15pm. Plan accordingly if making dinner reservations.
• Even in December, the weather was unpredictable—NZs joke about it. Depending on your comfort level, you will definitely need shorts, long pants, and a rain jacket. It was really warm the day we did Franz Josef glacier, so we didn’t need the heavy jackets we brought.
• Because we were there Christmas week, some of the towns where we were supposed to do OYO time either had limited or no shops open. While that didn’t bother me, it’s something to keep in mind if you plan to travel during that time.
• The weight limit for horse riding in Glenorchy is non-negotiable. Apparently, the company sold off their larger horses during the pandemic—so that’s the reason for the limit. About half of our group of 35 did the ATV ride instead. I was bummed at first, but was instantly pleased when the ATV guide told us we were seeing more and going further than the horse riders did. They also stopped and showed us some of the LOTR/Hobbit filming locations. If you’re not a LOTR fan, no worries, the bulk of the tour is about the scenery and not the movies.
• Be prepared to pay $45NZD to check your roller board carryon for the flight from Rotorua to Christchurch —your checked bag is checked at no cost as long as it’s not overweight. Unless you have a really small roller board, it won’t fit in the overhead bin. Everyone in our group was told to check any bag that was larger than a backpack that could fit under the seat or a small duffel bag. The agent said you’re supposed be able to check an extra bag for $20 when done online before your flight, but since ABD gets the tickets, I’m not sure how that would work.
• The majority of meals on this trip were family style. I was surprised at the number of families on the trip who were unfamiliar with this concept and took copious amounts of food when they came through the food line that meant other people had little to no food options if they were at the end of the line. The guides always made it right and finally had to make an announcement telling people to be respectful of those behind them and to wait until everyone had gotten food before trying to get seconds. While NZ does a great job with dietary restrictions, this is the first ABD trip I’ve taken where people experienced more food insecurity issues. Although companies said they were, I don‘t think they were really prepared for the way Americans eat. As long as you remember that NZs don’t eat the way we eat, you’ll be fine.
• Although you can use public transportation in Auckland, I used Uber to get around there and in the other towns that had it. Franz Josef is an easily walkable town, so I didn‘t need it there. I pre booked my dinners for our OYO time in advance and was glad I did. Most families got casual food on these days, but I was surprised at how much of a culinary destination NZ is.
• Due to our group size, we were typically broken up into 3-4 groups for each activity. Tiffany & Ben made sure they mixed up the groups each day based on the company’s requests so that you weren’t with the same group everyday.