New Zealand Part 2: North Island Waterfalls and Volcanoes
From surf towns to mountain huts, waterfalls, and volcanoes - our remaining time on the North Island didn’t disappoint. We visited Raglan, which is a cool surf town that is surrounded by farm fields on one side and the ocean on the other. It was disorienting to see that when we were 5 minutes out from the center of the surf town we were still driving through rolling plains. Our airbnb was a guest room at the home of a local retired couple and it was a great base camp to explore Raglan. We went to George’s for dinner which had an amazing vibe, great food, and the best Hazy IPA we think either of us has ever had. As we walked around town it was no surprise why the town’s slogan is “Endless Summer” - it fits the vibe perfectly. Grady especially loved it because he found a spot to cliff jump in town and a fun new hat.
We continued driving south down the west coast, but driving along the coast wasn’t quite what we expected it to be. The roads are actually set a bit inland and had our favorite characteristics: washboarded, gravel roads, 1.5 lanes wide with hairpin turns. Seems like we’ve discovered all of those roads in the North Island!
The drive led us to Wairēinga Falls and a beautiful freedom camping spot. The freedom camping act of New Zealand permits freedom camping in a number of areas, but it’s governed at the district level so we’ve experienced that it varies fairly significantly area-to-area. This spot was lovely and even had a general store that offered ice cream. I got a double scoop of chocolate and dropped it, but somehow caught the entire two scoops barehanded. Huge win! The bad news is the melted ice cream went in the charging port for my new phone and it said liquid was detected and refused to charge for days, but I think it was still worth it.
We ventured to the Marokopa Waterfalls which totally exceeded expectations and the Waitomo Caves. The caves have been continuously operating tours for over 130 years and it’s neat to have the same experience that many people had before us. Two notable visitors of the past include Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and Grady’s dad in 1988. This is a paid tour experience and they explain some of the geological and bioluminescence phenomena. The white colored rock is really neat and the feeding lines that the glow worms produce to catch insects (and each other, yikes) was cool to see in the daylight. The best part of the experience was the quietness of the dark boat ride and hearing the drips of water off the stalactites while looking at the glow worms overhead.
By the time we reached the Taranaki region, we were ready to start hiking! Our first real hike of the trip was also our first overnighter - and it’s going to be a tough one to beat. We didn’t start hiking until about 4 pm, but we made it up 3500 vertical feet in 2 hours and 20 minutes - even though the terrain featured a lovely 2 step forward, 1 step back, steep scree field for the last 1500 vertical feet. The sunset was spectacular and we got really lucky with an awesome group of people at the hut. There are ten beds in this hut (2 bunks with 5 mattresses across) and we were the 9th and 10th people to arrive. There were 2 influencers from Canada, two German teenagers who had the best pasta eating manners we’ve ever seen, and 3 local doctors and a geologist who we got along with great. It’s really fun in backcountry hut settings to meet people who you share a lot of interests with and likely, if in the same place with, would be friends with.
Turns out these four New Zealanders are taking several of the same trips as us this year and two of them will even be hiking the same trail as us in Nepal two weeks apart from us. How wild. We hiked down with them the next day and exchanged contact info to stay connected.
After a little deliberation because the logistics sounded terrible - we drove 3.5 hours to Tongariro even though we knowingly needed to return back the 3.5 hours to Taranaki the next day for a hut we’d booked. The weather in the Tongariro area looked like the best weather window of our remaining days on the North Island so we decided to go for it. On our drive there we drove the Forgotten World Highway and it lived up to the name. While it passed through some beautiful scenery, the most notable parts were the self-declared, sovereign republic of Whangamōmona (officially recognized by zero nations) with a welcome sign that said something like, “Shit Goes Down, Better Enjoy the Ride” next to a WW2 era mortar, and the farm where two women were carrying the full hind leg of a recently slaughtered animal still dripping with blood.
After sleeping in a park n ride parking lot with 50 of our closest van mates we woke up at 1:30 am to start an adaptation of the very popular Tongariro Crossing. We started at the north car park and hiked up to the main area of the crossing before sunrise. The wind was howling on the way up which made it more challenging, but we timed it perfectly and the sunrise was beautiful.
There’s something really special about being high up in the mountains at sunrise and this time definitely delivered. Plus, we were down with coffees in hand by 10 am and had already hiked 26 km with over 4200 ft of elevation gain.
We started our long return journey to the Taranaki area, but it was made all the better by an invite from our new friends from the hut to come over for homemade pizzas that night and to use their showers. Little did we know, they had a professional pizza oven that made some of the best pizzas we’ve had. After the pizza, homemade Tiramisu, lots of great conversation, and sunset from their backyard in New Plymouth we were just so grateful to have met these awesome people. We ended the night by all going to an incredible lights show put on at one of the local parks. We couldn’t believe how professional the lights were and that the whole thing was free. Plus, the size of some of the trees in the park were just impressive on their own! Just when we thought it couldn’t get better, our New Plymouth friends kindly invited us to spend the night at their home and were so welcoming to us in all ways. We were so fortunate to meet Darragh, Mikie, Chelsea, and Finn and hope our paths will cross again!
New Plymouth was really good to us, except for the part where we got electrocuted. The cooler spilled all of its contents in the van while we were driving, which was a problem by itself but in trying to resolve it - we created new problems! The van started to smell because we needed to let everything dry out fully. Turns out, a bunch of my clothes (stored under the bed) also got wet during the Big Spill (TM). We stopped at a park, unloaded the van, and tried to get things dried out in the sun. I hung up some of my clothes on a fence bordering the parking lot, but when placing some of the clothes - I got shocked. I couldn’t believe it was an electric fence at first so I told Grady that I thought I was shocked by the fence. I think he thought I was exaggerating so he gripped it himself and we both got electrocuted. Safe to say we’ll never let the cooler tip over again in the van...
Our legs were still sore from Syme Hut and the Tongariro Crossing back-to-back, but we started on our next overnight trip and were very grateful for the lower mileage days. Despite our slow hike into the hut, we were proud to still beat the DOC estimated time, barely ;) We shared a bunkroom with two women from India and an older Kiwi couple. There were about 14 people at the hut and each group prepared very different types of food. At one end of the spectrum, one couple was eating uncooked cans of lentils in bone broth and on the other end, a Swiss couple hiked in a full frying pan, pot, full-size utensils, multiple large spice containers, several glass jars, had a multi-course meal starting with fresh veggies and tea and later moved on to a fancy italian meal with beer. Our meal was happily somewhere in between. We chatted with couples from New Zealand and Switzerland and enjoyed our time spent hanging out by the tarn. The key feature of this hut is a nearby tarn that in perfect conditions creates a reflection of Mt. Taranaki. Unfortunately for us, those conditions didn’t exist, but we still had fun and saw little glimmers of the mountain. During the cloudy times, Grady set the world record for the fastest known time running around the tarns and I tried (unsuccessfully) to emulate Kelly & Austin’s hilarious walk from when we were all delirious in our Alaska video. Grady even hiked back to the tarns for sunrise to see if the conditions would be better, but the mountain stayed very shy. Our hike down was enabled by the immaculately maintained board walk and stairs that went the entire way from the parking lot to the hut - we couldn’t believe it. I assume it’s for erosion mitigation, but it was really impressive infrastructure and trail maintenance.
We rewarded ourselves with tasty smoothies in New Plymouth and visited a beautiful aquatic facility in town for showers - only mentioned because it was where Grady solved the mystery of the 4 different trash bins! See photo below for the big reveal. We drove back up north a bit to the Three Sisters rock formations and spent some time exploring the beautiful beaches. Fortunately, we walked all around the beaches and explored the various caves along the beach because sunset was a bit of a dud and it was pouring rain all evening.
We kicked off my birthday celebrations on a rainy morning at Three Sisters and found a lovely coffee and breakfast spot back in New Plymouth. After a few calls to home with the wifi in a McDonald’s parking lot, we drove down the coast where we explored random beaches and a lighthouse built in the 1800s. We found an amazing little spot to camp away from the bigger towns and enjoyed walking along the beach in the evening. It was a quiet, peaceful birthday made special by calls and texts from family and friends, a lot of beautiful driving time with Grady, and fun breakfasts and dinners. We cooked garlic bread, bolognese pasta, and salad and enjoyed our dinner and wine by the beach before sharing a mini cake during an hour-long sunset display of beautiful, vibrant colors.
We continued down the coast until we reached Wellington. We found a freedom camping spot in the city, it wasn’t anything glamorous, but it was convenient and on the water - enabling us to park and walk to a fun Brazilian restaurant for dinner and beers. We loved the coffee scene of Wellington and enjoyed likely the best coffee of our trip from a small place called the Grocer’s Shed. We walked through the Botanical Gardens and had a picnic at a viewpoint overlooking the city before taking the Interisland Ferry to the South Island.
The Interisland Ferry was really clean and we were able to charge our laptops and use the free Wifi during the 3+ hour ferry ride. It was laid out more like a lounge instead of passenger seating which was great and we were pleasantly surprised by how good the food was! We’ve made it to the South Island and are excited to continue the biggest part of our adventure here. More soon!
We’ve learned a bunch more Kiwi phrases in the past few weeks so here are a few of our favorites - Togs for swimsuits, blocked for applying sunscreen, mossies for mosquitos, porridge for oatmeal, heaps for a lot (my personal favorite), rocket for arugula, superette for convenience store, and dairy for corner market.