Author: ryan

Somehow this is my last day in New Zealand. It’s been an excellent six weeks.

I didn’t post a journal entry yesterday, but after driving out to the end of the peninsula east of Whangarei I spent the morning hiking in the Bream Head Scenic Reserve along the coast. From there I’d been told by a few people to visit the Hundertwasser Art Center in Whangarei, a museum dedicated to an architect/artist/activist whose architecture was inspired by his disdain for straight lines and inspiration from nature, including tree-covered roofs and undulating floors. While his architecture was neat, the museum also had exhibits about his nude protests and composting toilet, two vivid images which are unlikely to be favorite trip memories for me. After leaving the nudist architect museum it was a 2.5 hour drive to Auckland.

Today being my last day in New Zealand I was trying to decide whether to take the ferry out to one of Auckland’s harbor islands or to stay in the city. In the end, staying in the city provided more flexibility, and given that a common theme of the trip seems to be extensive hiking, I decided to walk everywhere. The Sea Life Aquarium is less than four miles from where I’m staying, so after a nice walk along the water I visited an aquarium that was constructed in 1985 underground in what were formerly municipal sewage tanks. Despite the gross beginnings and limited space, they built a shockingly good aquarium. You enter into an amazingly detailed recreation of Robert Scott’s Antarctic base, then leave to find a huge penguin enclosure populated by king and gentoo penguins; I had serious Antarctica flashbacks hanging out with the birds. They have some smaller tanks and exhibits after that, but then you enter the exhibit that put them on the map. When they opened in 1985 they were the first aquarium to use shaped acrylic for tanks, and they blew away all expected visitor projections since everyone was awed by the experience of walking through tunnels inside of a fish tank. Today it’s still really impressive, with 100 meters of tunnels going past giant sharks, stingrays, tuna, and myriad other fish. I went through this exhibit at least a half dozen times, and would have done a few more laps had I been less uncomfortable with all of the tiny humans that were running around.

From there it was back to the hotel via some of the nature paths in the city. After weeks of searching for birds in the rainforests, I’ve of course discovered that everything from the giant wood pigeons to kingfishers can be found in people’s front yards and on telephone wires, so my hope was that the Auckland suburbs might finally yield a good photo of a tui, one of New Zealand’s unique and very pretty birds. Alas, that photo will need to wait until I’m back again someday. Finally, 31,135 steps later, I returned to the hotel, putting an end to this portion of the trip. Tomorrow it’s off to the airport at 5am, and after connecting flights in Sydney and Canberra the next half of the trip will begin in Tasmania.

Day two of diving in the Poor Knight’s Islands was done with absolutely perfect weather – the guides even commented that on a day like this, they might have come out to the islands if they weren’t already working. We had a smooth hour long ride out, and then just before arriving a divemaster came over to let me know that I was one of the few people on the boat without an advanced certification – I’ve never needed it anywhere so never bothered to do it – and as a result I would have to go out in a group with several newly certified divers today. This development was not a good one.

In fairness, everyone was a beginner at one time – I just had to go through it during my first dry suit dive, and I’m sure when I was new to diving that I was put in a dive group that dreaded having me with them; I’ve been going on and on about how karma has treated me well on this trip, so today it was my turn to earn some back. As expected, we got in the water, descended, and madness ensued. One diver disappeared straightaway, and the divemaster-in-training and divemaster-with-nineteen-years-of-experience had to go after her; I learned later that she’d had a panic attack, and I think she rejoined the dive after a short time calming down at the surface. From there it was a bit like the Keystone Cops underwater, with some people horizontal, some vertical, various people randomly sinking or floating away as they worked out how to control buoyancy in the thick wetsuits, and with the divemasters like sheepdogs chasing after strays and herding the flock back together. The one advantage of diving with the newbies is that they all blew through their air within thirty minutes and had to return to the boat, so as the only diver in the group still able to breath underwater, I got my own personal dive guide for the last thirty minutes. It turns out that Matt (the experienced divemaster) has a superpower whereby he can blow bubble rings that drive the fish mad, so we spent the last several minutes of our dive watching fish chase and attack bubble rings right in front of our faces.

For the second dive they thankfully switched me to a more advanced group, and that dive was entirely spent enjoying the underwater scenery. We started at a small cave, the guide shined her light inside, and a large stingray swam up one wall, across the roof of the cave, and then out over our heads. This encounter was to be only the first of probably a dozen stingray encounters on this dive. Practically every time we came around a corner there was a stingray in the kelp, or swimming through the rocks. I’ve seen them on dives before, but I don’t recall ever seeing this many on one dive. In addition there were some decent sized schools of fish that appeared totally unfazed by the humans swimming next to them, and I came away better understanding why the Poor Knight’s is such a renowned dive spot. It’s a very healthy marine environment, with a huge variety of fish that seem to care not one bit about the people swimming with them, and I suspect that every dive site is just a little bit different. We didn’t see any sharks or the massive schools of fish that you hear about in these islands, but the fact that every dive is a roll of the dice where something amazing might show up makes this a place that I would enjoy coming back to.

But if I do come back I might do so in the summer when it’s a little less freezing, and also get whatever certification the New Zealanders think is needed to avoid having to dive with the newbies 🙂

I usually dive in warm places, last month’s dive in Milford Sound being the rare exception. I got certified long ago in Malaysia, and Audrey and I have done trips to Mexico, Hawaii, Bonaire, etc; we live in California, but I’ve never dived there since the water is cold. However, I may never return to New Zealand, and the Poor Knights Islands are supposed to be an amazing dive spot, so today I donned a 7mm wetsuit, a hood, booties, and all manner of other gear that didn’t really keep me very warm, and jumped into one of the world’s premier dive destinations. The water was clear, the kelp was vibrant, and the fish had no fear whatsoever of the humans shivering in their domain.

We didn’t encounter any of the massive schools of fish that the islands are apparently famous for, but as my first time diving in kelp it was nevertheless a good day. Despite not seeing huge schools, we did see a lot of fish, most of which were new to me. The terrain is that of an ancient volcanic caldera, including caves and tunnels that made for a neat topography. Above water we visited a sea cave that is apparently the largest by volume in the world, and the dive boat drove into it with room for probably ten more boats to fit.

The day’s first dive was on the sunny side of the island, and I came out of the water thinking that the cold wasn’t actually that bad, but the second dive was in the shade of a tall cliff, and I came out of the water from that dive thinking that if I ever dive in chilly waters again, my new dry suit certification might come in handy. We motored back under sunny skies, and after a night with the electric blanket cranked to its highest setting I’ll be heading out with them again tomorrow to see what other surprises these islands might be hiding.

After returning to my accommodation for the evening I ran into the older lady who runs it, and she is a bit of a character. When I mentioned that the diving left me so cold that I couldn’t feel my insides, she immediately said “Right then, go take a shower. Or do you need a bath? I’ll let you use my bath in that other room, but don’t go using any of my nice smelly stuff.” I thanked her for the kind offer, but said a shower would do the trick, although had she sweetened the deal by giving me access to the smelly stuff I might still be in that bath now.

One of New Zealand’s prehistoric trees is the kauri tree, which live to be a couple thousand years old and grow to diameters of 16 feet or more – smaller than redwoods and sequoias, but still very impressive. Unfortunately the vast majority of them were cut down for timber, but a few remain, particularly along the “Kauri Coast” on the northwest side of the North Island, which just so happens to be my current location. The weather has been a bit uncooperative, so while I got to do one short hike in a small kauri grove, wind and rain resulted in a new plan to get up early tomorrow to revisit the big trees before I have to check out of my Airbnb at 10am.

Somehow I’ve only got five nights left in New Zealand after tonight. Thinking back, the day of many hikes at Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park exactly one month ago feels like a lifetime has passed, but at the same time this trip has flown by. Thankfully the next five nights should be a good ending to the time here, with weather forecasts suggesting that the sun will return for a couple of days of scuba diving in what’s supposed to be one of the world’s most impressive dive sites.

Rain and wind today cancelled the scuba diving, but after more than a month of daily activities it wasn’t the worst thing to lounge and catch up on errands. I got antsy towards the end of the day and went for a short hike in the mud, but otherwise there isn’t much to recap, so here are a few random observations about New Zealand:

• In Akaroa the B&B left the key in the lock so that it wouldn’t get lost, and in Mt Cook I asked the hotel owner if it was safe to have luggage in my car while parked at the trailhead and he quite simply didn’t understand the question. At least outside of the big cities, New Zealanders don’t seem to worry at all about crime.
• They have deer farms here. You’ll be driving along, and a herd of what look like elk will be roaming in a field. I have pulled over numerous times to get a better look, much to the confusion of other passing motorists.
• A lot of the bridges are one-lane, with signs indicating which direction of traffic has priority. After at least a hundred of these crossings, I’ve yet to see people fail to wave in gratitude when someone is stopped to allow traffic going in the other direction to pass.
• I’ve mentioned this before, but aside from two species of bats, there are no native mammals in New Zealand.
• Tipping is generally not a thing. After scuba diving in Milford Sound I asked if there was a tip jar anywhere, and Cody told me not to worry about it. When I insisted he awkwardly pulled a jar out of a back shelf. People seem to take pride in doing their job and get a bit embarrassed if you offer them extra.
• National parks have no entrance fees. They want you to be able to see their beautiful places.
• There’s a strong culture of allowing “freedom camping” throughout the country. Even in popular tourist towns, there’s always an area with signs up denoting that you can park your camper there for the night, as long as you’re respectful.
• They are all-in on protecting their environment. 33% of the land in New Zealand is protected for conservation, and everywhere you go you will see traps and notes about poison baits being used to control rats, possums, and weasels that are killing off the native birds and vegetation. Similarly, they have massive projects to cut down invasive pine trees and to remove other non-native plants that choke out the native vegetation.

Today’s adventures included a short hike to a massive 1200 year old kauri tree, watching a fisherman struggle to get a stingray off his hook (three people working as a team eventually managed to get the poor guy back to the ocean), and literally fleeing a farmer’s market after a lady at a booth spotted the tourist and came after me with a plate of samples (I’m uncomfortable around the humans). The rest of the day was mainly driving, and I survived the highways and crowds of Auckland with the only scars being mental ones.

I’m currently in the tiny town of Leigh to do a shore dive at the Goat Island Marine Reserve tomorrow. I checked in at the dive office today to get a sense of things, and they mentioned that the weather for tomorrow is “iffy” and they’d call me if the dive had to be cancelled. When I asked whether “iffy” meant one meter of visibility or ten meters, the girl at the counter cheerily said “Oh, definitely one meter. We rarely get more than three meters, but there’s loads of fish”. Tomorrow could be interesting.

Today was a day of much driving, with a couple of short breaks along the way. Before leaving Rotorua, the lady who ran the B&B suggested I should do the hike up Mount Maunganui, a 750 foot tall dormant volcano on the coast. Never one to pass up climbing dormant volcanoes, I stopped on my way and hiked several miles up and around the big rock, taking in some rather inspiring views of the Pacific from the top. From there it was off to the Coromandel Peninsula, which is mostly farms, hills and oceans, providing some nice flashbacks to the rural scenery of the South Island. It was getting late in the day as I got to the town of Hahei, and while the trail to their famous Cathedral Cove was closed due to damage, the view from Hahei Beach as the sun was getting low on the horizon wasn’t half bad.

Tonight’s lodging is at the Buffalo Lodge, and I’ve got this huge place all to myself after a large group apparently cancelled due to Covid. It’s way up in the hills surrounded by forest, and I’m hearing a few nocturnal birds having some sort of cocktail party outside. I was hoping they might be New Zealand’s famous kiwis, but while there are supposedly kiwis around here, an interweb search for kiwi calls says the current party chatter is coming from something else – the closest match I’ve found so far is the morepork, a tiny native owl, and if that’s who’s out there talking he has a LOT to say.

Tomorrow I’m driving back through Auckland on my way further north, and despite living in Los Angeles I’ve become very afraid of traffic and people over the past month of travel, so send thoughts and prayers as I navigate highways and traffic lights again.

Today had the strangest start to any day of the trip so far, but things improved greatly from that point.

After breakfast I drove 30 minutes to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, with no expectations whatsoever as to what I might encounter. They advertise that the Lady Knox Geyser erupts daily at 10:15am, which had me confused as to whether it was an actual geyser, and if so then how it could erupt at the same time each day. As it turns out, the geyser was accidentally discovered by convicts from a labor camp who saw a hot pool, decided to wash in it, and when the water got a bit soapy it induced a geyser eruption, scaring the hell out of them and causing them to run buck naked back to their camp. Today, following the lead of those convicts, park employees walk out to the geyser each morning at 10:15 while surrounded by an amphitheater full of tourists, dump a bag of soap into the cone to induce an eruption, and then begin playing music over speakers as the eruption commences with tons of soap bubbles bursting forth from the geyser like it’s a kid’s science fair experiment. Eventually the eruption turns from soapy to steamy to hot water shooting fifty feet into the air, but bubbles continue to float through the surroundings the entire time. I suppose it’s the only way to show people a predictable geyser eruption, but it still felt very, very odd. Apparently the geyser usually erupts for about an hour, but today the show lasted only about a minute, which made the experience even more of an inauspicious start to the day.

After the geyser eruption I headed over to the park’s trails, and they turned out to be much, much more normal than expected after the earlier soapy spectacle. The thermal features were all totally natural, they had a bunch of impressive mud pots and silica terraces, there were hot springs of all sorts of vibrant colors, really good and informative signage about the Taupo supervolcano, and I spent a very pleasant two hours roaming the area.

Things improved further with an afternoon journey to the Waimangu Volcanic Valley, an area formed after the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera. The visit is via trails through rainforest, leading past features like Frying Pan Lake, the world’s largest hot spring, and it was a nice hike with very few people around. Of particular note, the area was home to the world’s largest geyser from 1900 until 1904. The Waimangu Geyser erupted every 36 hours for 5-6 hours at a time to heights of over 400 meters, which is taller than the Empire State Building. For comparison, the largest active geyser today is Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone, which erupts to a height of 90 meters, while Old Faithful erupts to a height of about 40 meters. As with many thermal features, earthquakes and continuing volcanic activity eventually changed the underground plumbing of the system, and the Waimangu Geyser was declared to be extinct in 1908.

Tomorrow I’m heading to the coast and up to the Coromandel Peninsula. Somehow it’s down to the last ten days in New Zealand, but there’s some diving coming up next week that should make them very memorable days.