Why are we moving across the New Zealand landscape so fast?

Partly because we’re doing a favor for Spaceships, bringing one of their vans down to Christchurch before the end of the month. At this time of year (going into summer) they don’t usually do one-way rentals. (Apparently the majority of people visiting NZ fly into Auckland and out of Christchurch, resulting in a glut of rental cars and vans on the South Island. It can get so bad that you can even “rent” a car or van for free if you want to travel in the opposite direction—in which case all you pay for is a flight down and the gas to return the vehicle within 5 days. Sometimes they’ll even pay for the ferry between the North and South Islands! We seriously considered this, but ultimately decided against it due to the hassle of flying and the time limitation.) But Spaceships needed this particular model on the South Island, so they gave us a good deal on a one-way rental from Auckland to Christchurch until this Friday (tomorrow). Then on Saturday we’ll pick up another van for two weeks to tour the South Island.

Returning to the travelogue, as I blogged already, we skipped out on Tongariro due to weather and headed to Wellington. On Tuesday we visited with Wendy of Cultured, a cheesemonger that Stephanie discovered through Twitter. She sent us away with several cheeses to try and info on some artisan cheesemakers we might visit on the South Island. After lunch we went downtown to see the highly recommended national museum, Te Papa. We wandered around until we were thoroughly museumed-out, and then we headed back to the holiday park for a dinner of bread and cheese and wine.

On Wednesday morning we woke up early to catch an 8am ferry to the South Island, which takes about 3 hours. We arrived in Picton a little after 11 and continued driving down towards Kaikoura, where we planned to spend two nights.

Hello South Island

We arrived at the Tongariro National Park visitor’s center in the rain. It had rained on and off the entire drive from Rotorua, around Lake Taupo, and into Tongariro. Visibility had been next to nothing. On Monday morning it was still raining, some of it sleet. New Zealand’s best day hike, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing would remain unconquered, perhaps until we can undertake the entire Tongariro Northern Circuit, a 4 day, 50km “Great Walk”.

This was as much as we saw of the famed world heritage site.

So instead of spending a second night at the Whakapapa Holiday Park in Tongariro, we began heading south towards Wellington. The weather improved markedly, and the drive to Wanganui was particularly beautiful. Stopped there for lunch and had a fancy burger at Oggies.

We made it to Wellington that afternoon, ending up at the Top 10 Holiday Park in Lower Hutt with plans to spend two nights. Here’s a map of our North Island road trip, for the geographically-inclined.

We made it to Rotorua on Friday, after driving successfully on the left, and stopped at the Thermal Springs Holiday Park for two nights. Having never been to a holiday park before (in New Zealand or elsewhere), I was impressed by the facilities: spacious bathrooms and showers, kitchen facilities with four sets of burners and sinks, hot water dispensers, toasters, a lounge with couches and wireless internet ($4/hour). And best of all, three mineral pools steaming away at a constant 38-40°C (100-104°F). After setting up the Spaceship and making a little dinner, we headed straight for the pools.

We spent most of Saturday at Te Puia to get our Māori cultural fix, including a viewing of the Pohutu Geyser. We took a guided tour in the morning, drove around Lake Rotorua after lunch, and then returned to Te Puia for the “Indigenous Evening Experience”, a cultural performance (Māori concert) and a hāngī (Māori barbecue) dinner.

We’ve rented something called a “Spaceship“—essentially a Toyota minivan that’s been converted into a bright orange campervan. Our car is now our castle. This is a new approach to car camping for us—actually sleeping in the vehicle, but it’s one that New Zealand is uniquely set up to accommodate. With the numerous “campgrounds” and holiday parks, we have access to toilets and showers, cooking facilities, and even internet for around $16-22 per person per night, pretty much everywhere.

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Picture me, on the couch of a budget hotel, laptop on lap, connected to wifi at $5 per 50 megabytes, surfing the web with images disabled (to save bandwidth), checking my email, paying off my credit cards, checking my bank account balance, cellphone in hand, calling Sprint to cancel my cell phone service, calling my bank and credit card companies to let them know I’m traveling.

I have to admit that paying for internet access by bandwidth is a little frustrating. I don’t want to run out in the middle of doing something important, so I take every available precaution to limit my usage. With Flash blocked and images disabled, I can get a lot done, but I do miss wandering around on Google Maps. And I haven’t had a chance to check up on blogs in over a month.

Stephanie and I found a rare cafe with free wifi where I was able to update all my container ship posts so that when you click on the image you get an enlarged version of the same. Check it out. I also spent some time wrapping my head around latitude and longitude GPS formats, so I went back and cleaned up what I’d posted to be a little more standard (with links to Google Maps in the degree-decimal format). Unfortunately the cafe didn’t have power outlets or public restrooms, so our time there was short-lived.

One minor setback. The satellite modem was held up by customs because I’d listed the value at $1,500. Apparently anything leaving the country with a value over $1,000 needs some additional export control form. I’m not even sure what the thing is “worth” since it was just a rental. Kicking myself right now for not putting down $500. And of course it was Friday night when I found out (it boggles the mind that I even got the notice, mailed to the budget hotel, which I’d entered as my return address, on the last night we were staying here), so I have to wait to do this on Monday. What else do I have to do, right? But it still burned me—especially because I was so good about shipping it back the very day we arrived in New Zealand. C’est la vie!

Update: Called New Zealand Post on Monday, explained the situation, they told me to fax the details to them. So I had to find a place to send a fax, and conveniently found one near where we’re staying. They released it for shipping on Tuesday, so hopefully it won’t arrive too long after I’d planned.