... And back again

Written at Auckland airport, and posted a couple of days later because I forgot ...

I leave New Zealand baking in a heatwave and head off to a Korean winter. I'm sorry to go, but not because of the weather; in all honesty it's been a bit too hot these last few days.

Instead I'm sorry to leave NZ's stunning landscapes, good food and wonderful people. I did wonder on several occasions as I travelled this time what possessed me to leave back in 2009 - my head knows that from a career perspective it was totally the right decision, but my heart wonders what if ... NZ feels like a second home. It's comfortable despite the ridiculous scenery, volcanoes and earthquakes and it has a chilled-outness about it. Back in 2007 when I first got to Wellington I was a stressed-out mess of underpaid London workaholic - two years of better work-life balance made a big difference and these last couple of weeks have reminded me of that. Thanks to all those who took the time to catch up, it was wonderful to see so many friends again.

After the Northern Circuit I drove across the country the scenic route to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, stopping in Rotorua for a wander in the redwood forest there. They don't match the kauri for majesty but they were very tall and it was a nice stroll. 

In Tauranga my London rowing friend Hannah joined me - she is currently living here but took the time to catch up, nicely coinciding with my birthday. We went to the beach at Mount Maunganui, as I can't do that at home in January, and simply chilled for the morning with a bit of splashing in the waves too. In the afternoon we headed north, pausing at Waihi Beach for a bit although high tide meant a general lack of actual beach! 

Hannah's host family in the Hauraki Plains kindly put me up for the night. As night fell we went out to look at the Kiwi stars, bright even despite a nearly-full moon glowing overhead.

I had to get back to Auckland the next day, but drove backwards first to explore Karangahake Gorge. A century ago this was a major gold mining area, with miners extracting quartz and then processing it for gold and silver. Some remains of buildings and tramways are still there and you can walk through mine tunnels, as well as a 1km long former railway tunnel. There were glow-worms in the mine tunnels and it was all very cool.

Auckland was Auckland, but I finished off with a spectacularly good ice cream from a fancy gelateria called Giapo. Instead of picking your flavours you pick an already-designed dessert, with toppings complementing the ice cream flavour. It was expensive but good.

And now as I write it's almost time to board for the long flight to Seoul, where I'll post this and start exploring an entirely new country. Thank you NZ, I'll be back.

Ka mihi koe ki Aotearoa.

The Tongariro Northern Circuit

New Zealand has nine 'Great Walks' - eight multi-day tramps and a kayaking trip (it's a journey). When I lived here I did three of the Great Walks and I was keen to do another this trip. After ruling out the South Island due to time, I had two to pick from; the walk around Lake Waikaremoana or the Tongariro Northern Circuit. Originally I'd decided to do Waikaremoana as it's less popular and its remoteness appealed, but it was proving tricky logistically and I didn't fancy the long unsealed road to get there. 

So I settled on the Northern Circuit. This is a four-day or less hike starting and finishing in the village of Whakapapa, nestled on the lower slopes of Mount Ruapehu in the Tongariro National Park. It takes you around Mount Ngauruhoe, across the saddle between it and Mount Tongariro, and then cuts back to Whakapapa past Ruapehu. Like all the Great Walks the track is (reasonably) well-maintained with huts to sleep in at intervals equipped with mattresses, gas stoves, toilets and running water and at this time of year staffed by a helpful Department of Conservation (DOC) ranger. 

Day one

Day one was advertised as a nice easy 9.4km from Whakapapa village to Mangatepopo Hut. As it was a shortish day I didn't hurry off - which meant most of the car parking in Whakapapa had gone, but consultation with the DOC lady in the visitors' centre solved that problem. I ate a solid cooked breakfast at the café in the village, shouldered my pack, and set off.

Although there isn't too much climbing this first day it turned out to be a tougher one than anticipated, largely thanks to the severe erosion of the track. One of the DOC rangers said it had been washed away in a big storm several years ago and DOC have yet to raise the money to repair it. While parts are beautifully board-walked and easy, much of it is basically a ditch and it was tricky walking. It was also incredibly hot and sunny, which meant stunning views of Ngauruhoe ahead but hard going. It was good to get to the hut, which suddenly appeared ahead nestled in a valley just off the Tongariro Crossing track. I then immediately felt totally inadequate as an older guy, German or Dutch, shouldered his pack again and announced he was off to finish his two-day Northern Circuit. He'd managed to get round with just one break and looked fresh as a daisy.

Over the afternoon more people arrived in varying states of knackered-ness and we started to get to know each other. Several of us were doing the circuit at the same rate - four days, three nights - and I was immensely lucky that everyone was lovely. As well as me, there were three youngish American couples, including Nate and Laura who were going to follow the TNC by getting married from a helicopter near Queenstown; a Canadian couple from Ontario; an Aussie couple from Perth; a group of three older Americans from Minnesota, two ladies and a man; and rocking up later on in the afternoon, four 17-year-olds from Wellington who took a very relaxed attitude to the whole thing and spent most of their time playing cards!

In the evening our ranger, Doug, gave the traditional welcome talk. He began in what sounded to me like pretty solid Te Reo Maori, before explaining his job at the hut, taking us through the safety points and other housekeeping. This routine is repeated every night at every DOC hut where there's a ranger. 

As the sun set Taranaki peeped his head over the distant clouds, which was magical, and we all retired to bed. I had to get up in the night and the stars were astonishingly bright.

Day two

We woke to clear skies in front of us but low cloud masking the horizon behind. Doug had told us the previous night that the bulk of the people doing the one-day Tongariro Crossing would be passing through between 6 and 8am, but when I set out at 8 it was still incredibly busy - and remained that way the rest of the distance that our paths coincided. On balance, getting the benefit of less heat was probably best.

The TNC and the Crossing follow the same route for perhaps 8km, climbing up the saddle between Tongariro and Ngauruhoe before crossing the vast South Crater, and then ascending again to the high point of the Red Crater. After that you descend steeply and quickly to the three Emerald Lakes (they're turquoise, really). That's where the paths divide, although Circuiteers can do a quick side-trip to see the vast Blue Lake too. 

The Crossing is known as the Thing To Do in this part of the world and thousands do do it, many vastly under-equipped for a 19km day hike. Most people I saw were in shorts and t-shirts and some sort of trainers. One girl was carrying an umbrella as a parasol. Not everyone or every group had a rucksack big enough to carry food and extra layers, which frankly is stupid as up at the top the weather can change very quickly (as I found out in 2007 when I did this walk with Mum and Dad, the clouds rolled in and it rained for most of the trek). 

The crowds didn't really stop me making progress and speed as I'd wished, despite my bag. I'm quite good at climbing and ascended steadily to the South Crater, pausing for a break and then crossing across to the ascent up to Red Crater. This bit of track now has chains as handrails at one point, which I didn't remember, and a lot of steps. I got my poles out and kept climbing. 

Looking across Central Crater from Blue Lake

 The view at the top was astounding. Red Crater is a deep crater of dark red iron-enriched earth, and below it you can see, sparkling like jewels, Emerald Lakes. Steam comes out from behind the lakes, which are highly sulphurous. 

The descent was something else - and I don't remember this from 2007 either! You have to get down a steep scree slope with a lot of loose stuff and a steep drop to either side. I don't like descending anyway, I hate scree, I hate steep drops, and I had a heavy pack on my back. I went very slowly and was very glad to be at the bottom. 

I did the side-trip to Blue Lake, which was pretty, and then set off to start the two-hour trip to Oturere Hut. At this point I bumped into one of the lads from Wellington who had lost his mates - it turned out later they'd simply descended Red Crater much more quickly and had gone off without him - so we walked the rest of the way together. While initially I was a bit narked at losing my lovely solitude actually he was good company and it was baking hot. He was struggling more than me so it was good to be the one encouraging someone else along! The landscape at this point was unreal, an alien moonscape of rocks and scrubby plants with Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu ever-present looming above us. 

Around 2km out from the hut we bumped into its ranger, Dani, who cheerfully informed us we had "only" 45 minutes left. It was a long 45 minutes but eventually we rounded a clump of lava rocks and there was shelter. 

Oturere Hut is smaller and older than Mangatepopo and a bit more cramped. I was there early enough to secure a prime bunk. Apart from the Wellington quartet, the only others there were a Kiwi guide and her Swiss-German clients walking the circuit in the other direction. The Swiss couldn't speak very good English so I chatted to their guide as I had a second lunch and discovered there was a waterfall just over the ridge where you could splash a bit and freshen up. She said you could go in flip-flops. I believed her. I was silly. It was a narrow, sometimes-steep short path to the top of the waterfall where I found a pool deep enough to sit in, and for a little while I did just sit there listening to the flow over the cliff a few metres distant and remembering the day's walk.

Day three

Day three of the circuit in this direction is blissfully short, only three hours. My bunkroom all slept in past 7 as the rest of the hut and campers were packing up and heading off, and it was nice to have breakfast and pack up in a leisurely fashion. I left along with one of the American couples, Phil and Kaiba from Austin, and we walked the day's 8.5km together chatting sporadically. This was a lovely walk, across the volcanic desert towards Ruapehu before descending sharply into a pretty beech forest. We had a snack by the icy cold fast-flowing river and then climbed up the other side of the forest, to be greeted by the sight of Waihohonu Hut only a short distance ahead. 

The original Waihohonu Hut was built in 1904 and still stands, a corrugated iron shed painted rust-red. The new one was opened in 2010 (there was another in between apparently) and was promptly nicknamed 'Taj MaHut' by the Aussies when they arrived. It's a 28-bunk palace with loads of space, cubby holes for your stuff, big tables inside, picnic tables outside, the works. Best of all are the big picture windows looking out on the mountains. 

Ruapehu on day three

Nearby is the Onehipango Springs, which bubble up out of the ground about a kilometre away from the hut. Phil, Kaiba and I walked there and filled our water bottles from the river just near the source of the spring - the coldest, purest water you could hope to taste. It was divine. Back at the hut everyone was splashing in the river by the campsite, which is also icy cold but with a pool deep enough to submerge yourself in. Everyone came back to the hut looking like they had just had the best experience of their lives - it was so good to feel cleaner and fresher!

While down at the river we heard the first few rolls of thunder in the distance, and much of the rest of the afternoon was spent watching the storn roll over Ngauruhoe and across the valley to Oturere. Eventually it reached us, and the heavens opened with huge raindrops and then hail which bounced off the floor and the tables outside. Luckily we were indoors, oohing and aahing at the lightning and the size of the hailstones. A few trampers were less lucky and arrived from Whakapapa looking like drowned rats. 

Our ranger for the night was called Horse. Apparently it's his real name. His parents were hippies. Anyway he informed us that the next day was the day of the Tussock Traverse, a 26km trail race for almost 1,000 runners from the Desert Road to Whakapapa along our track for the day. We all groaned, having just got over the Crossing crowds, and I decided to make a prompt start to try and miss as many of them as possible.

Day four

I was on the trail by 7.40am, stopping for a brief look at the old Waihohonu Hut before heading out across more volcanic desert landscape on the last leg. The trail undulates up and down but mostly up for a bit, before the trend becomes mostly down, and although the clouds covered the heads of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe it was very atmospheric - and a little cooler! I made excellent time to the turnoff for Tama Lakes, and decided I had enough time and energy to do the trek up to the Upper Lake. This is advertised as 45 minutes. It's another steep climb up a slope but the ground wasn't too loose, and I got up and back in an hour including a stop at the slightly windy top for a view of another beautiful blue lake nestling under the slopes of Ngauruhoe.

Lower Tama Lake

Back on the track I was now being overtaken by trail runners regularly, but still kept on making decent progress towards Whakapapa. Just under an hour out I stopped at the top of Taranaki Falls, joined by Americans Natasha and Kevin, for a final lunch in the open before the last few kilometres back. My feet were sore, but I didn't really want it to end ...

Overall the TNC deserves its Great Walk title. It's a walk of constantly-changing landscape, with Ngauruhoe constantly at the centre. I met some great people and saw fantastic views and sights. It was a superb four days.

Tips for the walk

• Make sure you book well ahead on the DOC website to get a hut or tent spot for any of the Great Walks. Especially in summer, no booking will probably mean no bed. 
• And get a car park permit from the Whakapapa visitors' centre before you start walking. With this you can park for free in either of the car parks in Whakapapa for the length of the walk.
• The water was drinkable without treatment in all the huts - Mangatepopo and Oturere rely on rainwater tanks, Waihohonu has access to the river but at the moment was also purely rainwater. 
• In summer there are gas stoves in all the huts too so you can get away with just bringing a pot to boil water or cook with. 
• The huts have no electricity sockets (though to cut down on fires, they do have electric lights). 
• Walking poles are very useful, especially if you have a dodgy knee. 
• You can do this walk in fewer days; either starting from the carpark near Mangatepopo Hut, or by combining two legs (or all of them - it's a thing to try and do it in a day). However I liked having the time to be leisurely, and it was nice hanging out in the afternoons with the other trampers and also doing some reading.

New Plymouth, Wellington and the Wairarapa

This post is brought to you by an afternoon of wine tasting.

When I settled in Wellington back in 2007 I started my job just after Easter, so I spent the long Easter weekend out in the Wairarapa, exploring LOTR locations and drinking wine. When I was working we had quarterly days out, one of which was a fabulous trip to Martinborough for golfing and wine-tasting. I therefore have fond memories of Martinborough and decided to put it on my list of Things To Do for this trip. Consequently, after an afternoon tootling around the vineyards on a bike, I am moderately sozzled.

 Going backwards: after Northland I drove south to New Plymouth, which last year was named the second-best region in the world to visit by the Lonely Planet. This is quite a big thing to live up to and I'm not sure it can quite lay claim to that title - but it depends what you want from a place. I was unfortunate with weather this time, as it was wet most of the time I was there, but I did thoroughly enjoy my day in NP. I had a lovely dinner with my friend Delwyn and then the next day explored the excellent museum Puke Ariki before the rain eased enough to venture onto the Coastal Walkway. NP council has now developed 13km of fabulous path along the coast - it was pretty blustery but fun and worth braving the wind for. Then I cut in along a path which runs along a really pretty little stream (Te Henui) until I got to the end, before finding my way back to my hostel through the NP park. It was a good 12km walk so I felt suitably virtuous by the end and that I'd earned the fish and chips I had for dinner.

Cape Egmont lighthouse and Mount Taranaki

From NP it was on to Wellington. I took the Surf Highway, which runs along the coast and through numerous tiny towns with crashing waves on one side and rural NZ on the other. It was a lovely drive; I took a detour to see the Cape Egmont lighthouse with Mount Taranaki peeping through the clouds behind before barrelling on south past all the towns we used to drive through on the way to swimming meets or regattas when I lived in Wellington. Taranaki's farewell signs were particularly good: "You are about to leave Taranaki ..." and then a couple of hundred metres further on, "Why?"

It was very good to get back to Wellington. It really is an awesome little city. I drove in as the sun came out and after checking in to my hostel and dumping my car headed up to Mount Victoria for a view. This was pretty much the first thing I did when I first arrived back in 2007, guided by my brother and now-sister-in-law. It seemed appropriate to do it again and it was a good clear day.

Originally I'd hoped to go rowing at some point but the Wellington wind had other thoughts and on Saturday it was a raging north-westerly with white caps across the harbour. I hired a bike instead and cycled around the bays - a trip I did several times when living in NZ. The road takes you past a number of lovely neighbourhoods, past the airport, and then eventually up a long drag back to town. I missed my road bike massively (even the hybrid I owned in NZ was better than the mountain bike I'd hired) but it was a good day.

Breaker Bay

Since I lived there Wellington has sprouted several markets - I enjoyed wandering the Underground Market on Saturday and the Night Markets on Cuba Street on Friday and Saturday were good too. Lots of street food from around the world, NZ handicrafts and the like. I had a Vietnamese banh mi for lunch on Saturday and a plate of Ethiopian food for dinner - delicious and relatively cheap. Food is quite expensive in NZ so it was good to save a bit, although I confess I also had a couple of craft beers at a cool little pub in the CBD I found via Google ....

On Sunday I went to Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum, which was as superb as always. They had an exhibition of Lego models of Wonders of the World - amazing - but arguably a better show was their Gallipoli exhibit, This was designed in conjunction with Weta Workshop, who made their name making models for the Lord of the Rings films, and focuses on the eight months spent by New Zealand troops trying to take a part of Turkey during WW1. Gallipoli is a bit of WW1 which we in Britain don't know much about (despite the fact several thousand British troops fought there too) but it was a crucial, tragic part of the war for the Aussies and Kiwis. Thousands of their men died there before the troops were evacuated and it was a tragic event for the whole country. The exhibition tells the Gallipoli story through the voices of individual soldiers and includes immense 2.4x models of eight individuals - seven men and one female nurse - who were involved. It was a very powerful way of telling their story and brought home to me a side of WW1 I was aware of but knew little about.

The giant model of Lt Spencer Westmacott which introduces the Gallipoli exhibition

A good accompaniment to this was a visit to the Great War Exhibition, likewise curated by Peter Jackson and his Weta colleagues, at the National War Memorial before I left. This also relies heavily on models to show you what went on during the war, coupled with colourised photographs and artefacts. It was also exceptionally good and complemented the Te Papa exhibit well. Both made you feel what an impact WW1 had on NZ and Australia, whose sons went off to fight for an empire they were so very distant from.

The rest of my time in Wellington was spent with a catch-up lunch with my rowing friend Lucy, appropriately next to the rowing club in the new-since-I -lived-there cafe by the club (it was too windy to row), a visit to the Wellington Museum, and a pilgrimage to the Embassy Cinema to see The Post. The Embassy has, since I lived in Wellington, added two new small screens below its awesome main screen and it was in one of these that the film was shown. It was lovely - a comfortable seat and a glass of wine!

Yesterday after the Great War Exhibition I hit the road for Martinborough, driving out over the Rimutaka Hill to the Wairarapa wine country. I rented a bike from the holiday park I'm staying at and set out to taste wine. I tasted a lot. It was all good. I didn't buy any but most of the wineries charge $5 for a tasting so you kind of feel okay about not buying, and I bought a mini bottle of gin in one of the two which didn't charge which I sincerely hope will survive the next few weeks. It would frankly be a tragedy if it didn't.

Auckland and Northland

My flight from Kuala Lumpur was late leaving and later arriving in Auckland. But New Zealand is the sort of place which actively welcomes travellers, and even at 1am it felt so very good to be back.

I'd always wanted to go to NZ but it took me until February 2007 to finally get there, when I went out on a working holiday visa with very few expectations of how long I'd stay and what I'd do. I stayed two years and got a proper job, but came home for career and family reasons. However I was there long enough that even arriving at stupid o'clock in a city I don't know so well it was a bit like coming home. The whole sense of the place is unique; it's enough like the UK that it feels comfortable, but there's enough Kiwi character too to set it apart from home.

After a long sleep I dove into NZ with a cup of coffee. Kiwis do coffee exceptionally well, even in the smallest town, and this cup was wonderful. Revived, the Auckland Museum was calling as they had on an exhibition of entries from the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year competition. This was great, mixing stunning landscape and wildlife photos with some more documentary-style images of NZ's people and places. It didn't shy away from touching some of the less well-known topics such as the hardship of being a refugee here, alcoholism and homelessness, and the intense poverty suffered by some in the very rural areas of the country.

In the evening it was time for my first catch up with friends of my trip - drinks by the harbour with Dave, a colleague from the Olympic News Service, watching the sun go down. I decided I liked Auckland more than I'd remembered!

Day two was more catching up with friends, after I'd got lost finding their place and driven over the harbour bridge twice ... Sarah and her boyfriend were great hosts for the day, with a trip to the French Markets in Parnell (a kind of foodie farmers' market which pops up on weekends) followed by a drive to Devonport for views of the city, and a few beers nearby.

But I had to get out of Auckland after that. The only problem with having spent a reasonable amount of time in NZ is that I've seen quite a lot already, so I struggled slightly to decide what to do (and where to stay). After mulling over maps and booking websites for far too long, I plumped eventually to drive north and go and see the kauri forests.

Tane Mahuta

Kauri (Agathis Australis) are ancient trees, both in terms of the species and individually. They can grow for thousands of years and reach incredible heights and size.They only grow above the 38 degree latitude line and are rare and surprisingly delicate for trees of such majesty, being prone to something called kauri dieback. The Department of Conservation are tackling this by requiring you to walk on dedicated paths and clean your shoes before and after going into a kauri forest.

On the way north I stopped off at the Kauri Museum in a little settlement called Matakohe. The museum is actually fairly pricey to visit, costing the same as a visit to the Auckland Museum, but it turned out to be a fascinating place with every aspect of kauri production covered - harvesting the gum they produce, which was used for varnish, and digging old gum out of the ground; digging up logs of kauri from swamps, where it's preserved and usable; and transporting kauri logs down rivers through special kauri dams. The museum also covers the life of the early NZ settlers. It's very well done and taught me a lot I didn't know about the use of kauri.

In the kauri forests I went to see three key trees or groups of trees: the Four Sisters, which are relatively small kauri growing together in a group; Te Matua Ngahere, or Father of the Forest, which is the fattest kauri known to be in existence right now; and Tane Matua, Lord of the Forest, the tallest and biggest kauri. You can't get very close to the latter two, to protect them, but you get close enough to appreciate the size of these astonishing trees. Even with a fairly wide angle lens I struggled to get them in one shot!

I stayed that night at a fabulous place south of the main kauri forest in the middle of nowhere. A chap called Richard Bird and his partner, who moved out from the UK almost 20 years ago, run a holiday let from their home set amid 35 acres of bush. One of the places you can stay is a 'tin shed' set in seclusion up a steep track, looking out over the bush and a field. It has an outside bath and cooking area but the bed was incredibly comfortable, and after an evening relaxing in the bath and drinking wine on the deck I slept like a log! Sadly it was too cloudy to see any stars.

In the morning I had a wander around another kauri forest nearby, before setting off south. The last Northland stop was at Bayly's Beach, which is a small section of the 107km-long Ripiro Beach - NZ's longest 'drivable' stretch of sand, even longer than the more famous Ninety Mile Beach which is really only 88km long. It was good to look at the sea crashing on the sand before the long drive ahead of me.