New Zealand - North Island

2nd-11th January 2023 (Beth thinks it felt much longer...)

Ben writes: For most people, the thought of 24 hours flying sounds like living nightmare – restless sitting, endless half-watched movies, cramping calves and dry sinuses. For me however, it means 18 hours of solid sleep, accented every few hours by a nice lady bringing me food and drinks in bed. This skill alone is enough to deflect 32 years of height related humour. In aeroplanes, the short man rules. We arrived in Auckland at 6am, feeling fresh and ready to go.

Beth writes: I have never been one to sleep on plane journeys so the ease at which Ben can fasten up and enter into the land of nod is mildly frustrating, if not very impressive! I can enjoy a good film on a plane, however after 24 hrs of plane food, narrow seats and disrupted sleep, even my enthusiasm is curbed somewhat. The journey was long, accented by a quick chat with immigration in San Francisco (a gap year hangover involving a USA detention centre and deportation…another story!). We arrived into Auckland airport which is amongst lush green fields and rolling hills. One could have mistaken it for blighty, thinking that we had just made a very long round trip! I was ready to get a good NZ coffee and lay horizontally again.

Ben writes:

We spent 2 days acclimatising in Auckland. As our room wasn’t quite ready, we were asked if we would mind having the top floor apartment instead. After an hour of walking around our 32nd floor room in my dressing gown pretending to be Harvey Spectre, the novelty started to fade and we hit the town. Auckland is beautiful little city sprawling across several sections of sea. We jumped on the ferry and discovered Devonport and spent a day wandering Waiheke island. This is an antipodean equivalent to Jersey and only a forty minutes boat ride from the CBD; a little island filled with outrageous holiday homes, endless beaches and sea fronted vineyards. Our personal favourite was ‘Mudbrick’ [their Otago Pinot Noir was excellent – seriously recommend].

Beth writes:

It was all a bit of a jet lagged blur, but I do remember drinking some lovely wines and visiting the beautiful Waiheke Island. One thing that strikes you immediately about NZ is quite how well serviced their public parks and beaches are. Never more than a moment from a clean public loo, BBQ or somewhere to hose off after swimming in the sea! I suppose such is the luxury of living with a small population in an isolated subtropical utopia.

Ben writes: National Geographic just voted campervanning around New Zealand as ‘the greatest long-haul holiday in the world’. What they didn’t account for was cyclones. We picked up our budget campervan and tried desperately not to compare her to Sandy (my holiday romance/Toyato Hilux Camper from Namibia). Grateful that our graffitied Nissan Van didn’t display anything too explicit, we began our campervan adventure. Right on cue, the rain came in. I had been very clever, and an extremely good steward of our money, and had managed to find us an extremely cheap campervan. Just 270,000km on the clock and a manager who saw it as a luxury to include a table. I had considered that might not be balmy sunshine for the week. It seems neither had the optimistic designer of our camper. Converting our van into a sleeping area involved removing everything from the inside, placing outside before placing it back in again at the foot of the bed. 50mph winds, driving rain and quickly flooding ground made this process all the more enjoyable. We cosied up in front of a chick flick and waited for the gangrene to set in.

Beth writes: I had no idea what to expect as I had left campervan hire in Ben’s hands – we found it rather amusing to have a graffitied camper, which seemed to attract quite a lot of attention wherever we were! Rather aptly, we named her ‘Fish and Chipped’ and we started our journey with enthusiasm, despite the incoming rain (and when I say rain, I mean torrential, bucketing, driving downpour!). As we drove up the Coromandel peninsula, Ben assuring me all the way that ‘it’s usually stunning in good weather’ – we found a camping area which was up a muddy, slippery, rocky track, only made worse by the conditions. ‘If only we were in Sandy!’ we both thought to ourselves! However, even the bad weather couldn’t deter us from still having a feast for supper and making our camper cosy for the night. Meatballs and pasta have never tasted so reassuring and Ben conceded to watch ‘Notting Hill’ with me. It gave us a slight pang for home and London in all it’s 90’s glory. With that, we went to bed, hoping that neither of us would need a pee in the night…!

Ben writes: Adversity leads to innovation. Or at least it can. It can also lead to despair! We found a local newspaper and realised there was not one, but two cyclones headed for us. This meant 100% chance of heavy rain our entire camping trip. We had a little sense of humour failure. What on earth were we supposed to do? We put up a rather pathetic Instagram post, and were met with the generous hospitality which seems to be commonplace in New Zealand. We escaped the Coromandel (the North East peninsula) just before both roads were closed, trapping hundreds of holiday makers in the eye of the storm for the next 2 day. Kind friends from Norwich (Matt and Emmi) put us up for the night in their lovely dry house and treated us to a much-appreciated dinner out.

In order to stay out of the rain we spent much of the rest of the week driving. We visited natural pools in Rotaroa- if you have a sensitive nose these are not for you! We then travelled to Wellington to celebrate Mr and Mrs Paradise and spent a day exploring the awesome ‘Te Papa’ Museum. Here we learnt what happens to birds if there are no natural predators –(they get lazy, and very big!), looked around traditional Māori villages and learnt the mythology surrounding the origins of New Zealand (or Aotearoa). Māui, a Polynesian demi-god, is thought to have gone on a fishing trip and pulled up the North Island using a fishhook made from his grandmothers jaw bone! Quite the fishing feat.

We meandered our way back to Auckland via Taupo where we spent our final night campervanning in a kind lady’s garden, under the trees to avoid more relentless rain. It seems Māui had only done a half job. Whilst we weren’t technically under water, we weren’t far off!

Next stop – Queenstown, and the real reason we were in New Zealand…