Our two week stay in New Zealand was shortened by a day due to the one-day delay in Bangkok. So we finally made it into Auckland after a lengthy 45-minute transit stop in Sydney (and a very aggressive customs inspection at New Zealand which focused on preventing any non-native insects, plants and animals from getting into New Zealand). In fact, we have even heard stories from other travelers that the NZ customs inspectors take out all walking boots from travelers' suitcases and wash them to get rid of any non-native life-forms - quite crazy! After taking the shuttle to the YHA in Auckland, we found out that our hostel reservations had been cancelled. Wonderful. Anyway, we managed to find another place quite easily.
The first day (which was also our last day in Auckland) we were there, we went down to Queen Street, the main street in Auckland, near the harbour. We met up with Roshanee in Three Kings! It was great to see her after such a long time - we had gotten to meet Jai in Delhi earlier in the month. Unfortunately, Zubin wasn't back from his vacation yet so we weren't able to meet him. Thanks to Jai and his travel company for helping us so much with our travel planning!
Along the way, we got ourselves a yet another SIM card for our mobile phone - we´ve found that getting local SIM cards ( most petrol stations, news-stands etc. sell these prepaid cards) has been quite a good way to keep in touch with people (or they can call us), not to mention making last minute changes to hostel/hotel/B&B reservations and also flights and trains. This saves us from hunting down payphones and juggling lots of change! We used SIM cards in India and New Zealand and will be using them from now on in the countries in which we spend more than 10 days. The New Zealand mobile phone company (Vodafone NZ) has a monopoly country-wide, so prices are quite high but the service is not bad - I could get access to my email through my mobile phone as well!
We then rented a car for our 2-week stay in New Zealand and motored on down to Rotorua, in the middle of the North Island. Driving through New Zealand is a pleasure - the roads are well-kept and pretty empty. Speed limits of 100kmph are seldom adhered to so inter-city travel can be quite fast! We passed several crystal-clear lakes, including Lake Rotorua which is amazing - looks bigger than Lake Tahoe in California and is much cleaner and warmer! Our impressions of New Zealand have been wonderful. So much beautiful open space - snow-capped mountains, crystal-clear lakes, well-maintained roads, clean cities and lots of adventure sports! The country has done a real good job of promoting itself as a focused tourist destination for adventure sports, outdoor adventures and nature.
Along the way to Rotorua, we saw a lot of terrain that seemed vaguely familiar - we were thinking that we must have seen this somewhere in Lord of the Rings (yes, we're both LOTR geeks), including Mount Doom etc.. Keep in mind that the actual movie was heavily computerized so the mountain has had computerized lava flows and a different sky put behind it.
In Rotorua, we again stayed at the YHA - the place was nice although the insect-life in New Zealand is quite focused on extracting human blood at all times of the day and night - tons of mosquitoes and moths everywhere, including the bathrooms, bedrooms and lounges! The area behind the YHA was a public park which consisted of mudpools and thermal pools and also had steam rising from it - quite different from most of the city parks I've seen anywhere else in the world! Rotorua (and the North Island in general) has a larger Maori population then the South Island. In addition, Rotorua is an area of great seismic activity with lots of geysers, sulphur pools, thermal pools etc.
We went to a Maori concert at the Mitai village that turned out to be quite nice - it started off with us being welcomed (their word for this is "Kia ora" which sounds quite similar to the Indian "Kia ho raha hai") and then being shown how the Maori use/used the hot earth (caused by the siesmic activity underground) to cook their food (they put the food in earthen pots, then bury them underground for about 3-4 hours). This was then followed by a ceremony which showed how different Maori tribes greeted each other and was then followed by various Maori dances (including the famous Haka dance). The Maori warriors were dressed in almost nothing (other than a loin-cloth and a lot of tattoos) while the women had animal-skin dresses which owl-tattoos on their chin. They stick out their tongues (saying "Hhhhhhaaaaaa") and bug out their eyes (presumably to frighten their opponents). We then went for a walk through the nearby forest and were shown glow-worms (which seem to come straight out of some science-fiction novel) and a Maori sacred spring which was crystal clear and had fish and eels moving around inside it. The sad part, though, is that the Maori had been pretty marginalized on the economic front and have crime/drugs/alcohol problems similar to many other economically-disadvantaged communities around the world.
Next morning, we went over to Wai-o-tapu which another thermal area near Rotorua. We saw a geyser which goes active at pricisely 10.15am each morning with a little prompting by the park ranger. Of course, a number of the tourists waited for the first spout to come out, took their photo and then left!
A long, 6-hour drive then got us to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. We set up shop at another YHA and decided to chill for the evening, doing highly productive things like watching a movie (Alexander) and walking around the shopping areas. It was quite dull and rainy. Next morning, we went to the Te Papa museum which had a Maori marae (meeting hall/hut) and lots on the history of the Maori in New Zealand, including a retelling of how they came to New Zealand about 800 years ago (sailing on their canoes from Tahiti!) and their wars with the Europeans which resulted in the Waitungi treaty.
Now, we're off to the South Island on the ferry!
-Dev
How on earth did you get to Rotorua from Auckland via the volcanic plateau?
I'm Maori and have no clue that my people are "pretty marginalized on the economic front and have crime/drugs/alcohol problems similar to many other economically-disadvantaged communities around the world". What a crock of steaming...
It isn't "quite crazy" that they check your boots in customs. It's to stop ignorant tourists destroying our country.
It would be far better if we just didn't let people like you into the country to get the wrong idea about New Zealand and its people.
Posted by: Jessica | Friday, May 20, 2005 at 11:54 PM
Ahh...reading about your time in Aotearoa--"Land of the Long White Cloud" makes me so nostalgic as it's one of my favorite places! What did you think about the Maori traditional nose greeting, eh? That was a trip! Wasn't the Te Papa museum amazing? So did either of you fall thru any of Fox Glacier crevices? That happens a lot--happended to me and scared the CRAP out of me!
Dev--like the scruffy look you're sporting now in Brazil.
Posted by: Camille | Monday, February 14, 2005 at 02:57 PM