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| Maori 'picket fence' in Rotorua City Centre |
The plan for Christmas: spend it in Tasmania with Mike’s
sister Lindsay and her family. And since we’d already be in travel mode with
backpacks, etc, we decided to take a few extra days before flying out to
road-trip around central North Island. We rented a car in Auckland and spent a
few nights in hostels on our tour – what a novelty, but a rather expensive one,
even though we stayed in backpacker hostels. After all these years of boat
travel we’d forgotten how pricey it can be to journey by land. On the positive
side, though, early December seemed a low-key time to be traveling through this
part of NZ – kids still in school and most people not yet on holiday. It’s
after Christmas that summer holidays really get busy here.
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| Sulpherous mud pool on the lakefront in Rotorua. |
Rotorua is a center of Maori culture and of geothermal
activity - and let's be honest, a little bit of a tourist trap. But what we were really excited for was the
community mountain bike park we’d heard so much about!
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| Back in the saddle |
It was our lucky day: since a big group of school kids had
just come through and rented all of the small and medium sized hard-tail bikes
we were upgraded to full suspension rides! A first-time experience for both of
us, and it was super-fun. There is a huge network of fire-roads and singletrack
of all levels in the park. Most of the trails were one-way, which was cool –
ride up the old (and some still active) logging roads and down and across
through singletrack in the clearcuts (tiny trees=good view) or the
second-growth bush. We rented the bikes for a half-day and were pretty
knackered by lunchtime.
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| Waikite Hot Spring |
There are some very flash tourist parks in Rotorua where you can see Maori dance and cultural performances and spectacular geysers going off… that would have been awesome to see I’m sure, but we were too thrifty for that and so drove about 30 km out of town to the Waikite Hot Springs, a gorgeous little series of community-built pools in the midst of green cattle-grazing farmland. While the hot pools around Rotorua (some right in the
middle of town) were sulphurous and muddy and a bit evil-looking, Waikite
spring was clear and odorless – with low sulphur content but massive pressure
and near-boiling temperatures (it was cooled down big-time for the bathers).
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| Looking down on Mt. Maunganui and part of the Port of Tauranga from "the Mount" |
Tauranga is a large port on North Island’s East Coast;
industrial, but with yachtie facilities as well and we’d been curious about it
for a while. Its very close neighbour, Mt. Maunganui, is an up-scale beach town
known for its surf breaks. The beaches seemed empty during our brief visit (but
the surf wasn’t really up either). The view from “the Mount” was awesome and
the Pohutukawa tree blossoms were at their peak.
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| And looking back up at the Mount on a marginal longboard day |
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| Hordes at the Salamanca Market, Hobart |
O
ur last trip to Tassie in 2012 didn’t include much time in Hobart (though it did include the amazing MONA art museum, a must-see if you are ever here), so this time we really enjoyed a couple of days walking around the old city. Sandstone buildings dating back to prison-colony days in the mid-1800s ring the harbour, with more turn-of-the-last-century buildings making up the shopping areas. We stayed at fabulous Hotel Alabama – a “bargain boutique” hotel owned by a couple of Lindsay’s artsy friends. It had a second-story garden balcony, interesting art on the walls, craft beer in the fridge and lots of nice touches like traditional Tassie-made wool blankets and handmade local soaps in the rooms.
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| Hobart |
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| Prison-colony era buildings at Salamanca Square, Hobart |
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| A blurry shot of a wallaby and her baby in the pouch. |
Lindsay met us in Hobart and whisked us up north (driving right through the middle of a bush fire) to spend
Christmas and New Years’ with the family – we spent most of our time in their
new place at Port Sorrell, a beautiful big river estuary on the Bass Straight.
There is a nature reserve on a headland about 10 minutes walk from their place,
and a beautiful spot for an evening walk. Multiple wallaby sightings were
guaranteed every evening we strolled in the park, but we weren't as lucky trying to view the Fairy
Penguins’ nightly return to their burrows; we spent a few hours watching the
stars come out and shivering in the cold Tasmanian summer wind, not moving a
muscle and barely even whispering to each other, in hopes of seeing a troupe of
waddling little birds. We did see one shy little guy, but the next day closer
inspection of the trail showed occasional little bird-poop crossroads where
more of them must travel.
It was great to visit with Lindsay and Q and the kids, and start
the move into their new house. Thanks for the hospitality guys!
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| At the western headland of Port Sorell, looking NE into Bass Strait. |
