October 26 Monday (Labor Day holiday in New Zealand) I had been looking forward to Rotorua, because it is the home of Zorbing and because of some recommendations passed on through my mom about a Hot Sand Beach on a lake in the area. I drove the last 28 kms into town from my camping area and stopped at the visitor center. The one snag involved with getting to Hot Sand Beach was confirmed for me: it is only accessible by boat. I was told I could head out there and there would be people operating like water taxis, but it would cost me. That was disappointing and I ended up not going there at all. I did go out to the Zorbing facility only a few kilometers outside of town with the intention of having a go at it. This also happened to be a dvd exchange site so I replaced the dvd I had watched last night. I spent nearly an hour watching people come down the hillside. There were three coarses and two variations on how you could ride in a Zorb. Two of the courses were straight runs (for racing against frends if you chose, and one was a windy zigzag course that looked like it was much more fun. You could ride in a dry Zorb strapped in so that you literally stuck to the side and went round and round with the sphere or you could do a wet Zorb by yourself or with a friend, and that was more like a self-contained water slide. Ultimately, after watching a number of people, I decided not to do it. Between the cost, the fact that it only lasted about a minute, and having already sky dived/scuba dived/bungy jumped, it ended up not looking nearly as exciting as I had imagined. I drove most of the way west from Rotorua towards the Waitomo region where there are many caves.

Another thing I forgot to mention. Rotorua is in the midst of a highly active thermal vent area. You can see puffs of smoke/steam rising from places all around as you drive or walk even in town. That also carries with it a relatively strong sulfur smell and you notice THAT long before you arrive in town. I'm not sure how the people that live there deal with it, they probably do not even notice after a while, but it is strong. Before I realized what it was I kept thinking there was something wrong with the Spaceship – then the lightbulb went on in my head.


October 27 Tuesday I was quite close to the Waitomo Caves, but after arriving at the visitor center and getting prices for the cave tours (all the main caves, and there are many, are on private property) I decided I was not going to do any of the packages. All were more than I could justify. I told myself that having seen parts of Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, I have already had this experience. I had a map with many free things and sights and I somewhat reluctantly went to explore as many of those as I could. I also made a quick stop to exchange dvds since this was one of the locations where that is possible. There was supposed to be a “Natural Tunnel” nearby, where gloworms could be seen, but either I missed the sign or there was none. I did find the second location on my map, the Natural Bridge, which was amazing. It is a narrow canyon of limestone that has eroded to leave two bridges stacked on top of each other. I next found the Puripuri Cave, a cave set on park land and therefore free. When I got to the cave entrance a crew was working on repairing and expanding the viewing platforms inside the cave, so I could not go in very far, but they also had massive lights to aid their work and it made the viewing I could do much better than it would have been otherwise. I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon slowly driving along the coast in a southerly direction. Apparently, there was a rally race going on and many cars with racing numbers passed me. I had actually seen them the day before going in a different direction than I was and had not paid any attention, but now they were all around me. This was on a scenic section of road and again it was mostly gravel. At the town of Mokau I changed course from where the race continued. I wanted to end up near Egmont National Park, which encompasses Mt. Taranaki, a dormant volcano and one of the main ski areas on the north island, but as I got closer and closer to the park, I could not find a place to pull off and camp. I had met an elderly couple out fishing for Whitebait at a beach earlier in the day and they had recommended which sides of the mountain to see, as the roads into the park come from many directions, but are not connected. So I actually ended up in the National Park before I had found a place to stay. It was also getting foggy as I drove up the mountain side. I passed a ranger station and figured if they saw me passing in the fog they would come and ask me to leave. I did eventually find a turn off with a level gravel area and made my camp. About an hour after I arrived a truck did drive past, but in the fog they did not see my location and I was undisturbed the rest of the night.

October 28 Wednesday A beautiful morning greeted me at 6:12 when my alarm went off. The sun was almost visible and the sky over Mt. Taranaki was completely clear. Fog all gone. I watched the sunrise on the mountain, read a little and had breakfast. Because I was not supposed to be camping inside the National Park where I was, I waited until a couple vehicles drove on up the road before I drove up to the top parking lot. I was almost there anyway, but if I had gone there last night I would have been found. Between the fog and the location I actually used, no one would have found me. But it was a perfect place for my whole morning. The viewing platform from the car park gave almost the same view as I had had. There were several long walks you could take from this top parking lot. I chose a trail called the Enchanted Track and headed off. It was supposed to go by a hut and I could see one in the distance and assumed that was the goal. But the trail started heading downhill and seemed to not have received any maintenance at all during the winter. There were trees and branches and washouts and lots of mud all along the trail and I really should have turned back early on, but I kept on because I did not want to go back UP the trail I had just come through. I figured that I had been wrong in thinking the hut I had seen was where I was heading and that instead I was going down the mountain to a ranger station I had passed the night before (and had alerted them to try and find me). After a while I came to a split in the trail where one branch continued to the ranger station and another that joined the Around The Mountain trail. From here on the trail was well maintained and you could see where they had been working even recently. I noticed that several of there traps had been tripped and contained dead rats mostly. Good for the birds. At the ranger station I had the choice of going back to the car park by following the road or taking a different trail. I certainly was not going back the way I came down and the road was not very appealing, so I headed up the Patea Trail. This one was also well maintained and I enjoyed the 4 km uphill journey. After leaving the mountain, I made my way to Wanganui to find out my options regarding the Bridge to Nowhere, one if the icons in the Whanganui River National Park. This turned out to be another disappointment. It is only accessible by boat (kayak or jet boat) or as part of a 4 day walk. Money and time both meant this would not happen. But I wanted to drive through the parts of the park that were accessible, so I headed north from town along the river and found a nice free campsite with water and restrooms about half way to the place where the boat tours left from, should I decide to do it anyway tomorrow.

October 29 Thursday It was raining when I first woke up at 6:30, so I decided to take it easy and slept in for another hour and a half. Then it had mostly cleared up and blue patches were showing up in the sky. I had my breakfast, got the Spaceship ready for travel and then read long enough to finish my current book, “Marching Powder” by Rusty Young. It is the true story of Thomas McFadden, a black British citizen convicted of drug trafficking in Bolivia and his incarceration at one of the most unusual prisons in the world in La Paz. It really is a fascinating story

It was noon when I eventually left my campsite and continued driving along the Whanganui River valley, lots of which was on gravel road. The recent rains meant that the river was much browner that it sometimes is and it was not particularly beautiful in it current incarnation. I did find a couple short walks so I wasn't driving only. It was still early afternoon when I left that National Park and crossed further east now into Tongoriro National Park. This is the other main ski area of the north island and there was a lot of snow on the mountains. The road I took into the park indicated it was closed at the 13 km mark due to the snow from the previous night and it looked like it might drop some more snow at any time. In the meantime it was a winter wonderland, with little piles of snow on every tree branch and bush. I drove up to the closed gate and there were two walks nearby to waterfalls. Both were beautiful with the snow all around. I took my chance and made a could small snowmen (who got included in a couple of the waterfall pictures). This was probably my favorite place on the north island to this point. When I came off the mountain, I began the drive back down to Wellington, so I could get my passport and visa on Friday. I did not plan to drive all the way down, but similar to what had happened near Mt Egmont, I could not find a safe/legal place to camp. This was a much more traveled road. I knew the hostel I wanted to stay at and while I arrived fairly late I went directly there. I had mentioned I should have checked out the Wellington hostels better in an earlier post. The hostel I stayed at tonight let me park on the property and stay in the Spaceship, but use their kitchen/bathroom/showers, as well as use the internet and recharge my camera battery and phone. All for less than the other place.

October 30 Friday I was at the Chinese embassy just after they opened and was able to pick up my approved visa and passport right away. I had had in the back of my mind the plan to stay in Wellington that night and attend church in the city, but knowing how long it had taken to drive down to Wellington already and knowing I was running out of time to see all I wanted to see, I found out where churches were on my way north and headed in that direction. Just outside of Wellington at Paramata, I picked up a hitchkiker, a New Zealander who was trying to get to Wanganui. I was able to get him as far as Bulls, and he said that was close enough that he could probably get someone to come pick him up. We had some interesting conversation. He works with young adults with autism and similar difficulty. He is caucasian, but has five daughters by a couple Maori women, so he told me quite a bit about their culture and answered some questions I had. After dropping him off I continued in the direction of Taupo, where I knew there was an SDA church. The road I took goes through what they call their desert. To me it was not desert, but you did remind me of parts of Arizona and between the gray clouds and the sun peaking through to illuminate the tumbleweed like grasses and plants it was actually very beautiful. I made it to Taupo before dark, stopped at the I-site which was already closed and an internet cafe to get good directions to the church, then drove up to a viewpoint overlooking the city. It was a nice view, but it was over the city and with sunset about a half an hour off, I did not want to wait there. I drove a little further down the road to Huka Falls, which I learned later is the most visited falls in New Zealand. It was already closed, but you could park outside the gates and walk into the park area. Several other cars were doing that so I joined them. This was amazing on a number of levels. Most waterfalls rely on height to be impressive. Huka Falls is almost more of a rapids than a waterfall, but it has an incredible amount of power behind it. That was clear the moment you first see it. Tremendous amounts of water surging through and churning up the water below it for at least the length of a football field. Added to this was the clouds and sunset colors AND a rainbow due to some rain in the distance and it was magical. I took a lot of pictures and stayed there until the sun was down. I had seen a couple potential places to stay in the short distance between Taupo town and the falls and one of those turned out to be just what I like.

October 31 Sabbath I got up early since I wasn't in a real campground, had a quick breakfast of cereal, yoghurt, a banana and the next to last piece of cake I have. Since I was so close to Huka Falls I went back to see it in the morning light. Different, but still immensely powerful. Being there early also meant I got more pictures and missed the bus load of 'aged' persons shuffling down the path as I left for church. I had good directions and it did not take me long to find the church, but when I arrived at 9:15 the parking lot was empty and the building locked up tight. The sign said services start at 10. That just means more reading time for me. After a bit a couple people came and when they opened the doors I went inside, where they welcomed me warmly. As seems to be a tradition, when I visit a church, the main pastor is away and a guest speaker will be presenting the sermon. Today it is one of the elder's wives from a neighboring town. First we had a lesson study on Numbers chapters 11 through 14. There was an active discussion, which is good. The sermon did not connect with me. It meandered all over the place and felt like it needed to be worked on some more. It was too unfocused and hard to follow. There was a potluck afterwards and one of the people I met was a guy about my age named Mathew, who was visiting from Auckland. We exchanged email addresses and I'll get in touch with him when I arrive there. Another member gave me two walks in the area that were worth doing in the time I would have. Both were good recommendations and I'm glad I followed up on them. First was the Opere Forest, a short walk through an old logging operation that has been thoroughly taken back by the vegetation. It was a nice walk with enough odds and ends to keep it interesting. Next I went up a local mountain, which I do not have the name of at the moment, although I know it is on one of the maps I have. This was a more strenuous hike to the peak of the mountain, through sheep pasture and forest and other terrain, but it was well worth the effort. Three hundred and sixty degree views and the sky was clear enough to take full advantage of that. I met a german backpackers when I was hiking back down. It was his second trip up because he wanted to get sunset pictures. I went a third time to Huka Falls, this time to another viewpoint on a hill further away and stopped at a place called Craters of the Moon. It is on private land and they charge to enter, so I was not intending to go in, but I wanted to see if there was anything to see on the way. Well it was mid afternoon and the place was already closed. There were several cars in a parking lot near some mountain bike trails and I left the Spaceship there to walk further in past the gate. From a couple points along the road you could see thermal activity and it did look interesting, although I could see no relation to the Moon. Not sure how they arrived at that name. When I got to the entry way there were three women who had similarly just wanted to see what was out there. Everything was locked up. We walked back together and in talking two of them were is a bit of a bind beecause they needed to get to Rotorua, where all their stuff and hostel were. By going to the Craters they had missed their last bus and it was really out of the way for the third woman to drive them there, even though she seemed willing to do it. I told them that was actually where I was heading and so it worked out for them and their host. I dropped them off at their hostel just before sunset and went to one of the thermal parks in the town to get pictures. I'm glad I did. The steam and sunset colors made for incredible photographs. Once it was sufficiently dark I drove a little more than 10 kms outside of town and found a place to park overnight near a cattle farm.