New Zealand - North Island

We were first time in New Zealand in 2009 and definitely wanted to go back. It is a perfect nature destination with the most beautiful scenery you can imagine (Think LOTR movies). Yes, it's far from almost everywhere but it's worth going for vacation if you're into hiking in beautiful nature or doing "extreme" stuff like bungee, skydiving, canyoning, jetboating, white water rafting etc.

Best way to explore NZ is by car. So we rented one from Auckland for two weeks.

It is autumn in New Zealand, but weather has been good. Few rain showers here and there but also nice sunny weather and 20+ degrees temperature. Basically it is shorts and flipflops weather in the north parts of the north island and jeans in the south. Although kiwis (the natives here) seem to walk in shorts and barefoot no matter what the weather is. Children especially.

This time we drove to Northland, the northeast part of North island, where we didn't go last time. The picture in the last post was from Cape Reinga, northern most part of NZ you can get by car. It was absolutely beautiful there.

We also drove to the capital Wellington and stayed few nights there just walking in the city and of course we went to check out the Weta Cave. Wellington is nice small city but very windy. Quite on par with Chicago in that respect.

Rotorua, which was our next destination, is a small town by a a lake called Rotorua =) It smells there. It smells a lot! But you get used to it very quickly. The smell comes from the natural thermal pools that are all over. All the motels/hotels have mineral pools that smell also. Apparently they are "good for you" but nobody had any studies or meta analyses to show us that could substantiate their claims. Nevertheless we plunged into few of them as they were very warm and it was getting a bit colder. Our motel also had a outdoor swimming pool. Heated by the natural nuclear power of course =)

We did jetboating last time we were here and since it was so much fun we did it again, this time in Taupo. The company we chose was the only one in NZ that does jetboating in rapids which meant that our boat was actually flying at times when jumping in the waves! It was as much fun as three years ago. Highly recommended activity for anyone over 5 years old.

If you want to go cheap get an old rental car and sleep in a basic cabin (or a tent).  

Portuguese man o' war (Portugalinsotalaiva) on the beach.

Huge kauri trees in Kauri forest.

Maija is feeling the energy of mother nature... or just showing how big the tree is. You choose =)

Opononi.

Cape Reinga. 

Ninety mile beach. It is 55 miles long.

Olli is meditating. Or just thinking how a katamaran might be better than single hull sailboat when sailing around the world.

There are water falls...

... taller waterfalls... 

...rivers...

...thermal pools...

Public thermal foot spa in Rotorua.

Example of a local fern. They are huge here!

Redwood forest near Rotorua.

Huka Falls, Taupo.

Windy Wellington.

We are now on a road trip in South Island. At the moment in Queenstown. Landscape is even more beautiful here than in the North Island. More about the South Island in the next posts.

-Maija & Olli

PS. We are coming back to Finland in the beginning of June.