North Island - last week in NZ

Over the last week and a half, my experiences and the places I’ve visited have been folded over one another like some kind of origami kiwi. It’s been an exciting but kind of emotional send off from New Zealand.

After leaving Wellington I drove up to Taranaki, which I visited with mum backin November. My original plan was to climb Mount Taranaki with Carina and Angela; a combination of fresh snow on the summit and Carina being unwell put paid to that. Instead I travelled up on my own and, after a nice sleep and a quick surf I carried on up the coast towards Raglan, New Zealand’s premier surf spot.

On the way I made an unplanned stop when I saw signs to Mike’s Organic Brewery. Always up for a brewery tour, I popped in to see what they were up to. I’m really glad I did. The brewery is owned by Mike and his family, who are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about brewing. They literally work in the shed, which they are slowly expanding, and much of the equipment is adapted from dairy industry hardware. This doesn’t stop them producing some really tasty drops. Ron (the son), showed me and three other people around, describing how they brew and what they are currently working on in detail. We also got to taste a whole selection of different brews at each stage in the brewing process. After that I decided to take some time to enjoy the sun in their garden before carrying on with my drive!

I arrived in Raglan after dark. I checked into the Raglan backpackers, an awesome hostel with rooms arranged around a central courtyard filled with hammocks and a hot tub. It was a really sociable place and while I cooked dinner I found a couple of people to go surfing with the next day (having a car gave me the trump of being able to offer lifts to the breaks).

On Sunday the swell was pretty small, so we drove to an exposed beach called Ruapuke. The route along an unsealed road around a mountain made it feel like a proper surfing adventure. One of the people I who came along on Sunday was an American called John and we discovered we were at a similar level of surfing and so became regular surf buddies. On Monday we went to the much closer ‘main’ beach and fitted in both a morning and afternoon surf.

By Tuesday we went one even better than this. We started with a surf on main beach and once we were out of the water decided to drive round to see Manu Bay, one of the famous Raglan breaks where serious surfers hang out. The conditions looked so good and not too intense so we ended up getting back to wetsuits and jumping in the water for a second time before lunch. Late in the afternoon we then went back to main beach for a third surf…exhausting but such a good day!

John checks out the surf at Main Beach

Surfer at Manu Bay

More surf at Many Bay

And again

Wednesday came round all too quickly and it was time to move on again. As I left Raglan I drove to the see the Bridal Veil Falls, around 50 metres high and another impressive waterfall. Rather than getting back on to the main road afterwards, I ended up on 30 kilometres of unsealed road winding through the countryside by the coast. It left Lafayundai very dusty and can't have done her suspension any good.

Bridal Veils Falls

When I eventually rejoined a main road, I drove down to the Waitomo Caves. These are a network of caves filled with glow-worms and underground rivers. The tours take you down into the caves to go ‘blackwater rafting’ – essentially sitting in a rubber ring paddling down these rivers in the dark and jumping backwards off underground waterfalls.

I arrived in Taupō, a lakeside town right in the centre of the North Island and met up with two Germans, Alice and Philine, who I had got to know in Raglan. They had hoped to do the Tongariro Crossing (which I did in January) on Thursday, but the weather was against them so instead we took a walk to some waterfalls, hot pools and a geothermal site called ‘craters of the moon’.

In the afternoon the sky suddenly cleared up so I rushed to book a sky dive. Taupō renowned as a place to sky dive. This wasn’t my first tandem jump as I had also done one in South America; I’d enjoyed it enough then to want to repeat the experience. I wasn’t disappointed as this jump was even better than my first one as I didn’t get distracted by feeling nervous and we had more time in freefall. I don’t think it’s possible to adequately describe the experience of sky diving, but it is absolutely amazing.

Huka falls

Craters of the moon

Group before me getting ready to set off

One of the group before coming in to land

That week would have made a great finale to my time in New Zealand, however I had more good times in store. I spent Friday night at a bach in Martinborough. Em, who painted Queenstown red with me, organised a weekend away for about a dozen of our (mostly English, mostly Ministry of Education friends). It was lovely seeing them all and then quite emotional saying goodbye and driving off on Saturday morning. 

Dinner in Martinborough

On Saturday I had lunch with Helen and Harry, who by coincidence had ended up leaving NZ at almost exactly the same time I was. It was St Paddy’s Day so I also managed a few Guinness’s with my flatmates Gabby, Matt and Ali who took over my room – although it was a quieter affair for me than last year in Wellington.

My flight was at ridiculous-o-clock on Sunday morning, so I was lucky to be able to stay with Helen and Harry at an apartment owned by Helen’s relatives half way out to the airport. The view over the lights of the Wellington as I waited for my taxi this morning was a lovely final image of a city I’ve loved living in over the last year.