Kerikeri, New Zealand (Post #98)
Mike writes…
On March 13, we left Whagarei and made the quick, 1-hour, drive up to Kerikeri. We arrived around noon and checked into the Kerikeri YHA (Youth Hostel) just outside of town. Since they didn’t have any double rooms availible, we paid a little extra to have a 4-person dorm room all to ourselves. The grounds of the YHA are beautiful and back up to a forest through which a path winds down to the river. After getting the car unpacked into our room, we made the 15 minute walk down to the river to have a look. It was great but in order to do a real hike along the river we needed to get to the other side. After taking a few pictures, we walked back to the YHA, had a snack and then head down the road to the bridge and the start of the trail to the Fairy Pools, and Rainbow falls. As we were hiking along, several runners passed us and we wished we could join them — but running will have to wait until we get back to the States. About one and a half hours after leaving the YHA we arrived at the end of the trail where we found the Rainbow Falls…
photo — Mike with Michele’s camera
We walked hard and fast back to the YHA because it was getting late and we (Mike more than Mich) were getting hungry for our dinner. We decided to make the short walk into town to look around for a restaurant. We settled on Cilantro where Michele had a seafood stew and Mike had venison. Yeah, i know, doesn’t sound like normal backpacker fodder but it was reasonably priced and it was the first dinner we had in New Zealand that we didn’t prepare ourselves (at the time of writing–just three days away from leaving the country–we’ve still eaten dinner out only twice).
The next morning we were off in the car again with the intention of making what we understood would be a seven hour drive to Waitomo Caves. The Kereikeri YHA owner told us we should be able to make a detour over to the great Kauri forest on the west coast while only adding 1 hour to our driving time. This sounded pretty good to us. About 90 minutes into our drive i pulled off at an overlook for photo ops. Here is a decent photo of Michele and i that i took using a cheap tripod (see the remote in my right hand?). Check out that incredible, surreal sky! Eveytime i look at the sky in New Zealand (providing there’s some blue visible through clouds), i think of the opening scenes of every Simpsons episode.
photo — Mike
We got back in the car after our photo session at the overlook and continued our drive along the west coast of the North Island. Maybe thrity minutes later we arrived at the Kauri forest where we took the five minute walk to snap some photos of the Giant Kauri before jumping back in the car. About five hours into our drive we weren’t even close to Aukland yet and began to wonder just how far out of the way we had gone on this detour. Driving in New Zealand is anything but relaxing. Sure the scenery is beautiful but 98% of the roadways are just a single lane each direction, they wind back and forth over hills and valleys and through towns where the speed limit drops from 100km/h to 50km/h. On top of that, one two lanes is shut down every 100km or so for construction which means one direction of traffic has to stop and wait for the other to go by. All of this in addition to my being new to left-side driving was really putting some stress kinks into my neck and shoulders. I was determined to get to Aukland before giving up on driving the whole way to Waitomo. We finally did make it through Aukland and to a university town called Hamilton where we gave up and decided to stay overnight in a nice motel by the name of Cedar Lodge. We relaxed, ate dinner, had a couple of beers, watched CSI on TV and had a great night’s sleep.
On March 15, we left Hamilton at about 10:30 a.m. with Michele driving. It was a pretty easy 2-hour drive south to Waitomo Caves where we checked into our pre-booked YHA double room.
There will be another blog dedicated to our caving adventure…
Tags: Category #26: New Zealand
Michele Harmon
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