New Zealand, Part I: Arrival, Tauranga, Rotorua

Well, I've been home for twelve days. It's probably time to write about New Zealand, assuming that anyone is still reading.

International travel is stressful. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Case in point: our trip from Townsville to Auckland. The story unfolds:

We awoke at 4:30 to get a 4:55 cab to the airport. Natalie was up late all night packing, getting a late start because of one last fling with the girls, and only had one hour of sleep. Something that we have learned: little sleep makes that particular girl abnormally snappy, quick to voice anger or disapproval or disgust with my actions. This was no exception to the rule. Compounding our problem was a phone message just received from the car rental company, saying that if we did not fax the “pre-registration form,” a heretofore unheard of document, by this afternoon, we would not be able to pick up the car at the hour we would be arriving in Auckland. After several frantic moments in the Brisbane airport on the phone with the agency, we decided to just spend the night in Auckland and pick up the car during normal business hours the next morning instead of the after-hours pickup that was our original intention. Luckily, we found a hotel (notice this word is lacking an “s;” we paid dearly for the late switch) near the airport and everything worked out in the morning. But I am getting ahead of myself; that phone message was only the start of our problems.

Upon resolving the car issue, we began the check-in procedure for our flight to Auckland. Here, we learned that trans-Tasman Sea flights only permit a passenger with one piece of luggage, 20 kg max, and one carry-on, 7 kg max. Between us, we had three pieces of luggage and three carry-ons, which totaled 68 kg in all. If only the Brisbane airport had a secure storage facility…but it does not, for security concerns, and even though the accommodating check-in clerk waived the last 8 kilos, we were still 20 kilos over the limit between us, and kilos over the limit cost $10 a pop. Now, I am not a fan of spending unnecessary money. When confronted with an unplanned $200 expense, I sulk and complain and am generally unpleasant. I am certain that the 4 hours of sleep that I received the previous evening did nothing to help the situation, but…what could we do? It was unavoidable.

These troubles: encountered, confronted, solved. We arrived in Auckland weary but accomplished travelers, where a van took us to our hotel, where we marveled at the modern conveniences typically unavailable to us: an en suite bathroom! Television! Table and chairs! Life in New Zealand had begun in luxury. Our real adventure, however, would wait until the next day, December 1, when we would embark on our whirlwind tour of Australia’s little brother.

The car pickup went smoothly; so did shopping for essential items like bread, peanut butter, cheese, fruit, and a cooler (or, as it is known in this part of the Southern Hemisphere, an “Eski”). Soon we were on the road to Tauranga. And what a road! It was just a standard highway, but trust me when I say that I had never been on a highway that traveled through such beautiful countryside. That record lasted about one day, when we progressed further through our travels, but at that point we were a little bit in shock. New Zealand is, without a doubt (sorry, Lutsen), the most naturally beautiful place I’ve ever been. Everything is bright green—the hills, the trees, the grass, the sheep. Well, maybe not the sheep. Everything is hilly as well—broad, rolling, yawning, lazy hills that are dotted with sheep and the occasional pine forest. It is spectacular.

Our hostel in Tauranga was, literally, in the owner’s back yard. It was tiny, a little cold, and almost unbearably cute. Mark and Gail, the owners, were awkwardly kind, and their two sons could be heard playing outside throughout the evening.

After checking in, we headed for Tauranga’s main attraction, Mt. Maunganui, which is (I suspect, for I am unaware of the exact qualifications) a mountain in name only. The drive to the mountain was strange—immediately after leaving the quiet residential neighborhood in which our hostel was located, we crossed the harbor bridge and entered a bustling, thriving, downright scary industrial zone, which just as suddenly morphed into downtown tourist town central, complete with surf shops and Kiwi souvenirs and overpriced restaurants. Somewhat bewildered by these swift changes, Natalie tried to pass a double-parked courier van and BAM hit its guard rail and scraped up the side of our newly acquired rental vehicle. But traumatized we were not by this oh-so-unfortunate occurrence, and onward we pressed toward the mountain, eager to put the drive and the scrape behind us and get on with the sightseeing!

Arrival at the base walking track was preceded by a short jaunt down Mt. Maunganui’s beach: shells and fine sand and waves blackened by stray kelp. It was picturesque, the next step in a long line of picturesque New Zealand moments. It really is a lovely country. But I digress: the base walk. Imagine our surprise when the first thing we saw was…sheep! A small group, barely a flock, wandering freely along the hillside and on the path and even (gasp!) on the beach. We knew sheep are to New Zealand what corn is to Indiana, and maybe even more so, but even in Indiana there is no corn growing on major tourist attractions. The walk took about an hour to complete. There were more sheep, and attractive view of the bay, and heaps of others out enjoying the sunshine and wonderfully mild temperatures.

As soon as we returned to the car, though, the weather veered off in an unforeseeable direction. The sky darkened, the rain came, and then, like the thousands of possibilities for this simile all at once, came the hail. Yes, it hailed. In the middle of a New Zealand summer, we had hail, for all of five minutes, but it was hail nonetheless.

So, our first full day in New Zealand: scenery (green-ery, if you will), a bed in a backyard, a beach, close encounters with sheep, and even hail. Our vacation was off to an auspicious debut.

Up next, one hour’s drive through winding, meandering, graded roads, was the sulphur-scented thermal burg that is Rotorua. I can’t explain how thermal phenomena come about. It has something to do with tectonic plates and probably magma and all that molten stuff inside the earth, and I am sure that we read many informational displays about it, but none of it stuck. Suffice it to say that Rotorua is absolutely loaded with steaming holes and bubbling mud pools and 100 degree Fahrenheit water. The entire town also smells distinctly of sulphur, an everpresent reminder that you are surrounded by natural oddity.

Immediately upon entering town we happened upon a small park with a series of these thermal areas available for viewing. We wandered between the fenced off areas, marveling at the constantly steaming pools of water and mud, the holes emitting steam for no apparent reason. Then we discovered a market in the same park, and immediately decided to go there in search of cheap lunch and perhaps even some souvenirs (but don’t get your hopes up, family and friends, because I don’t buy tacky souvenirs and that’s really all that’s available at places like that). The big find: seven “doughnuts” that were really just large balls of fried sweetened dough for only NZ$5. Natalie, as those of you who know her can imagine, was ecstatic.

From there we went to Lonely-Planet-recommended Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Village, a site of some more exciting thermal activity, and a fully functional Maori village. Included in the price of admission was a “cultural show,” which we only saw for the last few minutes, but which made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. You see, I have a problem with native groups pawning their culturally significant rituals of as entertainment for an audience made up predominantly of white people. Ritual dances like the haka, for example, which was only really performed at the start of battle or other ceremonial activities, was performed and then—horror of horrors—all the males in the audience were asked to come down to the stage and learn and perform it with them. I refused, partly because I am morally opposed to white people performing culturally significant native rituals purely for entertainment, partly because I am shy. When a native people like the Maori take an important dance or ritual and remove it from its originally intended context and perform it twice a day for spectators (tourists!), it (I feel) loses its significance. It is drained of meaning and trivialized, and I cannot watch it happening without feeling shame or guilt or embarrassment. Luckily, I was only subjected to this for a short while before we went on a guided tour of the area. Our guide was an elderly Maori woman, a resident of the small community, and she fed us lots of interesting information about how the all the thermal rarities are used in everyday life, even today. She also loved AC/DC, which was fascinating in its own right.

Our last activity in Rotorua took place in the evening, when we wandered through the Government Gardens and discovered the first of several large rose gardens that we were to find during our trip. Natalie loves rose gardens, a lot.