New Zealand - The North Island

We made our way to the North Island on Jan. 8 from Picton to Wellington. It was quite the experience. We boarded the ferry in our vehicle an hour earlier than departure. It was a huge vessel and there were a LOT of people being transported. It reminded us of the Puget Sound ferry in Washington State, but it was about three and a half hours long. It was pretty uneventful, but departing from Picton gave us good views of Queen Charlotte Sound which we weren't able to see the day before, so that was nice.



Immediately after we departed the ferry, we drove to the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington and saw panoramic views of the city. It was a fun, hip city, also the capital of New Zealand, but we didn't stay but for an hour before heading east towards the classic New Zealand wine trail. The next day, we visited Alana Estates in Martinborough, for obvious reasons. It was a lot smaller vineyard than the ones we saw in Australia and offered about 6 wines to taste. Surprisingly, I really liked the Sauvignon Blanc the best. We enjoyed a really tasty cheese platter and I had a glass of the white wine before travelling to Tongariro National Park to prep for our hike the next day.



We woke up earlier to get going on our hike. There were a lot of unknowns for us, since we didn't make it to an information site before they closed the night before. All the knowledge we had was from our guide book and road map. We completely blew by one of the trailheads that morning since it was poorly marked, so we ended up stopping at a local tour shuttle company to see what was going on. The way the system works is you start at one end, finish at the other and then get a shuttle back to your car where you started. Since we didn't book a shuttle, we weren't quite sure how it was going to work out. The weather didn't look very promising for a successful journey either, but we decided to go park at the other trailhead anyway and just see what we could do. Garrett spoke to some locals that were about to leave on the trail and asked them if they had done the tramp before and how long it might take, since all the estimated times on the signs usually were very conservative. They were going for it, so we decided we should just have a go also and hope that we could get a ride back to our car when we were finished. We were super psyched that we did it, b/c it was one of my favorite things we did in all of New Zealand. The views were amazing and the terrain was very different from all the other hikes, as we walked amongst a few craters, volcanoes and absoultely gorgeous lakes.



It was such a great day and the weather held out until we went to sleep that night! It took us about 5 and a half hours from one trailhead to the other and a 30 minute break for lunch at Emearld Lakes. Garrett hitched a ride back to the car while I waited in the car park with everyone else waiting for their shuttle - there had to be hundreds of people doing that tramp that day, it was pretty crowded, but really cool to see so many people out doing it. Anyway, it all worked out perfect and we are so thankful we got to have that experience.

The last few days haven't been so exciting, but we've been enjoying the lovely views and landscapes the north island has to offer. It has a bunch of rolling hills and some mountains. We swam in some hot springs yesterday near Roturua, which has geysers everywhere you turn and smells like rotten eggs! For now, we are indecisive what to do. Our only obligation is getting to Auckland by Friday for our flight! Only 3 more nights of camping :)