New Chums

Our favourite spot was a beach called New Chums. It was a cracker rivalling our favourite beaches we had seen in Oz. We enjoyed our own peace of paradise for a few hours, climbing trees, paddling in the water and picnic-ing but it wasn't until we went for a gentle stroll that Ruth slipped on an extremely slippery rock and hurt her hand. The beach was a half hour hike over boulders and muddy footpaths, so it wasn't a lot of fun for her heading back to the van. We sought advice in a chemist and an ambulance lady who happened to be there said she thought Ruth's thumb looked dislocated. We went to see a GP who strapped the thumb up. Fortunately it was just badly swollen and bruised rather than dislocated. The sling and pain killers did the trick. She was advised to rest the hand for at least a week. I reckon it was a secret ploy to get me to do all the cooking and the packing!

Cathedral Cove

Heading further north along the Coromandel there are some spectacular unspoilt beaches. We hiked to a great one called Cathedral Cove which had been carved out by a volcano eruption.

Hot Water Beach.

Further up the Coromandel east coast is Hot Water Beach. It's voted one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in the world. Although very, very nice we wouldn't have listed it quite so high. The big feature of the beach is it's thermal hot spots at low tide. We headed down at night when low tide was, equipped with a shovel we had acquired earlier in the trip. We followed the directions we had been given and eventually discovered the familiar 'eggy' smell of sulphur and saw steam rising on the shoreline. We excitedly started digging and shuffling our feet to be rewarded with very hot water. We saw glowing objects in the sea (not sure what). On the way back along the dark path back to our camp site we were surprised to see lots of glow worms along the path. They were great!
We headed back to the beach early the next morning but this time there were 50 plus people all competing for the small thermal area. Instead of battling in out for hot water we put our shovel to good use and made an octopus on the beach. People were looking at us sympathetically, obviously thinking we were digging in the wrong spot looking for the thermals.

Whangamata's musical toilet

The surf beach was good but our favourite part was a novel public convenience. After following the audible instructions of how to lock the door in an american accent, you are then treated to some easy listening jazz instrumentals featuring Bert Bacharacs' (apologies for the spelling) 'what the world needs now is love sweet love'. We both admitted to having a little dance whilst washing our hands.

The Coromandel

The surf report was good for the north east coast so we headed for the Coromandel Peninsula. It's an old logging and gold mining area that was the hippy comune capital of NZ in the 60'sand 70's. It has got some amazing coastline. We headed straight for the premier wave Whangamata (pronounce fang ma tah). The surf was good and warmer than the South Island. We camped near in a nice DOC site having to cross too pretty high Fords, for a second we thought we might get washed away.

Flying stew

We made the most of the camp kitchen at Taupo by boiling up a huge stew that would last us at least 3 days. We enjoyed the meal that evening and managed to squeeze the rest of the stew (but only just) into the larger of our two pans. When leaving the camp site we did the usual check that everything was secure, surfboards strapped on, cupboards locked and the full stew pan securely wedged into the sink (as it has no way of sliding around anywhere in there). We enjoyed the 20 mile hike up to the Dam and back (mentioned before). Afterwards we continued on our journey north but before leaving the town we stopped off at the supermarket for a few essentials (including face wash, as I (Ruth) had run out that morning). On returning to the van we stored the food away and John started up the engine, but I remembered I'd bought the face wash and wanted to use it before we carried on so I carefully removed the stew pan out of the sink and put it on the side in order to use the sink to wash my face. (Can you see where this is going?)
I quickly finished, shut the side door and jumped in the front so not to hold us up any longer as the dark was fast approaching and we weren't sure where we were going to spend the night.
We drove for nearly an hour before we heard an almighty crash behind our seats. Instantly I knew what it was. John was puzzled and ask “What's that?”.
I turned around to look at sink, hoping I was wrong and that I had in fact remembered to return the stew pan to the sink. But no such luck.
John was still confused, guessing what possibly could have fallen.
“Oh no, the stew!” I cried, It's the stew.”
“No, it can't be, it's in the sink, I saw it when we left Taupo” John replied, reassuringly.
I explained that I'd taken it out to use the sink. John found this quietly amusing.
By this point it was dark outside. We found a place to pull over and jumped out to assess the damage. When I opened the door chunks of pumpkin, carrots and swede spilled out onto the road. It really looked like someone had been ill. Maybe sometimes when we think we see vomit on the floor it's just that someone has spilt stew.) Anyway this very unappealing sight was all over the van, the floor, the cupboards. John's flip flops were well and truly hidden beneath it. The height that it it reached was also impressive. After much cleaning of the van, we continued on our journey and finally found a rest area to stop for the night with no yummy stew for tea (although I think we've been put off it for a while).

Lake Taupo

We drove up into the mountains again on our way passing ski fields before reaching The Great Lake Taupo. The lake is so large (the countries largest) that if it wasn't for the snow covered mountains behind it, you would think you were looking out to sea. Taupo is slap in the centre of the North Island. Although the lake was not entirely formed by a volcanic eruption the last 1800 years ago, it did play a big part in its creation.
Taupo is another action packed place. We stayed at a camp site attached to a thermal resort. It was great we spent nearly the whole day in the water. The best part was having your own private spa with water ranging from 37 degrees c to 42 degrees c. The next day we hiked for 20km passing some amazing rapids called Hooker Falls and witnessing a dam being opened creating terrific rapids on the other side. You would not have wanted to fall in the water (you'd have been a goner!!).

Heading back to the North Island

We were sad to leave Kaikoura .It had been such an ideal spot for us and after so much driving we were happy to stay put for a while.
We headed north to Picton booked our very and had our last night in the South Island camping at a great spot called Monkey Bay before sailing early the next morning.
It was a good job we left when we did as a few days later they had the heaviest snow fall in 20 years. Roads and airports closed. It's nice to know England isn't the only country to grind to a halt in wintry weather.
The ferry crossing was a bit rough (which was fun), we arrived in Wellington and then made a long drive north to lake Taupo.

Emergency brew!

We spent ourlast night in Kaikoura in our secluded DOC campsite. The dreaded occurence of gas running out occured during cooking. We managed to salvage some sort of meal, chilli on bread in stead of rice. However we were so desperate for a brew we made a fire on the beach in order to boil the kettle. I (John), nearly broke my knee trying to snap a branch. Bear Grylls I am not! It took a long time but was the most appreciated coffee we have ever drunk.

Good walking

We did some great hikes around Okiwi bay and on the Kaikoura headland. Check out Ruth's self knitted bobble hat! Now you know what you are all getting for christmas, ha ha.

Goat on a hutch!

Manga's

Our favourite wave.

Knitting with Ruth

Ruth got the knitting bug!

Camping at Okiwi Bay

Finding bullets that the hunters left behind (live rounds in a magazine).

New Zealand Motor Home

We tried to blend in with the seals at Manga's

Ruth's feline friend

Kaikoura Seals

John and Uncle Abe

Apparently the Stansfields can be traced back to the former president Abraham Lincoln. Can you see a resemblance?

Wanaka Photo's

Surfing Manga's and Meatworks

We surfed two breaks mainly just 15km north of Kaikoura. Meatworks was a good spot, so named as surfers would cut their feet on the boulders getting in and out before boots became popular to wear. Our favourite and the best wave was Manga's or Mangamanau. It was a long right hand point break that on a good day would go on and on. You parked your car on the side of a busy highway, then crossed a railway line before clambering over boulders to paddle out to the wave. despite how good the wave was it was never busy. The locals were a friendly bunch easy to chat to, they would make a big fire on the shore to warm yourself either when walking back to paddle out again after a long wave or when you had finished. There's no buildings anywhere near the wave and the spot has a real unspoilt feel to it. It has been our favourite surf spot in New Zealand.

More Kaikoura

Jon and Lois also spent the next 5 nights camping at Okiwi bay. We shared evenings, chatting over a few drinks, playing cards and Lois also taught me (Ruth) how to knit.
They booked a cabin at the 'Top 10' the following week to celebrate Jon's Birthday. We took them surfing in the day and they invited us round to a little party in the evening, it was really great! After the weekend they got the call that there was enough snow on the mountains to start work.
John and I continued the 3 nights luxury camping/ 5 nights freedom camping the next few weeks.
It's definitely a place that is going to be hard to leave.

Top 10 camping - Kaikoura

When taking the van to the garage, he told us he could fit the new alternator the following morning but advised us in the mean time not to drive far as the battery could fail on us at any time, instead he suggested the campsite across the road, that way if it wouldn't start he'd come across. This was a top of the range campsite called 'Top 10' (same as the 'BIG4' in Australia). We hadn't stayed on one of these 5* sites but it was a great excuse to so we booked in straight away. A winter offer they had at the moment was that when you booked on you got a free spa session (half an hour in a private outdoor hot tub). It was really cold outside but the water was toasty, in fact we ended up spending most of the time sitting on the edge of it with only our feet dangling in to try to cool off a bit. This was really wonderful to be this warm and looking up at the snow capped mountains.
As with most campsites, this one had a communal kitchen so we got to work on preparing a huge winter stew that would see us through a good few days. Whilst in the kitchen we met a lovely English couple, Jon and Lois, who had just come from Canada where they had got their snowboarding instructors qualifications and were here to work on the Kaikoura ski resort but with the snow being very late this year they were still waiting for the call to say they could start. We also met an Aussie retired couple who were leaving for home the next day. It turned out we had been pretty close to where they lived on our trip and we spent much time talking about Australia. They left us a big bag of food that they hadn't used on their holiday and gave us their details and insisted we visit them if we come back to Australia. They have offered us both their farm house at the bottom of their garden and a shack in Tasmania. Typical lovely Aussies!
Jon and Lois, had over heard much of our conversation and said they thought they were one step off asking to adopt us. We told them that it just seemed to be the Australian way.
We spent the evening in the 'TV Room' watching films on the movie channel, on a huge flat screen TV, but not before John insisted we watch the 'US Open', which I actually quite enjoyed.
The next day we seemed to adopt a cat. Whilst the van was getting fixed, we were homeless so we hung around the campsite during the morning. I was sitting on a wooden step in the sun writing a few blogs when a little cat kept trying to sit on my lap. I'm not normally a cat person but this one was so cute. The campsite clearner saw we took a liking to it and asked if we wanted it as she was a stray but had hung around the campsite since it was a kitten. If we had lived here we'd have adopted it in a second but unfortunately I'm not sure I'd get through customs with her in my bag.
Leaving the campsite we found out that they had another winter deal on; stay 2 night and get a third free! We decided we would return to the basic site for 5 nights (whilst the surf was good)and then return for the 3 night deal.