October 7-10
The next stop on our road trip was Waitomo where you can find glow worm caves – something I was super excited about.
Our drive to Waitomo was incredible.
I know what you’re thinking:
These types of incredible scenery have became the norm for us while here in New Zealand. Every turn around each (often precariously) tight turn of the road led us to a view more incredible than the last.
We got in late to our bed and breakfast and then left quite early to go see the glow worms! When we got near the caves we looked into tickets. It was going to be around 120 New Zealand Dollars!! That’s nearly 80 bucks to do a super touristy attraction. So we passed on that real fast and moved on to our second choice: the Forgotten World Highway. Michael had picked up a pamphlet about this road in the B&B. It is basically just a 150 kilometers of road, some unpaved, that is beautiful and empty.
Here are the highlights:
Editor’s note: I’m doing my best not to mix up pictures here, but everything is super green and picture perfect, so… well… I’m doing my best.
After about three hours on the Forgotten World Highway, we started a new adventure and drove inland towards Taupo Lake.
We arrived at our airbnb right off the lake and settled in for the night. We arrived early enough to grab a run (for me) and a walk (for Michael). Yes – we’re all shocked that’s how the evening turned out.
Then next day we were on the move again to Hawke’s Bay. But first we popped over to see Huka Falls which were recommended by our great Airbnb hosts.
These falls are amazing. This river system produces about 15 percent of New Zealand’s power.
The Waikato River is up to 100 meters wide, but it abruptly narrows to just 15 meters as it crosses a volcanic ledge just north of Lake Taupo. This causes the huge volume of water to be funneled through this rocky gorge.
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/img_6189.movLook at those incredible colors! About 200,000 liters of water plunge nine meters every second. Huka is the native word for “foam”.
Then it was off to Hawke’s Bay for a bit more wine tasting.
First stop was Trinity Hill. Last fall we attended a charity event in Rick Bayless’s backyard with Betsy and Andy and had an incredible time. Yes, I am using this as an opportunity to humble brag about how cool it was that we went to this event. Rick (because we’re on a first name basis) keeps bees in his back yard. Also, he invited Trinity Hill’s winemaker to the event. He supplied the wines and we chatted him up for a little bit at the event. So we knew that this winery had to be on our list when we arrived. The wines were good – although I will admit they tasted better in Rick’s backyard while eating incredible Mexican food with great company.
Mission Estate Winery was our second stop. I was super excited about this one because it seemed like it had a cool story. However when we tried to get info from the woman doing the tasting she was not very nice and seemed annoyed that we even asked any questions about the winery.
So not the best tasting, but I’ve found info online about this place and I was right. It is super interesting! Mission Estate was established by French missionaries in 1851 when vines were planted to produce sacramental and table wine. They were New Zealand’s first winery. The first record of a commercial sale dates back to 1870.
Since this time the brothers of the order have travelled to France to study and learn viticulture and winemaking skills. The current winemaker has been at the Mission for over 30 years and was trained by the priests. What order of priests and brothers? Thank you for asking!
They’re Marianists! Most of you know that Michael and I have quite a history with Marianists. We were bummed we couldn’t find someone more interesting to talk to at the winery, but were still pumped that we happened upon this place!
Our final stop was Urban Winery. They do make their own wines, but they also showcase smaller producers that are too small to do tastings in their own location. We went specifically to try some Sacred Hill which was available there. It was a great stop – the wines were good and we got to see their concrete eggs and their French barrel egg. We haven’t seen a French barrel egg before. We saw some concrete eggs when we were in Mendoza with Phil and Krystal. Apparently the wine maker here went to Mendoza also and after seeing the concrete eggs wanted to buy them but they were crazy expensive to ship to New Zealand. So now he manufactures concrete eggs and sells them to other winemakers in New Zealand and Australia.
After the day in Hawke’s Bay we drove down to Wellington for two days.
This entire week we were in the North Island we kept hearing how everyone loves Wellington and hates Auckland. Well… we didn’t quite agree. As mentioned in my last post, the small bit we saw of Auckland was lovely and everything we saw in Wellington was seedy. There seemed to be a lot of aimless young people – maybe homeless, maybe not. But not really heading in any good direction and it seemed more by choice than by circumstance. Perhaps grungy is a better descriptor?
We did pop into Garage Project for a few beers which was pretty good. The beers were delicious and everything on their food menu was fried or had a bunch of cheese in it. So I was happy.
We also got just out of the city to the nearby national park to do some hiking. We hiked the Orongorongo River Path in Rimutaka Forest Park. Now, we know it isn’t a race, but we did the hike in about 2 hours 20 minutes which included about 15 minutes at the river while they suggested it was going to take us four hours. So it wasn’t exactly what we thought we were getting into, but it was still beautiful. Plus it made us feel like accomplished hikers. A bonus – in those 2 plus hours we only saw one other couple and one family the entire time. The area was almost completely ours for the morning.
That’s it for the North Island – now we’re off to another ferry to go visit the more beautiful of the two islands. Hard to believe, right? We’ll let you know if the rumors are true.