Campervan Journey

I recently spent a few weeks in NZ with MS and am very behind in posts – there will be a dozen or so coming in the next few days!

Our travel in New Zealand was mainly by Campervan.  (Or Camper Van, if you prefer.)

I did a significant amount of research and we were really happy with my van.  I rented from Tiki Rentals, and they were super professional and got us all set up with extra blankets (it’s winter down here!), a GPS, etc.  I would very highly recommend using their vans, after my two trips to this awesome country.  You’ll love the extra headroom when cooking in the kitchen!  The vans are efficient (Toyota Hiace (or HiLux?)), comfortable, and easy to use.

Stickshift and driving on the left side of the road?  No problem!

In total we drove about 5200 km as we traveled around both islands, which required roughly 520 liters of 91 octane (regular in NZ, as opposed to 98) petrol, at an approximate cost of NZ$2.11/liter or NZ$1097 total (US$870).  Sometimes (just about always) the roads were very windy (the word having to do with curve, not the one having to to with moving air), but the van handled it all like a champ!
Somewhere around Russell, I think?

In Marlborough Sounds:

Our test drive for about a week was: Auckland > Cape Reinga > Auckland.  That way if we needed anything (warmer sleeping bag, less ‘stuff’ in the van, etc.), then we could modify as necessary in the big city.

Our route (which took around 25 days) around the country was: Auckland > Cape Reinga (via Russell) > Auckland > Coromandel > Rotorua > Napier > Wellington > Picton > Kiakoura > Christchurch > Mt. Cook > Queenstown > Franz Joseph > Westport > Marlb Sounds > Picton > Wellington > Marton > Taupo > Waitomo > Auckland.

Our camper turned into a nighttime office very easily when there was wifi around!  Plenty of space!

Here's a video tour of our kitchen in the camper!  

The world’s most useless roundabout, with one exit for each direction of travel!

 

A curious weka wanted to get a snack crumb that dropped in our stairwell!

Fascinating Forestry

Forestry is still alive and well in New Zealand, for sure.  I covered it very briefly back in 2008 when I first visited this beautiful country: http://www.whereisholden.com/search?q=forestry

The following things I was told, and I didn't fully research due to limited internet access. Feel free to correct me in the comments below!

Notice anything strange about these trees?  They’re more or less in rows!

Access roads abound:

And some areas look clear cut, as they were just harvested & replanted:

Difference foresters planting & harvesting cycles but up against each other:

The North American pines are harvested at a height of about 30 meters. This level of growth requires roughly 30 years here in New Zealand, as opposed to 70 years in North America!  The trees grow so well (and so quickly) due to ideal conditions: generally rich soils (much of NZ is has a recent volcanic history), plenty of rain, and warm ground (active thermal activity) which tricks the trees into thinking its continually springtime!

Trees are raised in two ways: unpruned for pulp/papers usage, and pruned all but the top branches which keeps the tall trees perfectly straight, and without knots for timber/lumber.

There is active, thoughtful management to balance the forestry industry with the (almost wiped out) native forests/plants including some transfer of land ownership back to indigenous people's.

 

Logging trucks are wide loads, sometimes three trailers long, though never crossing the middle line.

Don’t get mixed up and go to the wrong place!

The trucks take the logs to either a mill, or more commonly, a port, where the logs are loaded onto ships for countries with cheaper labor.  The ports are amazing.  In the top right of this photo, above the ship being loaded, check out the pile of sawdust!
 

Same port (Napier), but enlarged to show the logs at the bottom:
  

Another port (Picton):
   

The trucks that haul these logs are amazing:

A friend is a dairy farmer and has his own tree mill to cut logs for furniture and building!  Awesome home-made contraption!  Here it’s shown with a small sawblade that can cut horizontally, though it can fit larger blades, and cut in both vertical and horizontal.  Water cooled blades, etc.  Manual control of cutter.
 

New Zealand!

Apologies for the boring title, and nature of this post – just wanted to share some photos from our time in New Zealand so far!

Glow worms are stunningly beautiful, but difficult to capture by photograph without a tripod!

Spiders aren’t so hard to photograph.  This one was about 3 inches long with outstretched legs.

We hiked around a small set of caves (Abbey Caves) after driving north from Auckland, towards Cape Reinga (future blog post!).  I was surprised at how far the flash travels on my x20 Fuji camera:

  

There was actually a sign directing us to this (admittedly beautiful and unique) “Rock Forest".  I was on the lookout for gnomes, and also Ents!

 
e stopped by the Makana chocolate factory and saw (and tasted) truffles and brittle being made:

 

 

Pinot Noir Truffles.

 

Also, stopped by an avocado oil maker for some tastings!  I hadn’t drank oil from a shotglass before this day, let alone 10 different oils in shot glasses.

 

 
Picturesque bays abound:

 

Our home for the duration of our multi-week trip.  One of our first stops was at a hardware store to buy bins to organize the back of this; it’s super useful, though we don’t use the bed area reserved for our 3rd passenger.

 

Adventure buddies!