The Northern Lights...

So last one in NZ for a bit before heading up North for a bit more winter. Spring is trying to push into summer here and the rugby posts are down and its now all about cricket on the local sports ground! The exam time is over, but last week was a not to be missed opportunity to head out into the depths of the North Island for some exploring. Here is what happened on the little circuit:

The Steam excursion at Dannevirke

Tuesday 23 November left Wellington for Napier, however the first challenge was walking down to the rail station to pick up the InterCity Coach - a strong northeasterly was about and I think it beats even the winds of Geal Charn and Fionn Beinn two most ‘fine munros’ which have been bagged on two particularly miserable end of LUHC winter trip days! The Wellingtonians heading to work found themselves blasted along the cavernous streets at high speed! The weather became even worse once we crossed onto the Wairarapa and headed for the East Cape and upon arriving at Dannevirke (a New Zealand settlement with Danish roots) we advised that the state highway to Napier was closed. This gave a fine opportunity to experience smalltown NZ, however I was distracted by the smell of a coal fire on the wind and headed to the station. Here I was greeted by a steam loco in with a excursion train. The line out to the East Cape is of course now closed to passenger traffic, the once ‘Bay Express’ (Wellinton-Gisbourne) being victim of the 2002 massacre! However the odd steam special heads out, this one awaiting to pass a freight train. After some waiting in Dannevirke, it was decided to head back to Palmerston North and wait for the wind to ease and hopefully get through on the later coach. The waiting paid off and we made it through on the later coach and arrived in sunny, mediterranean Napier early evening.

Art Deco Napier, complete with palm trees and clear blue sky

Napier is New Zealand’s ‘Art Deco’ city and is an important sea port. An earthquake in 1936 flattened the old town and altered the terrain - requiring a complete new build, hence the colourful collection of modernist Art Deco style buildings. The seafront sports a fine assortment of palm trees emphasising the fact that this is one of the warmest parts of New Zealand, being out on the east cape sheltered by from the rain by the North Island’s mountain spine. Although not as pronounced or well known as the ‘Alps’ of South Island, there is a near continuous frontal range of 1000-2000m peaks running parallel to the pacific-Australasian plate boundary, this having always formed a barrier to communication with the Eastern parts of the Island. It was time for shorts and t-shirt, suncream, the works in a very tolerable 25C, unfortunately the beach was not quite safe for a dip with a steep shingle bank and strong rip! Wednesday afternoon it was back on InterCity for the journey inland through first through the Hawkes Bay wineries and then cutting inland through Eskdale - without a L’al Ratty!

The destination was Taupo, up on the North Island volcanic plateau on the shores of the great caldera of Lake Taupo. This really is active Earth with hotsprings, geysers and smoking vents. Also the great Waikato River drains from lake Taupo - NZ’s longest. After heading out along the riverbank of the Waikato River for a little jog, I came to the Huka Falls where the full force of the river is channeled through a narrow chute of resistant rock. From here it was only a short detour to the ‘Craters of the Moon’, an area of smoking vents that formed recently as a result of a the construction of a geothermal power station down the valley - this having altered the works underground. Unfortunately by the time I got up there, they were closed so I only got to peer in from the edge. Instead I headed back towards Taupo, stopping off for a soaking at a thermal stream that plunged down into the Waikato River, rather exciting in the evening sun, whilst watching some kiwi nutters doing backflips of a bridge into the river!

Thermal Stream at Taupo

Thursday was time for a fairly long stint on InterCity to the City of Sails, Auckland! The Waikato region leading into Hamilton being very Devon like with rolling green hills, plenty of dairy farms - with the addition of the odd extinct volcano or volcanic neck protruding rather unexpectedly from the terrain. From Hamilton its a two hour run into Auckland and the state highway even becomes a motorway for parts of the way! This is New Zealand’s population centre with just over a million people living in the Greater Auckland region. Thats larger than the entire South Island, the population of which, was announced to have just tipped the million mark this year! Disregarding the city buzz and skyscrapers of downtown, Auckland is quite a baby city by global standards, the centre can easily be done on foot, and the complex array of tidal inlets restrict the centre to a thin strip of land between the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean. From the downtown quay, ferries fan out to various suburbs across the Waimata Harbour including some of the islands of the Hauraki Gulf. Friday I picked up a city transport rover ticket which includes the ferries and headed out to some of the suburbs to bag as many of the little extinct volcanic cones as possible. Firstly heading across the harbour to Devonport with great views back to the city from Mt Victoria and North Head - both former fortifications. Then it was a ride over the Harbour Bridge on the bus and time to head out to the south on the suburban railway to One Tree Hill, a little country park amongst the vast sprawl of outer Auckland. The centrepiece of the Auckland Skyline is the Sky Tower, constructed for the Millennium. Friday evening I popped back across the Devonport on the ferry to see the city lights from the Mt Victoria viewpoint.

Downtown Auckland from Devonport Beach


The lights of Downtown Auckland including the pink Sky Tower from Mt Victoria above Devonport

Saturday was another day of sun for heading out to the 600 year old Rangitoto Island, the most recent of the basalt cones forming a perfect ring shaped island in the Hauraki Gulf. There are a number of tracks on the Island leading to the points of interest, the island has a fairly young and limited vegetation cover as well as vast open patches of broken basalt lava. The summit crater is the high point and a track leads the day-trippers up to the rim. the island is riddled with tunnels but those most accessible lie along the ‘lava tunnels track’, where there are many fine tunnels heading off the beaten track to be explored with a headtorch. Although the sea looked very inviting in the sunshine, it was low tide, exposing thick mud at the otherwise sandy beaches. Saturday night the plan was to head up the Sky Tower, however a monsoon came in and so was confined to a brewery/ pub.

Ragitoto Island - looking up at the summit crater, with broken basalt in the foreground

One of the lava tunnels on Rangitoto Island

Sunday was time to head back to Wellington, but the trip was by no means over, for the 600km Overlander rail journey lay ahead. Running down the Main Trunk line through the centre of New Zealand from Auckland to Wellington - a journey which most Kiwis would make in an hour with Air New Zealand, we left the shiny new Britomart transport centre at 0730 for the 12 hour journey! Back through the rolling Waikato and up on to the Volcanic Plateau. After a chat with the driver at Hamilton I managed to grab myself a seat in the loco for the hour long assent from Taumarunui through the Tongariro National Park including the Rangotoi Spiral. This was definitely the highlight, although the Overlander also has a viewing lounge in back carriage with a big window looking out backwards.

The Overlander at National Park Station

After the final week in Wellington its back off to Auckland on the overnight InterCity Coach, and then for the NZ2 via Los Angeles will bring me into Heathrow on Tuesday 6 November. Just to finish off with - something that got me excited in the sidings just outside Auckland were some ex-UK Mark 2 coaches (don’t worry about the details) from Virgin and Anglia, as stacks of them were shipped over here when they finished their turns with XC on the West Coast and GE Mainline. Many of them have been completely gutted and churned out on the Wellington/ Auckland suburban routes, so we finish with a picture of a couple of them sat around de-bogied, awaiting a New Zealand lease of life!

Ex-Virgin Trains Mark 2's! The go faster red/ black is almost unreconisable with the scribbles, pehaps its a new livery - Branson Pickle!