A Trip to New Zealand 2009

 Geysers and Mud Flats at Rotorua

When my husband told me that he had booked a trip to New Zealand I was so excited because this was also one of my greatest wishes. High on my list of animals to see were penguins and whales. We went in October 2004 and flew from Kuala Lumpur to Auckland, where we picked up our campervan. This is one of the best ways to travel. Since it was the low tourist season we had no problem in finding places to stay for the night, either on campsites or in the wild.

Our first stop was Rotorua, a geothermal area where you have famous geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pools. As my husband is a geologist, he is interested in volcanoes and in everything else that has to do with rocks, minerals, fossils and wild landscapes. After enjoying the sulphurous fumes of Rotorua, we drove off to Tongariro National Park. This beautiful 80,000 hectare park is located in the central part of the North Island. It's New Zealand’s oldest National Park and is a World Heritage Site for its cultural and natural values. It’s famous for its volcanoes—the highest being Mount Ruapehu (2797 m) where you can go skiing on the snow-cap. This volcano is still active and last erupted in 1996. Two other volcanoes, Ngaruhoe and Tongariro form the southern limits of the Taupo Volcanic Zone. Volcanic activity in the zone started about 2 million years ago and is on-going. We made camp at Whakapapa Spring and it was quite cold since the altitude was 1157 m. October is springtime in New Zealand and this is a beautiful season: everything starts flowering. We really enjoyed driving through the park and making a short walk.

Having heard so much of the wonderful, unspoilt nature of South Island, we didn’t stay much longer on North Island but caught the ferry at Wellington, which brought us in about three hours to Picton. We were lucky with the weather and stayed on deck to enjoy the scenery.

Our first stop was Abel Tasman National Park, which is, with some 22,500 hectares, the smallest national park in New Zealand. It is located at the top of the South Island. Abel Tasman is renowned for its golden beaches, sculptured granite cliffs, and its world-famous coastal track. It also has a mild climate and is a good place to visit at any time of the year. Early morning, at 8.30, we were at the water taxi stop to be sure to have a seat since it could only take up to 12 people. At 9 were drove off and first went to Tonga Island to see Fur Seals. After this the driver took us to Torrent bay were we started our beautiful hike that took us 6 hours. The trail was in excellent condition and the forest was attractive with many tree ferns and Dacrydium trees, in New Zealand called Red Pine. Relatives of these handsome trees, which have graceful, pendulous twigs bearing tiny leaves, can also be found in Borneo’s mountain forests! There are superb viewpoints looking out on picturesque bays with endless beaches. The sea is so clear and clean and on the white sandy beaches you can’t see any rubbish lying around. It’s a popular park for sea kayaking.

Next we drove to the West Coast made our way south to Cape Foulwind, where there is a seal colony. Here we saw a strange bird that looked like a bit like a domestic hen, but it’s a wild Weka. It’s a large brown flightless bird and not shy at all, but on the contrary, very curious. Although they are flightless, they can, amazingly, swim across a kilometre or more of river, lake or sea! New Zealand has no doubt, the strangest birds in the world.

Another stop was at the Pancake Rocks. We had our lunch there with, what else would you expect at the restaurant, of course pancakes! The Pancake Rocks indeed consist of many thin layers and look somewhat like kueh lapis. Here there are spectacular blowholes, where, when the waves are large following a storm, the water suddenly blows up through clefts in the rocks, reaching several meters high.

Farther down the west coast, the coastal plain becomes narrow and the Southern Alps rise up almost directly behind the shoreline. Two large glaciers are found here, Franz Josef and Fox, which are unique because they reach below the tree line, whereas most glaciers in the world don’t reach below the maximum altitude where trees can live (i.e. the Alpine zone).

The west coast drive was really stunning, and when we turned inland from the small town of Haast, beautiful views continued to amaze us. Huge, mirror-like lakes framed by unspoilt forests abound, especially towards Queenstown. Southwest New Zealand is one of the great wilderness areas of the southern hemisphere. It is an area where snow-capped mountains, rivers of ice, deep lakes, unbroken forests and tussock grasslands produce a landscape of exceptional beauty. In addition we were really lucky with the weather so that almost every corner of the road promised more spectacular views.

Fiordland National Park is in the far southwestern corner of the South Island and much of the region is inaccessible by road. At 21,000 km² it is New Zealand’s biggest national park and it is famous for the geology, flora and fauna. The township of Te Anau is considered the gateway to the park since this is here where you embark on your boat journey. One of the absolute highlights of our trip was an overnight cruise in Doubtful Sound. The name Doubtful Sound is misleading since it is in fact a fiord, open to the sea and formed by the cutting action of a glacier. The trip starts in the afternoon, when a fast boat ferries you across Lake Manapoiri, followed by a bus ride across a narrow stretch of land that separates Lake Manapoiri from Doubtful Sound. Thereafter you board the cruise boat, which is equipped with sleeping cabins. The weather was excellent, although a cold breeze made staying on deck for a long time a chilly experience, but the views were absolutely breathtaking. We saw Fur Seals and after a while we spotted our first penguin! This was the Fiordland Crested Penguin, which is endemic to the area. These birds are threatened because the eggs and baby birds are an easy prey for Possums, one of many introduced animals. The Possums multiplied beyond control and so became a pest. They are a threat to most of the endemic animals as well as to the forest itself since they are capable of stripping an entire tree of its foliage in a single night.

New Zealand is sometimes known as the penguin capital of the world because as many as 13 species out of the Southern Hemisphere’s 16 species breed or visit. Penguins are flightless, stocky, robust seabirds ranging in height from 1.15 m (Emperor Penguin) to 0.4 m (Blue Penguin), and protected by a waterproof coat of dense, short flattened feathers. Their ‘wings’ are powerful flippers capable of propelling them rapidly through the water, and their feet are used for steering. Blue Penguins are the smallest penguins in the world – only 30 cm tall. I saw two Blue Penguins swimming and shortly after saw a group of Bottlenose Dolphins playing. A few came to swim along with the boat with amazing speed, having not the slightest difficulty to keep up with the ship. Bottlenose Dolphins can grow till 4.5 meter long and have a life span of about 25 years. We were so excited to see such an abundance of wildlife around us. The sea is crystal clear and no rubbish floats around. Especially the complete absence of plastic bags was noteworthy ... The New Zealanders are really strict and everywhere they have rubbish bins and people make an effort to keep the country clean!

After the cruise we drove towards Milford Sound via the small town of Te Anau. This 121 km long drive is famous for its magnificent scenery. Here is a prime trekking area, where you can make short hikes of and hour or so, but can also wander for days on end. The trails are well marked and good trail maps are available at the Tourist information. Of course we made some short walks in this area and used government campsites in the parks, where there are no personnel, but you are expected to leave a token fee in a designated box. The road towards Milford Sound is breathtaking with snow-capped mountains up to 2750 Meter high. We saw the numbers of Kea, mountain parrots, which grow up to 50 cm long and, although mostly vegetarian, also enjoy grubs and insects. The Kea is rated as one of the most intelligent birds in the world. Beautiful primary beech forest, with the undergrowth covered in thick moss cushions, forms extensive stretches, only broken by lakes and streams with waterfalls. We drove through the famous Homer tunnel, which is 1200 m long. Building this tunnel began in 1935 and was completed in 1954. At Milford Sound we took a three hour cruise which brought us underneath a spectacular overhanging cliff, and near to thundering waterfalls. Bowens Falls is as high as 160 m. Famous is the Mitre Peak that rises from sea level 1692 m straight up.


 Rare Sea Animals

After spending a week in this beautiful area we drove east coast to the Otago Peninsula, in order to see the Royal Albatross. Albatrosses are the world's largest seabirds. They normally breed on remote islands and spend at least 85 percent of their lives at sea, well away from land and human view. Renowned ocean wanderers, they travel vast distances from their breeding grounds to feed. The Royal Albatross, with its massive wingspan of up to 3.3 meters flies an estimated 190,000 kilometres a year! Albatrosses feed by searching the sea surface for dead squid and fish.

We had a guide with us and after spending some time watching the Albatrosses fly he took us to another place to see the Yellow Eyed Penguins coming out of the sea to spend the night on shore. The first hour after emerging from the water they can’t see clearly and just walked past us without noticing us. It was amusing to see one penguin getting angry at a nosy lamb that came to close! The Yellow-Eyed Penguin is found predominantly in Otago and Southland. It gets its name from the yellow iris and distinctive yellow headband. It is grey/blue in colour, and has a snow-white belly. Penguin chicks are covered in thick brown, fluffy feathers and do not develop their adult plumage until they are 14-16 months old. The Yellow-Eyed Penguin is thought to be the world's rarest penguin. It is unique to New Zealand; their breeding season is from August to May. Eggs are laid in late September/early October, with a long fledgling period of 16 weeks. A few penguins were sitting on their nest. They had two eggs but usually only one is hatches. Males and females take turns to keeping the eggs warm so that the other can go back to the sea for food. We watched them from a hide, were a remote camera monitor enabled us to see the movements of the breading penguin.

Nearby was also a group of lazy (Hooker's) sea lion (found only in New Zealand’s southern waters), and they didn’t even open their eyes or looked up, very boring. Adult males can reach 3 m in length, weight up to 400 kilo and can live to 25 years. Females are smaller and generally light in colour. Sea lions can dive up to 200 m deep and are gregarious animals and enjoy each others close company, unlike Fur Seals.

After watching the penguins we climbed steeply up, and then descended to another bay to watch another colony of Fur Seals. The New Zealand Fur Seal dives deeper and longer than any other Fur Seal. Female Fur Seals on the West Coast are known to (occasionally) dive deeper than 238 m, and for as long as 11 minutes. Off the Otago Peninsula in summer, they feed almost exclusively at night and often dive as deep as 163m with a maximum recorded dive time of 6.2 minutes. Adult males can reach 2.5 m in length and weight up to 185 kg, females reach 1.5 m length.

It was a pity that we couldn’t stay any longer in Otago. Since our time was running out we drove to Kaikoura to see whales. I didn’t want to leave New Zealand without seeing them and again we were so lucky with the weather and the sea was not to rough. Of course people know how to trace them, using hydrophones for listening to the sounds that whales produce under water. I got very exited to see the first Sperm Whale breathing at the surface and then diving. The huge tail rises up from the water upon every dive. Kaikoura is famous for whale watching since you don’t have to go very far into the ocean because of a deep sea canyon immediately offshore. Male Sperm Whales weigh up to 40 tonnes and females up to 16. Most of their food consists of deepwater squids, which they hunt in the deep sea canyon. Whales are large, magnificent, intelligent, aquatic mammals. They breathe air through a blowhole into lungs, unlike fish who breathe using gills. Whales have sleek, streamlined bodies that move easily through the water. They are the only mammals, other than sea cows, that live their entire lives in the water, and the only mammals that have adapted to life in the open oceans.

Suddenly a big group of Hector Dolphins came towards the boat and we were amazed how playful they were. Nine different species of dolphin are found around the New Zealand coast, including Hector's dolphin, one of the smallest and rarest in the world. This 1.4 meter dolphin is also known as the "down under dolphin" because it is found only in New Zealand waters. Bottlenose Dolphins are small, toothed whales that have a long, beaklike snout, a sickle-shaped dorsal fin, and sharp teeth. Dolphins breathe air through a single blowhole. They grow to be at most 3.3 m long. Dolphins live in small groups of up to 12 individuals and these groups are called pods.

It was really a pity that our journey had to come to an end, we drove 4318 km in three weeks, but I’m sure we will go back and wish that we can stay much longer to see more of this spectacular country.