Martin Yeo
Holiday in Aotearoa New Zealand
Jemma and I shared a lot of new experiences on our trip to NZ, so I thought it would be nice to share some here…
- Photos
- In maps
- Flying long haul
- Culture
- Geology
- Flora & fauna
- Lord of the Rings
- Road trip
- Driving electric
- Thank you!
Photos
Click for the whole photo album
In maps
Our approximate route
Photos from the car
You can see how the landscape changes
GPS traces
All the GPS traces from various exercise during the holiday
Flying long haul
It was literal decades since either of us had done a long haul flight, but we had to handle 4 of them on this trip - Auckland via San Francisco.
The good
- Airlines are good at keeping you happy, with lots of entertainment options and regular meals, all bundled into the ticket price.
- Flights arriving early in the morning meant we could just sleep as much as possible in-flight then start the day ‘as normal’.
- The Boeing 787 Dreamliner
The not so good
- 12 hours x2 is a long time to be mostly seated!
- US customs was as slow as everyone warned us about, making transfer times stressful.
- Getting through all the steps at an airport (check-in, security, etc.) without incident takes practice, and we were definitely un-practised.
Culture
We had booked an experience at Te Puia to learn more about Māori culture, and this was exactly what we had hoped: we learned some traditions and history, enjoyed Hāngī for dinner, then watched their famous cultural performance. We can’t publish photos publicly but message us if you want a link.
The pleasant surprise of the trip was the prominence of Māori culture everywhere, something that isn’t well known in the UK. We enjoyed seeing dual signage, watching TV from Māori+, and doing our best to correctly pronounce the names of the places, plants and animals we saw.
Everyone we met was up for a conversation with strangers, which is a nice way to pass the time on holiday. Not sure if that’s just because we were tourists, or the norm across the country, but it was fun either way 😊.
Geology
We both did plenty of this during our education; some parts of the holiday felt like a particularly extravagant field trip! We saw so many rock types and formations that were previously just textbook things for us.
Walking over an active volcanic landscape (the Tongariro Crossing) was one of the highlights of the trip. We both enjoy physically challenging things, but we’re not usually rewarded with bright blue lakes, lava flows, fumaroles, colourful rocks… a good day.
Franz Josef Glacier / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere is the first glacier Martin has ever seen, and for Jemma it was a poignant experience having studied it at A-Level. Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe down the road had a spectacular viewpoint, and we were also able to see several other glaciers close up when visiting Aoraki. The glaciers are responsible for the bright blue water colour, and plenty of the valleys are their doing too, so they leave a presence in the landscape even where they’re not visible. It was sad to learn about their retreat, especially when watching a queue of helicopters heading to view them close up.
NZ is famous for being on a plate boundary, and that active geology is responsible for the insane views you see everywhere you go. It’s as spectacular as everyone says it is, and it’s striking how quickly you can move from one landscape to another when driving. Beyond the volcanoes and mountain ranges, we hadn’t realised how different a young landscape looks even in less dramatic areas - it’s much less smooth.
Click for a few more Geology photos
Flora & fauna
The good
Zealandia is amazing! A reserve with all the invasive predators removed and rare native species introduced. Walking in felt like entering Jurassic Park, and we instantly saw a Kākā flying over the treetops; a lovely moment. They had plenty of other interesting animals, and we learned a lot.
The different bird song was a pleasing background to the whole holiday. Some places we stayed had Tūī in the trees nearby and occasionally a Korimako would land nearby and sing ‘at’ us - which reminded me of robins in the UK. One day during a run I heard Kākā in the trees (picture below from Zealandia).
We took two tours on the Otago Peninsula - The OPERA to see penguins and sea lions / fur seals, and the Royal Albatross Centre. Even though it was at the end of a long day, the time went by really quickly and the staff were super knowledgable.
Martin has a soft spot for prehistoric things, and NZ really delivers! We got to walk through forests of tree ferns, and see Tuatara at Zealandia. Living fossils are a rare treat anywhere in the world.
Click for some wildlife photos
A challenge
Friends of ours sent us their copy of Last Chance to See - a tradition of theirs when friends are visiting exotic places. We were challenged to photograph the book in frame with endangered species during our trip. It was a fun way to keep engaged with the places we were visiting, and in the end we managed 3 different species:
Hopefully they can continue to recover and it won’t be the last chance to see them!
Click for the ‘Last Chance to See’ photos
The bad
Aotearoa New Zealand bears the classic scars of Victorians’ love for introducing plants and animals on a whim. Some coniferous woodlands were planted purely for aesthetics, which leaves you wondering who on earth could be disappointed with the original aesthetics?! Sparrows were apparently introduced to control crop pests, but became crop pests themselves; they’re everywhere. We regularly saw possum road kill.
Native wildlife was often rarer than the invasive wildlife. We frequently got excited: “What’s that bird?!”, only to realise: “Just another blackbird”.
Rough seas meant our Kaikōura whale watching trip was cancelled. So the total cetacean sightings were a couple of dolphins (not Hector’s!) while on the ferry. At least we got to spend a day by the Pacific - a first for both of us.
Martin got rather obsessed with getting a picture of a Kea, but never managed it. After our last day in the mountains (at Aoraki) we discovered we had come within 100m of a large flock. We did manage to briefly glimpse one when visiting the West coast glaciers. They’re rare due to egg predation from invasive species. Of course if they weren’t rare they wouldn’t be exciting!
Lord of the Rings
These films are an iconic part of our childhood, and still connect Martin with his friends today, so visiting filming locations was an important thing to plan into the trip.
Mt Doom
Ngāuruhoe - passed during the Tongariro crossing - played the part of Mt Doom.
Isengard, Ithilien, Lothlorien
We spent a day around Glenorchy owing to its heavy use in the films. Getting close to locations unfortunately proved difficult, especially since we weren’t insured for gravel roads. Maybe we should have booked an official tour; it was a fun day out nonetheless.
Paradise - used for Isengard (spot the mountains), and the forest on the right-hand slopes for Lothlorien:
Campsite at Twelve Mile Delta - used for Ithilien:
Rohan
We attempted to ‘run through Rohan’. The land East of Alexandra was the filming location for Rohan, but it’s mostly owned by sheep farmers so tricky to explore legally. Instead we bought a ticket to use the Matangi Station mountain bike trails, which are ‘nextdoor’, and almost fit the bill.
Road trip
Driving is the recommended way to see NZ’s sights. They are just close enough that this is doable, providing you are happy with a lot of driving. When we collected the rental car it had 30km on the clock, and when we were finished it was at 4200km. That’s about a third of the annual distance we drive in the UK!
The good
- NZ’s roads are so much better quality than the UK’s.
- Major bends had suggested speed signs, which is great when every road is a new road to you.
- The landscape meant almost every road was interesting to drive and interesting to look at.
The not so good
- The car recorded 63 hours of driving, which is a sizeable proportion of a 3-week holiday.
- Our rental insurance didn’t cover us for gravel (‘unsealed’) roads, which is actually quite a lot of roads in NZ.
- Driving at the speed limit got us tailgated, honked, and even brake-checked once. Never expected to experience the movie Duel in real life!
Driving electric
We drive an EV in the UK, so I suggested we’d be able to handle renting one for the holiday. We got a Polestar 2 from Sixt.
The good
- We only spent about 1 hour over the whole holiday waiting for the car to charge - overnight charging was plentiful at accommodation, plus it was easy to find places where lunch and charging were co-located.
- The Polestar made driving easy; it had the usual EV benefits of no gears, good acceleration, one-pedal-driving, plus loads of parking cameras. Its squat stance and fat tyres meant the winding roads were a breeze, too.
- Despite the problems below, I’d say our time behind the wheel was much more pleasant than an equivalent combustion car, and behind the wheel is where you spend most of your time with a car!
The not so good
Probably not something to do as a novice!
- ‘Polestar or equivalent’ was troubling phrasing when renting. Does equivalence cover charging type? Range? What if there’s a problem and we’re given a last-minute replacement? Imagine planning a road trip when you can’t guarantee whether the car will be LPG or petrol.
- I did manage to find from forums that Sixt don’t provide a Type 2 charging cable; something we regularly need in the UK for overnight charging. So we packed our own, which gobbled up a whole 10% of our flight weight allowance. Then ironically almost all the chargers we used came with their own cable 🤦
- NZ chargers are still app-based (UK has mostly moved on to card readers), and many apps were unavailable on a UK phone. Alternatives for tourists were advertised in some places, but these could get quite complicated. One particular evening I had to get download an app to scan the RFID serial number from my debit card, so I could register it on a website.
- The Polestar has awful efficiency! 15kWh per 100km. Given similar roads and temperatures the Renault Zoe we usually drive would achieve 12kWh. This is presumably due to the half-tonne weight difference and fatter tyres. Given NZ’s excellent charging infrastructure, a Zoe would have been absolutely fine on this trip, and would have used 110kWh less energy. You can do a lot with 110kWh. EVs are getting too big.
Thank you!
Thanks to all of you who: offered advice, made contributions, chatted to us during the trip, or just generally got excited on our behalf! All of it added to the specialness. We hope you’ve enjoyed reliving it with us here 😘
