New Zealand – Auckland & a quick look around Wellington, but not the walk I planned

The train trip from Auckland via the volcano-studded centre of the North Island of New Zealand went as planned. As did some museum visits in Auckland. The walk I’d planned at the Tongariro National Park didn’t go so well.

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▲ TEAL Solent ZK-AMO, MOTAT, Auckland

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I’d flown in to Auckland from Melbourne and clearly my late arrival and that two hour time change hit me, the first morning I had trouble dragging myself out of bed. I walked down to the harbour where the sight of a Disney cruise ship was kind of depressing. I took a taxi out from the centre to MOTAT – The Museum of Transport & Technology – where I discovered Auckland taxi drivers are less than trustworthy. Their fake meters overcharge you (I didn’t catch on) and equally bad they don’t really know where they’re going  The driver managed to drop me near, but not actually at MOTAT. No wonder Uber is so popular

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I visited MOTAT to look at the two four-engined flying boats, the Solent I saw being restored, I even had a look inside, back in 1987. It’s now gleaming in TEAL (the predecessor to Air New Zealand) colours and this particular Solent – ZK-AMO – is named Aranui, a reminder of my French Polynesian cruise on the Aranui 5 last year. The other is a military Sunderland, equally beautifully restored. In fact all the aircraft – a Lancaster, an Amelia-Earhart-era Electra, a Mosquito, a Skyhawk, are glossily gleaming. Unfortunately most of the smaller stuff is hung from the ceiling, you’d need binoculars to look at them and then you’d only see the undersides

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The other half of the museum, the non-aerial part, is a free tram ride (old Melbourne W-class trams) away. It features lots of trams and some old buildings exhibiting telecommunications and other technology if you’re interested. The neat little car collection is a reminder that prior to the New Zealand economic revolution the country was like pre-techie Ireland, clinging on to an outdated agricultural economy. Cars were effectively few and far between, kept together with string, wire and duct tape, Kiwi men all had to be amateur mechanics. The Morris 1100 (there’s one here) was the dream machine of the ‘60s. Travelling back in to the city I pass the Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Bentley and Porsche dealers.

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But how did I get back to the city? There were no taxis around and all day I could not persuade my phone to get online so I could not summon an Uber. Fortunately a bus came by and the driver decided to ignore the fact that I didn’t have an Auckland bus card to swipe.

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▲ Black Magic is a reminder of New Zealand America’s Cup high tech yachting glory at the Maritime Museum – in the afternoon I end up at the Auckland Maritime Museum, it’s full of interest from assorted Pacific canoes and outriggers via lots of steamship models to that modern racing yacht.

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▲ I spotted the WHATEVER neon sign on the way in from the airport, no idea what it’s about but, whatever, it looks terrific.

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I started my Auckland evening with a Sawmill Pilsner beer and a 38th floor rooftop view from Bar Albert, the highest in New Zealand and atop my hotel. Then right around the corner the restaurant Grove got the ‘our pick’ recommendation in my 13-year-old Lonely Planet North Island guide. After I’ve ordered a glass of wine I discover I’ve committed myself to a degustation menu, NS$Z195 for six courses or NZ$235 for eight. Well my six courses are all terrific, a reminder that restaurants can work. Just to show how high tech we are liquid nitrogen appears at my table to flash freeze the flowers in one dish. Nice wines as well.

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Meanwhile I read a pre-publication PDF of Paige McClanahan’s very interesting book The New Tourist. Lonely Planet features in the intro chapter, along with Rick Steves, Mark Ellingham, Hilary Bradt and other ‘new guidebook’ publishers. There’s interesting material on where the current tourist boom has worked (Liverpool surprisingly) or has not (Barcelona, Amsterdam, Hawaii).

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▲A big kiwi by the road junction near the National Park train station – the next day I disembark the Northern Explorer train at National Park and discover there is absolutely no transport for the 15km (10 miles) to Whakapapa, the winter ski-resort or summer walking centre in Tongariro National Park. No Uber, no taxis, no bus service, nothing.

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▲ Whakapapa turn off – well this is New Zealand and clearly hitch-hiking still works. I stick my thumb out and after about 10 minutes the second car that comes by has three walkers – trampers in New Zealand – aboard and they take me as far as the Whakapapa junction. Another 10 minute wait and a Maori woman, complete with chin tattoos, and her small son pick me up.

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◄ Taranaki Falls, Tongariro National Park – having dropped my bag at the Skotel I make an afternoon walk to the falls.

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▲ En route there are some good views of dormant Mt Ngauruhoe, but it turn out that will be as close as I get to the volcanoes. From Whakapapa I’ve booked a shuttle bus to take me to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This one day climb and descent takes you past amazing volcanic scenery, covers 19.4km and is the most popular day walk in New Zealand. Europe may have overtourism in Amsterdam, Barcelona and Venice, well this is the New Zealand contender. From the other end of the walk another shuttle bus will pick me up and convey me back to Whakapapa. Except it doesn’t happen, later that evening I’m told the shuttle bus has been cancelled, the weather is going to be so bad the walk has been completely closed. Well, that’s par for the course for me in New Zealand – the Milford Track, the Routeburn Track – I did them both in torrential downpours.

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▲ Silica Rapids to Bruce Rd, Tongariro National Park – the next day it definitely is bucketing down a lot of the time, but more important the clouds are clamped down around your ears. If I had done the walk – and given my New Zealand track record I’m used to walking in the rain – there wouldn’t have been anything to see.

So I catch up on emails and things I need to write and do some shorter walks from Whakapapa. Lke the  riverside walk past the Punaruku Falls to Silica Rapids and back down the Bruce Rd to Whakapapa. And the Ridge Walk to a lookout above the village.

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◄ War Memorial & The Beehive, New Zealand Parliament Building, Wellington – the next day the second half of the Northern Explorer train service takes me south to the New Zealand capital. I’ve been in Wellington several times before but I’ve still got time for a look around.

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▲ Sea urchin art work, waterfront, Wellington – there’s lots to see along the Wellington waterfront and I eat there in Master Kong, a harbourside Hong Kong and other Asian cuisine restaurant where I have a pork belly bao and a local beer.

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◄  I’m staying close to the waterfront at the QT Hotel on Cable St and I photograph the hotel’s ‘most loved mural’ out front and read a story on their website about how Wellington artist Gabriel Heimler painted it in 2010. Back in 1993 the building which is now the hotel had to go to make way for the Te Papa Museum, the New Zealand National Museum. So the four-storey, 3000-tonne building was uprooted and shifted 120-metres across the street to its current location. The mural sort of tells how it was done.

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▲ But did Mr Heimler then race over to Berlin? Because I took this photo of a painting on the Berlin Wall in 2012, clearly the same guy right down to his clothes, his tie, his shoes and his haircut, right?

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▲ The mural outside – and assorted other external art works – aren’t the only QT Hotel art, the lobby and assorted floors are simply stuffed with interesting modern art, it’s a virtual art gallery. The art even features an Italian four-cylinder MV Agusta motorcycle, how many of those beautiful two-wheelers did they ever sell?  Easy Rider style there’s a chopper motorcycle displayed outside, behind a plate glass window which I (embarrassingly) manage to collide with.

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This all reminds me of colourful New Zealand publisher Alister Taylor who had quite an interesting art collection at his house in Martinborough outside Wellington. Maureen and I stayed there in 1974, just after we launched Lonely Planet in New Zealand,. With help from Alister, NewZealand was the second place Lonely Planet guidebooks were ever sold, after Australia of course. Alister became notorious in New Zealand for publishing the banned Little Red Schoolbook, much loved for his promotion of poet Sam Hunt (Sam is still going strong) and also much loved for launching the Wairarapa wine region from that same house in Martinborough. Unfortunately Alister was good at selling books, not always so good at paying for them, which caused us some early business problems. No matter, it was all sorted out amicably in the end. Sadly Alister died in 2019.

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The next morning I’m departing Wellington very early for a flight to Brisbane, ‘ring at the front desk, somebody will reply and sort a taxi for you I was told.’ No. But once again New Zealand transport comes to the rescue, somebody else is heading to the airport at the same time and I hitch a ride with him in his Uber. Wellington Airport is comfortably small and handily close to the town andI’m through to the Qantas lounge speedily despite some very slow and heavily bagged young women in front of me and my Tupperware of washing powder setting off the security check. In the lounge there’s quite a selection of Lonely Planet coffee table books and I flip open the Travel Atlas and find the long (and interesting I reckon!) foreword I wrote about mapping back in 2018. It features the photo of Maureen working on the first South-East Asia on a Shoestring in the Palace Hotel in Singapore back in 1975.

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◄ Gandalf rides a Lord of the Rings eagle, Airport, Wellington

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I’ve just read a strangely fascinating article in The Guardian about six people who move, really move, don’t just go on a holiday, to somewhere totally different because of their fascination with a movie. So England to New Zealand because of Lord of the Rings. England to Bali because of Eat Pray Love. England to Paris for Cleo from 5 to 7. New York to Barcelona for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. A New Zealander from Melbourne to rural Wales for the series Morgan’s Boy. Shanghai to Kyoto for The Last Samurai.

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Remarkably their partners go with them and even more remarkably it seems to work. Well the English woman heading to Paris didn’t have a partner, so she ended up with a French man. I find the whole idea really peculiar! The ‘move to New Zealand because of Lord of the Rings‘ enthusiast was reassured he’d made the right decision by discovering Gandalf on his eagle at Wellington Airport.

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Minutes after take-off I’m reminded I’m flying out of ‘Windy Wellington’ by the sight of an array of wind turbines. Well that’s nice to see.

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