My week on the Stray backpacker bus in NZ

Hello to all my friends, family, acquaintances, strangers, countrymen, and anyone I have forgotten!

This is a report about my 7-day tour with Stray New Zealand backpacker bus . Before you begin reading, take a look at the Stray NZ Bus Tour site so you can get a clear idea about Stray.

I have travelled the ‘JILL NZ backpacker bus pass’   together with my girlfriend Zheni, and this way we were able to see almost everything the North Island has to offer. It was such a good and beautiful experience that I chose to write a report about it for the people back home.

Day 1 – 10 November 2008

Today we have an early start.

We are going to be picked up at 7:45am by the Stray bus. They are picking us up in front of the Fat Camel hostel in Auckland city centre, but because we don’t live in the central city, we have to take an earlier bus to get to the Fat Camel. We woke up around 6am to prepare ourselves for the trip. This is not on normal time to wake up for my beloved girl and me!

The bus was perfectly on time, and of course we also were there on time. We were present at half past 7!

Once on the bus we got to know all the passengers and our driver / guide Ricky. The majority of people on the bus were Dutch! There were also people from countries like Norway , Germany , England , Ireland , France , Australia (trainee driver), and I almost forget Bulgaria and Spain (for Zheni) on the bus.

After just a few moments on the bus, we headed to our first stop. We stopped at Mount Eden (Maungawhau, ‘Mountain of the Whau tree' in Maori), a volcano 5 miles south of the centre whose summit (196 metres above sea level) is the highest natural point on the Auckland isthmus. The majestic bowl-like crater on Mount Eden is 50 metres deep. The volcano erupted several times resulting in a series of craters, with the last eruption about 60,000 years ago. As you can imagine, from here we had a beautiful view over the city and the surroundings of Auckland .

After throwing a last glance at Auckland , the bus travelled to Hahei (the Coromandel). On the route we made a small stopover in Thames to buy some things for the trip (read: beer and food) from a supermarket. On the way to Hahei the driver asked the passengers who wanted to participate in today’s activity. Today there is sea kayaking on the program. Of course we wanted to do this!

When we arrived in Hahei, Zheni and I (as the only ones ‘wise’ enough to participate on this activity) were picked up by a little van from the Cathedral Cove Kayaking company  and we were taken to the beach. In the meantime it was cooling down because the sun went behind the clouds. On the beach our guide told us how we had to handle the 2-person kayak; how to steer (yes, a sea kayak has a steer consisting of 2 pedals at the feet of the person sitting in the back); how we had to use the waterproof bag for our camera (and my cigarettes); and how we had to get into the water resistant outfit. The purpose of the water resistant outfit (which goes around the kayak) is to close the opening of our seat, to make sure our seat would stay dry during the ride - and we found out why!

Our guide pushed us right into the waves, so we could break through and reach a point where the waves were a bit calmer. At the shore, the waves were pretty rough, but if you go a bit further, the sea rapidly became calmer.

Once we got into the water we got the first couple of waves over our heads and we were completely soaked! We paddled around for a while and we tried to control the kayak. After a while we managed to speed up a bit with the kayak and we got around an island, where we grouped together (as professionals we moor alongside each other). During this stop and during the kayak trip, the guide told us lots of interesting things about this beautiful area. The island we kayaked around was long ago owned by a Maori leader who thought that it looked like his nose. While he stood on the top of the mountain (on the island) he looked around and declared all the land as far as he could see as his.

It had to be a great time. I’m imagining myself on the top of the Sky Tower , thinking it looks like a part of my body (you can fill in yourself which part) and taking a good look around over the city and declaring everything as far as I can see as mine. J To continue the story: after hearing a couple of wonderful stories from our guide, we kayaked to a remote beach where we pulled our kayaks on the sand and we enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate! We walked around for a while, took some photos and especially enjoyed the beautiful white beach, and the beautiful surroundings.  Frankly, it’s too beautiful to be true! It looks like something out of a Bounty advert.

It may look pretty warm when you see the pictures but appearances are deceiving. It was very cold, but we were able to warm ourselves again by continuing kayaking. It was already cold because we were soaked and the sun was gone… But it was getting even better (or do I need to say worse?): During our launch into the water we went straight into a few large waves and got water all over us. We were completely soaked and our kayak was full of water. We weren’t sitting dry anymore but actually in the water! We kayak the last part of the trip and by the time we arrived at the beach we were really getting cold. We decided to run to the accommodation for the night, because it was right next to the beach where we did the kayaking. We were halfway when I wanted to light a cigarette and discovered that my cigarettes, as well as my camera, were still in the waterproof bag. I quickly ran back and fortunately my things were still there. Now once again I had to run back to where Zheni was waiting, and finally we could have a warm (hot) shower. This truly was one of the best showers I have ever had in my life, (and this was not because of the fact the shower was that great).  

While we took a shower, the group from the bus were already busy with the preparation of the group barbeque. We were just in time to eat some good steak and to have a couple of drinks with everybody. Still a bit choppy from our experience earlier that day, we left towards Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is called this way because the water is literally boiling at some points. You just dig a pit on the beach and you can make yourself a nice (free) hot bath! Unfortunately for us we had experienced enough water for this day and we didn’t get into the water. We did just fine with our feet in the warm water. After staying here for a while it was time to get back to our caravan (yes, Zheni and I had a private caravan) where we discovered we had no blankets or duvets for the night. We tried to go to the reception but it was already closed (which is normal at midnight) so we had to keep each other warm that night. We survived the night sleeping in our jeans, socks and two jerseys!

Day 2 – 11 November 2008

It’s 8am when we have to get back on the bus to continue our journey. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining so we could warm ourselves up. Today we travelled from Hahei to Raglan. At one of our first stops we got the opportunity to hug the famous Kauri Tree . The Kauri Tree is also called the “Lord of the Forest ”, which is quite understandable when you stand next to this tree and look up, what a height! After we declared our love to this tree we travelled further with the bus. On the way to Raglan we see an awful lot of cows. 

We travelled through Hamilton (fourth largest city of New Zealand ) and after a while we arrived in Raglan. Raglan is one of the most popular surfing spots around the world and many surfers call it their Mecca . The waves here are long and excellent for surfing. Manu Bay (one of the better places with the most beautiful beach) is shown in the cult surfing film “Endless Summer” from 1966. We arrive in time and we are staying at Karioi Lodge tonight. This was the most beautiful place we have stayed at during our week away. It is a kind of accommodation set among the indigenous forest. You feel like you are spending a night in the rainforest, but with the necessary luxury. Well, I could keep on talking but just take a look at their site: http://www.karioilodge.co.nz

Today’s activity was surf lessons. Zheni and I had seen and felt enough water for the first couple of days so we chose to go to the town itself with the bus and we did some shopping. After this, we got back on the bus headed to our accommodation. We stopped on the way to enjoy the afternoon on the beach. It was good sitting on the beach with a few of the ladies from our bus, and afterwards we walked back to our hostel. That night we ate some delicious food, our driver/guide/great friend Ricky had cooked for us which was greatly appreciated by everyone. I even got up to take a second portion. Delicious New Zealand chicken! J After the meal we took a shower and drunk some beer and played table football in the “chill-out room” while the other people from the bus watched a movie together. We had a lot of fun with the table football and Zheni and I were practically unbeatable (we didn’t lose once), and we even beat some Germans! J We also discovered there was a “flying fox” at the lodge. You have to imagine a kind of a cableway that goes unbelievably fast! We had heard about it earlier but it is so much more fun at night, it was already eleven and so it was really dark. It was quite an experience to go on the “flying fox” in the dark and pass everything and everyone at a really high speed. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed it a lot, both Karioi Lodge and the town of Raglan itself.

It was AWESOME there!

Day 3 – 12 November 2008

This morning we departed at 8am after we had slept wonderfully at the Karioi Lodge. It was nice and warm under the blankets, haha! Today we head to Maketu. Today’s activity is caving (caving is best described as a mixture between science and sport). As a science, caving studies the geology (the emergence of rock layers, and stalactite); hydrology (subterranean watercourses); biology (the fauna and flora in a cave); palaeontology (remnants of extinct animals in caves); and archaeology (cave paintings and tools from prehistory). Caving as a sport is comparable with mountain climbing, because a lot of the same techniques and materials are being used. Today we are going caving at the Waitomo Caves  .

Because Zheni and I were still under the impression of our (cold) water adventure on the Monday, we choose to do a (dry) four hour lasting “Lost World”  trip through the caves of Waitomo. We got picked up by a van at the reception of the Waitomo Caves and we drove through the deserted landscape of New Zealand to get to the caves. Once we arrived at what seemed to be some kind of backcountry hut, we are provided with the necessary clothing (caving suit and boots), equipment used for abseiling, a helmet for safety and we had a tutorial about how we had to move ourselves as safely as possible through the caves. We participated in a dry tour, which meant we didn’t have to get into the water, and it contained a 100 metres deep abseil into the cave. This abseil is at least two times the height of all other abseil adventures you can experience in the Waitomo Caves and the beauty of this cave is truly unsurpassed.. What an amazing experience!

We were hanging attached to a rope (you know what abseiling is right?) so we could look around while we felt as free as a bird. You can regulate your speed in how fast you want to go down and when you look down - 100 metres into the abyss, you will have second thoughts why you wanted to do this so badly! The abseiling took us about half an hour, and floating through the mist filtered light of this huge Tomo (shaft), we see strange sorts of plants, rocks and formations. We reached the ground of the cave, and from here we got a beautiful view up and on the cave itself. Now we had to work our way up through the cave for an impressive tour. We saw glow-worms and massive cave formations. To crown it off, we needed to climb a 30 metre high ladder. We did have a safety harness so we couldn’t fall down but it was no fun going straight up on a cold, wet and especially dirty (mud) ladder.

We had to laugh big time about our guide, Luke (he made a funny remark about the fact that he was almost going to work at the Sky Tower, helping out with the Skywalk, which would give him the nick-name Luke Skywalker!). You couldn’t ignore the fact that this man was very funny with all his stories.

In any case, we had a few dozen metres more to go and we were out of the cave. There Luke took a few quick pictures of us and we walked through the native forest and the amazing, beautiful nature, back to the back country hut. Once we arrived there, Luke discovered that the other guide had changed the code of the lock so we had to wait another twenty minutes. Fortunately we were able to strangle ourselves out of our equipment and drink some cold water.

Then we drove back to the reception where the bus was already waiting for us. We quickly ordered some of the photographs Luke had taken of us to show back home (and of course as a reminder of this unforgettable day) and then stepped back on to the bus that was taking us to Maketu.

On the route we stopped at the Arapuni lake, which is part of the mighty Waikato River . Here was a major power station that generates energy through hydropower. It was just a short stop but nevertheless really nice to see. We continued travelling, without further stops, to Maketu. A Maori cultural experience was scheduled for us in here.

Once we arrived at the marae (Maori meeting house) Uncle Boy was already waiting for us. We received a traditional Maori welcome with dancing, singing, show etc. I’ve really enjoyed the fact that we came so close in contact with the Maori. Then Uncle Boy invited us for a Hangi meal, which is an original Maori meal, because we were all reasonably hungry from the caves, the meal rapidly disappeared. 

During the dinner Uncle Boy told us some things about the Maori culture and about his life experiences. After the meal everybody did their own dishes and we had a beer. While we drunk our beer, Uncle Boy came to us and he told us that all women should remain in the marae (where they learned how to entertain the men) and the guys had to go to the dining area to remove their outerwear. With bare chests we were taught how we should do the Haka. The Haka is a well-known phenomenon in the history of the Maori and is still done before a rugby match by New Zealand ’s famous team, the “All Blacks”. During the learning of this Haka we had a good time and laughed a lot. After we have practiced this repeatedly we had to go into the marae, and see what the ladies had learned to entertain the men. It was a dance with 2 balls and a rope in between and singing. These balls (called “Poi”) were used by the Maori to practice their orientation for the use of knives and swords in a fight. It was therefore used as a training device by the former Maori warriors, but after the time of the massive wars were over and there was no use in practicing anymore, the women learned to entertain the men with this device.

First the woman danced and sung a couple of times. I really enjoyed the way Zheni took part in this. Of course, I also enjoyed seeing the Maori woman doing it to. After the women had entertained us with their dance, it was our turn to entertain them. And we did! We performed the Haka twice (together with the Maori) and everybody really tried to do their best. After both men and women did their duty as entertainers, there was a possibility of taking some pictures with the Maori. This resulted in some amazing photos!

After this the whole group off the bus sat cosy outside, drunk some beers and because everybody was pretty tired we all went to our beds early.

Day 4 – 13 November 2008

Uncle Boy gave us a special wake up call, which he had promised us the day before. It was funny because I woke up just a couple of minutes before the wake up call and I literally saw everybody standing on their feet within less then a minute!  The reason that everybody jumped out of their bed was because of the ABBA music which was played very loud through the speakers. Haha what a wake up!

At 8am we left on the bus to head towards Taupo. We made a stop at Rotorua, where we walked around the town and had something to eat. Subway sandwiches are also very popular here, so we just had to eat there.

After we returned to the assembly place Ricky told us that we were going to stop again on the route at a secret warm water spot. Zheni and I asked if we were able to quickly pull on our swimsuits. Well I was back at the assembly place within 2 minutes and the bus was nowhere in sight. SH*T! We had all our stuff in the bus, such as wallets, suitcases and telephones, and we couldn’t therefore spend the night on the street in our shorts and t-shirt without any money or anything else (like warm clothes). Fortunately Ricky had already noticed us missing after 20 seconds but he had to do a detour through the town because he could not turn directly. Luckily the bus did not leave Rotorua without us!

Now we could go to the natural hot spring. Once we arrived, we didn’t have that much time to spend in the hot pool because the activity of today was skydiving and bungy jumping and we needed to get there in time. So we almost missed the bus putting on our swimsuits, and we didn’t even go into the water! But OK, we enjoyed the environment while some people from the bus dared themselves to jump into the water.

As I mentioned before: The activities for today are bungy jumping and skydiving, but Zheni and I had already done this at the same place so we thought it was a bit  a waste of money to do it again. We would still like to do another bungy jump or skydive, but in the South Island . Today we chose just to relax a bit and after we visited the supermarket we took a walk and spent some time sitting at Lake Taupo .

Tonight we had Mc Donalds for dinner! The food in the Mc Donalds tasted exactly the same as it does in the old familiar Mac in Emmen. After we ate at the Mac we walked back to our hostel and we drunk a beer and after that we went to bed. The next day we would leave early again.

Day 5 – 14 November 2008

And it was early! Half past seven to be precise as today we were travelling to Tongariro National Park . This is an active volcanic area, with beautiful craters, volcanic scenery and a volcano named Ngauruhoe. You can see this volcano in the movie ‘The Last Warrior’ as ‘Mount Fuji’ and also you can see this volcano in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ as ‘ Mount Doom ’. This area is known as ‘Mordor’ from the Lord of the Rings movies. Another nice fact to know about this National Park is that it was recognized as the worlds second National Park (Yellowstone in America was the first).

Today we are doing the 7 hour Tongariro Crossing , a walk straight through the volcanic plateau. I didn’t wear special hiking shoes but I was told I could do the walk in my Nikes. Zheni rented some comfortable hiking shoes and in shorts, t-shirt and with enough water we were getting prepared for the walk. I was dressed completely in white and I was told if I returned the same way, completely white, I would get my money back! In the beginning it was pretty easy to do the walk. The nature here is truly too beautiful to be true. For every couple of steps you take, you want to stop to take a photo. We walk, and walk, and walk another part until we reach a sort of “hiker’s toilet” which is in fact nothing more than a small box with a toilet and a very deep hole. As you can imagine these boxes weren’t very fresh and the lack of water means that they haven’t been cleaned for ages. Eugh! Anyway… we walk further and further and walked even more… The nature here is so beautiful that I wonder whether the inhabitants of New Zealand (the Kiwi’s) realize what kind of paradise they live in. On our way we can throw some snowballs because there is enough snow on the top of the mountains, which we walked all the way up. It is the first time in my life that I walk through the snow with sunglasses, a t-shirt and shorts. I also got sunburnt in the snow but I will tell you more about this later on. After a few breaks and the necessary photo stops we arrive at a backcountry hut. Finally we can fill our water bottle and rest a bit. We sit around for a while, take some more photos and once again we put sunscreen on ourselves. At that moment an English dude approaches me and asks if he can borrow some sunscreen because he thought his legs were burnt. Ooooooooooohno! I suddenly realize that I didn’t put any sunscreen on my own legs and I do it immediately but it is already too late. My legs are sunburnt, and pretty good too!

We prepare ourselves for the last part of the journey. The first part was a bit like: up the stairs, down the stairs, up the mountain, down the mountain. But after this we walked directly into the native rainforest of New Zealand . It was somewhere here where my knee and feet started hurting. The reason my knee started hurting was because I broke my upper leg once in an accident and this is an injury I will have to walk with the rest of my life. Most of the time I don’t feel it anymore but after the walk we had already done, it really began to hurt. We constantly had to make little jumps from about half a metre and that began to be a bit painful after walking for six hours. The walk had almost come to an end and with Zheni’s help (what a sweetheart) we finally made it!

It was a really impressive walk and besides the fact I could hardly stand on my legs afterwards, I would do the same walk again and again. Besides the bungy, skydive and caving, this was definitely one of the best things we done so far in New Zealand . It was for sure the best (and hardest) walk I ever done in my life. Luckily I was still completely white and this way I earned my money back! J

Finally we could go to where we were staying. We spent this night in a luxurious ski-resort; the Park , where we were supposed to have a group meal. Pretty exhausted from our hike we decided to make a little siesta after we had a shower (I could hardly get any water on my legs, because they were burnt so much). Zheni set the alarm for eight. Instead of putting the alarm at eight PM, she set the alarm for eight AM. I woke up after a little bit of sleeping because my legs were burning really bad. I was confused when I saw the time. I asked Zheni if she didn’t put the alarm on and then we found out that I was lucky to burn my legs, otherwise we would never have woke up. We were already late for the group meal but we could still enjoy a beer and afterwards dive back into our bed. Fortunately Stray keeps in mind that the Tongariro Crossing is pretty exhausting and we were able to sleep in an extra hour. The next day we left at nine in the morning.

Day 6 – 15 November 2008

After a fabulous night of sleep we woke up and prepared ourselves to get on the bus and continue our travel to Wellington . Wellington has been the Capital of New Zealand since 1865.

On our way we went through places like Taihape, which is famous for its ‘gumboot throwing’ as it was invented here. Haha, you have to be a Kiwi for these kinds of inventionsJ.

We also passed by a little place named Bulls. Nice story about this place: in the Second World War they produced milk here, which led to a confusing text on the packaging of the milk: Milk from Bulls! Ricky made a stop especially for me in this town. He said that if I miss home, I would enjoy the nearby shop. And indeed, it is a Dutch shop where they sell all kind of Dutch products. I bought a bag of ‘pepernoten’ (typically for the ‘Sinterklaas’ party we have in the Netherlands on the fifth of December), and some other things I used to eat back home. Hmmm!!

Once we arrived in Wellington we made a small loop through the city to familiarise ourselves a bit and we also visited a beautiful viewing point from where we got a great view over the city and the surrounding areas.

We hear that the locals have a name for their city: windy Wellington . This name is perfect for the city because it is always windy here. We almost got blown off our viewpoint! Haha. After being here the bus brought us back to our hostel. Tonight we stayed in a hostel called Base, which was the worst from this week. Not that it was so terribly bad in there or whatever, but just because it was a heritage building and it was really noisy there. After we got settled in our room, which we shared with a German girl and a guy from England , we walked to the national museum of New Zealand , called Te Papa. There is free entry for the museum and that sort of thing always sounds good to the Dutch! Inside the walls of the museum you can find many exhibitions about the history of New Zealand , the Maoris, the cultural history, the immigrants, the birds from New Zealand and the underwater world. I know that I have definitely forgotten to mention lots of things. There were so many things to see here and we only had two hours left before closing time. The best thing we experienced was the fact that there was a sort of exhibition outside of the fourth floor. There were some sort of hard (really hard) plastic eggs and Zheni thought she had to disable one of them. She gave one of the eggs a karate kick and afterwords DjuDji (Karate name of Zheni) gave the egg a huge head butt which made her find out how hard the egg was and it gave her a headache (she thought it was sort of a balloon) hahaha, if I think about it now I start laughing again. Once we got out of the museum we discussed what we were going to do that night. Because we were only going to spend one night in Wellington we wanted to do something different then going into a local bar, so we ended up going to the movies. We saw the movie ‘Mirrors’ here, it is an original and scary horror movie. I can recommend this movie to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. After seeing this movie we walked back to our hostel and talked for a while with the English man and German girl whom we shared our room with. We decide to go for a beer in the bar underneath the hostel. Here we saw the All Blacks playing and we saw some really smooth dancing moves from people enjoying the music. After just two beers we already had enough of this bar and so we went to bed.

Day 7 – 16 November 2008

On our last day we get back on the bus around 7 AM. Today the bus took us from Wellington to Auckland . It is a long journey and most of the day was spent in the bus.

On our way home we made the necessary toilet stops and during the evening we arrived back in Auckland . Our driver was nice enough to drop us at a spot close to our house. We called our housemate and he came to pick us up. Pffff finally we could rest a bit. The next day normal life starts again and I had to go to work!

Thanks for reading my report about my week on the Stray New Zealand Backpacker bus . It was a great week and I would recommend the Stray NZ bus tour  to everybody who wants to go to New Zealand one day! I had the best time with them!

Peace, Frank