10 Feb 2026 NEW ZEALAND TRIP
I was away from January 26 until February 10. The day after, was the 39th anniversary of my arrival in Australia from the UK as a new resident. I determined to rectify the omission of favouring other overseas destinations over New Zealand after my return from the UK and Europe at the beginning of August, 2024. During my stay in England I was given advance notice of the wedding of my ex brother-in-law’s daughter at a castle in Ireland in August 2026. Planning two overseas trips in the same year was a novelty and a challenge to my finances, though I paid for the New Zealand flights, insurance, accommodation and tours between August 8 and December 17 2025.
The Air New Zealand flight from Brisbane to Auckland on a 787, my favourite plane, was excellent; the food good, and I watched Paddington in Peru, which I had missed in the cinema. I’m averse to lugging my case long distances. Alas, due to a stuff-up retrieving it at Auckland’s International Terminal, thanks to our flight’s luggage being unloaded onto two carousels, my already tight deadline to check in for my flight to Kerikeri, seemed unachievable, in the absence of a prompt shuttle bus connection to the Domestic Terminal. Instead, I endured a fifteen minute plus brisk walk with suitcase in tow. Fortunately, the flight to Kerikeri was delayed, so I could recover from the stress of having to walk to the terminal.
Kerikeri
A local taxi had been booked to take me to the Puketi Forest next morning to see the Kauri trees, but thankfully, the driver greeted me on arrival. The motel which had been booked for the night, was told by Booking.com that I was checking in at midday and had told the driver, who, because of my non-appearance so far, was there to meet the plane.
Fortuitously, the very affable driver, wasn’t sure on which road the entrance to the Kauri Grove was located. Two roads confronted us when we reached the forest. The driver took the wrong road, but dropped me off at the entrance to a rainforest walk, agreeing to pick me up an hour later. The walk was utterly enchanting; the tree ferns generally bigger than those in our rainforest here. Although New Zealand lacks Australia’s variety of flora species, the vegetation has a great density of growth. There were many immense Kauri trees on the walk, some covered in vines. Because New Zealand’s rainforest is classified as warm temperate, it contains a native palm, the Nikau, whereas there are no palms in Tasmania’s cold temperate rainforest. To make up for being late, the taxi driver was determined to find the entrance to the Kauri Grove, now knowing which road to take. You had to look carefully or you would easily have driven past it. One can walk the grove, partly on a path, partly on board, in little more than fifteen minutes, but the concentration of mighty Kauri trees is most impressive and the atmosphere is quite different, the forest here being more open and without the variety of vegetation elsewhere.
Auckland
My hotel in Auckland was centrally located, just round the corner from the bus station and my bus to Rotorua, but not on the harbour front, which was a decent walk away, downhill going, uphill returning.
After breakfast I made for the harbour intending to book a boat tour. The jetty was next to the cruise ship terminal, alongside which was the 76,000 ton Norwegian Spirit. I hung around the public area of the terminal for an extended period as passengers came and went, fascinated as ever by the size of the ship.
The harbour trip lasted an hour and a half. I found a seat near the stern of the boat which sheltered me from the stiff breeze which blew when I stood at the rail studying the passing scene. The harbour is huge. The more distant view to the left was of Auckland’s many hilly suburbs, with buildings stretching out along the shore. The nearer view to the right was of a succession of more suburbs, some at water level, some on the side of a hill. We circumnavigated the harbour’s largest island volcano, Rangitoto, which rises to a height of 260 metres and is uninhabited, but has walking tracks for visitors. As we sailed towards it, we lost sight of the port and the city centre. The harbour seemed to stretch out for miles beyond the island. On our return we came close to New Zealand’s naval base, with a number of grey warships visible amongst the quays and buildings. As we neared the landing stage, I was thrilled to notice a car carrier readying to dock at the port and spent the hour after I had disembarked, watching her being tied up and starting to unload her cargo of new vehicles. To obtain the best view I walked for some distance past the wonderfully ornamental cast iron red fence, built in the early years of the last century, the piers on either side of the many gates surmounted by splendid lanterns. The iron work is as good as I have seen anywhere and on a larger scale.
Rotorua
I had time for another visit to the port before I took the bus to Rotorua. A smaller Viking cruise ship occupied the berth vacated by the Norwegian Spirit and the car carrier was still disgorging its cargo.
I am not a fan of long-distance bus travel ever since I passed many anxious minutes sitting at the window of a coach trying to overtake another coach on a motorway in England decades ago. The four-and-a-half hour trip to Rotorua via Hamilton was comfortable and incident free. The coach wasn’t full so I had the seat next to me for myself. So many people in Australia told me that the North Island is dull compared with the splendours of the South Island, but everything I saw was new to me and engaged my attention as much as the sights of the South Island, otherwise, why would I bother to travel. One thing which struck me shortly after we left Hamilton was the many deer farms, the like of which I had not seen before. The fields in New Zealand are far smaller than those in Australia and plenty were packed with sheep and cattle.
The accommodation in Rotorua was very good. I was booked on a tour to the geothermal sites next day. In the early evening I went for a stroll to the lake and met a young German student. He told me that there was a Redwood Grove close to the edge of town which he wanted to see. I added a visit to my schedule after the geothermal tour. I arranged for the taxi driver who took me there, to pick me up afterwards and drive me to the Redwood Grove. The tour was a celebration of Maori culture, like so much that I encountered in the country. It is far more integrated in society than aboriginal culture is in Australia – not surprising given the status of the Treaty of Waitangi. Also, nearly twenty percent of the population is Maori, whereas Australia’s first nation people form only four percent of its population. Bi-lingual signage is commonplace.
There are five hundred geothermal features in the Geothermal Valley, which is a historically significant Maori location. Fortunately, the different features can all be found in reasonably close proximity. The road to the town is right next to the site, which is a unique element in the surrounding landscape, although there are other accessible locations with geothermal activity in the North Island. The Te Puia tour started at an imposing building containing displays of artifacts, a kiwi conservation centre and studios where one can watch artworks being made. Our guide met us there, and after we had seen kiwis, nocturnal creatures, in pens which simulated night time, admired the beautifully crafted art and watched the skilled artisans at work, we started the walk to the geothermal features, namely pools of boiling water, pools with bubbling mud and the main geyser, which was fairly active throughout my stay, even if it didn’t attain maximum ferocity. As is my wont, I went off-piste and saw steaming pools with sulphur-encrusted rocky surrounds.
Eventually, I was able to engage the taxi to take me to the Redwood Grove. The driver waived the waiting time charge on the understanding that he would take me from my hotel to the bus, in time for the drive to my overnight stop in Hamilton. The Redwood Grove was planted in 1913 and covers six hectares. It was uncannily similar to the Muir Woods stand near San Francisco, since it seemed to contain no other species of tree and was almost as majestic. Redwoods were introduced to the UK in the middle of the nineteenth century by landed gentry to embellish their status, much in the same spirit as the introduction and cultivation of pineapples in the eighteenth century. The tallest redwood in the UK is a fifty eight metre specimen in Scotland, whereas a few trees in the Rotorua grove are more than seventy metres high and sixty years younger. Ironically, there are more redwoods in the UK than in their native habitat in California.
The most intriguing sight on the journey to Hamilton was a long array of whitish stone columns shortly after we left Cambridge. They were not basalt, but appeared to be volcanic, as indeed they were – namely ignimbrite, the result of cooling and hardening of ancient pyroclastic flows.
Northern Explorer
The next morning, I arrived at Hamilton’s station in plenty of time to board the Northern Explorer, New Zealand Rail’s premier train, which links Auckland and the nation’s capital Wellington. I had hoped to have a coffee and a bite to eat, but the station had no catering facilities. When the train arrived, my suitcase was taken to the luggage van and I went to find the seat I had been allocated. Mercifully it was an aisle seat in the direction of travel. It hardly mattered that it wasn’t a window seat, because the superbly designed carriage had enormous, spotlessly clean windows which allowed everyone to enjoy the views. The gauge is the same as Queensland’s, 3 feet 6 inches. The scenery was varied ranging from fields (many full of sheep and cows) to hills (where I noticed more ignimbrite outcrops) to broad rivers and the challenging terrain of the Central Volcanic Plateau which contains the highest point on the railway. It is reached by a long climb from the North and the South, aided by some stunning, even revolutionary, engineering, which enabled the line to meet the challenge. That from the North, involves a loop, spiral tunnels and three viaducts crossing different rivers, most notably the superb steel truss Makatoke viaduct, seventy nine metres above the river. From the South, the line negotiates the Rangitikei River Gorges with their twists and turns and five viaducts spanning the river, four over seventy metres above the water. The North Rangitikei Viaduct is eighty one metres, the tallest on the line.
The highlight of the journey was spending more than an hour in the company of Mt Ruapehu. I had hoped to see it, but wasn’t sure if I could get close. As we approached Rotorua from Hamilton, we entered mountainous country and I saw a distant volcano to the East. On the way back, I looked out for it and we came closer on the way to Cambridge, but it just wasn’t high enough. Nonetheless, seeing it gave me great pleasure, but nowhere near the thrill of first catching sight of Mt Ruapehu and drawing ever closer as we approached National Park Station which serves tourists visiting Tongariro National Park whether for skiing or hiking. It is New Zealand’s tallest volcano, just under 2,800 metres high. It is still active and towers over the surrounding land. Standing at the open carriage door, I absorbed the sight. There were ice patches below the plateau-like rim of the crater covering the grey rock. The perfect cone of Mt Tongariro rose just to the left of Ruapehu, some fifteen to twenty kilometres beyond it, and considerably more from the station, which, at an altitude of 814 meters, is the highest point on the line. There was quite a bustle of people using the station.
The train progresses in a wide arc around the base of Ruapehu with nothing to interrupt the view for a considerable distance, before its dramatic journey through the Rangitikei River Gorges with their lofty viaducts. The line follows the descent of the ever-widening river through lush vegetation and a number of communities, until it reaches the Tasman Sea, at which point it runs next to the ocean and is never far from it as it nears Wellington. The line’s last few kilometres include a tunnel which is more than four kilometres long, by far the longest on the route.
Wellington
I spent four nights and three days in Wellington, having arranged to spend time with a family relative from England, who has made the city his home for three years. I first met Tom in Brisbane two years ago when he visited his aunt and again early last year when they drove to the mountain and I showed him the sights, which he loved. He generously offered to show me around for the last two days of my stay. The hotel’s entrance was an uphill drive from the station, so that I feared I would have a strenuous walk from the waterfront. Mercifully, the reception desk was on the top floor. The ground floor entrance was on Lambton Quay, the main shopping street and more or less on the same level as the station. Not far from the entrance, I found a Chinese restaurant and had a very good dinner and just across the road was a café which served an excellent breakfast. Before I flew to New Zealand, the one thing I planned to do in Wellington was to take the cable car and admire the view of the city from the top. My hotel could not have been better located, because the cable car ticket office was a few doors along the street.
Cable car is a misnomer for funicular. It is one of the city’s major visitor attractions and opened to the public in February 1902. It rises 120 metres to Kelburn, affording a magnificent view of the central city and part of the harbour. The ticket includes entry to the museum in the original winding house at Kelburn which is adjacent to the Botanical Garden. The star exhibit is one of the original cars. On the other side of the concourse and up a flight of steps is a café which enjoys similar views to the official lookout, from its terrace and inside tables.
Having soaked up the view, I enquired about a shuttle bus service to Zealandia and was told that it was one of the most ambitious flora and fauna conservation projects anywhere. A short ride brought me to the entrance. Wellington is a hilly city. Level ground is mainly in the vicinity of the waterfront which extends for a great distance and in the Hutt river valley, but most of the city’s buildings are on the side of a hill. Zealandia lies in a densely wooded valley, two lakes linked by a watercourse and a walking track forming its floor, with a network of tracks on its right slope. The opposite side is closed to the public and contains much of the sanctuary’s protected area. In all, Zealandia covers 275 hectares within an 8.6 kilometre pest proof fence; homo sapiens being on the list of pests. Fencing the area and eliminating non-native flora and fauna species within it, took several years. One has to clean one’s footwear before entering the sanctuary proper from the visitor centre. I had to disinfect my shoes on entering and leaving the Kauri forest.
I opted for the Valley View Track, where I saw all but one of the five birds, and heard another, among the fourteen listed on the reverse of the map I was given. A weta and tuatara were also listed. I saw plenty of the latter obligingly basking in the sun, from the Lake Road viewing fence of the research area. A tuatara is a unique reptile, the last of its once dominant order. It is not a lizard, which belongs to a different order. At first glance, a tuatara resembles a water dragon with a shorter and thinner tail. I spent more than two engrossing hours at Zealandia. The shuttle bus took me to the cable car station. Given the proximity of the Botanical Garden, I felt like killing two birds with one stone, in spite of its lack of eye-catching planting when I had a look at it on leaving the museum. After lunch at the café, I crossed the concourse and entered the Botanical Garden. The dominant impression was that it covered a very steep incline and that the nearest of the listed attractions was a long way down the hill. I made a start, but gave up before I was faced with an arduous climb to the cable car station. The walk back was longer and steeper than I had anticipated.
Having glimpsed a cruise ship from the lookout, I set out to see how close I could get to it. On the way, I passed the ferry terminal from which I was due to sail to the South Island. The cruise ship was moored a fair distance beyond it. The area became increasingly industrial and not friendly for pedestrians, forcing me to abandon my quest. Dinner beckoned, but alas, the Chinese restaurant was closed.
Tom met me at the hotel the following morning. He was on foot and wanted to show me the national museum which is known by its Maori name, Te Papa, in its distinguished building on the water front. The museum has vivid displays of New Zealand’s geology, its geography, its native flora and fauna (too many of which, particularly the fauna, are extinct) and its cultural history. We entered an earthquake simulator whose essential element was a wooden floor which accommodated up to a dozen people in front of a screen showing a scripted film of a mother and son apparently enduring an actual earthquake in their kitchen, complete with items dislodged from shelves and the table. The movement of the quake mildly shook the floor and its sound was rather diffusely reproduced. I think a live quake would have been terrifying. The simulation was an entertainment.
In the afternoon Tom picked me up in his car and drove me around Wellington, initially along the foreshore, before ascending to Victoria Lookout with its immense views not only of the city, but of the entire harbour and its entrance on the Cook Strait. The port, where cruise ships tie up, cargo ships dock and the ferries linking the North and South Islands berth, is eleven kilometres from the entrance. Ships require between forty and sixty minutes to cover the distance. Two cruise ships were clearly visible. We drove through more suburbs before Tom dropped me off, arranging to collect me for dinner as my guest.
My choice was Italian. The main feature of the restaurant Tom selected, was a communal table. The food was tasty. We parted at my hotel, agreeing the time for tomorrow’s drive to the wine producing district he wanted to show me.
We went to one of the many vineyards for an enjoyable wine tasting. It rained intermittently during the day. We were both ready for lunch and drove to the nearby town, the tourist centre of the district, with a main street full of attractive shops and buildings, one of them a pub which he favoured for its food. It was raining when we parked, but we strolled along most of its length on either side. Tom treated me to a convivial lunch at the pub, a substantial, historic building with a stylish restaurant. We both wanted to rest a bit before having dinner, to which I had invited him and his girlfriend (she is delightful). They picked me up at the hotel and we drove to Wellington’s night life district, The Indian restaurant where Tom had booked a table was large and rather empty. I took my leave of Tom and Divya. We all looked forward to catching up at the wedding in Ireland, for it is Tom’s sister who is getting married.
Onward by ship and train
Wellington is not only hilly, it is notoriously windy. I watched the turbulent waters of the harbour apprehensively, fearing that the Cook Strait might live up to its reputation for a rough crossing. I was advised to check in for the ferry more than an hour before its 8.15 am departure. Leaving Wellington was the first of four early starts. The Connemara, at 27,414 tons, was the biggest ship I have sailed in. The passage to Picton takes three and a half hours, an hour and a half of which is in the Cook Strait. I had booked a seat in the lounge, which included food and drink. Cloud obscured the distant views. We were blessed with a smooth crossing. The passage through Wellington harbour, was rougher without being at all rough.
A shuttle bus took us to the station. We had more than a two hour wait for the Coastal Pacific train. The route to Christchurch follows the east coast for much of the journey. Again, I had an aisle seat in the direction of travel. Low cloud hid what was supposedly a dramatic panorama of the mountains. I was underwhelmed by the view of the sea, which was further from the train and devoid of features, compared with the best journeys in the UK. The fact that the carriage windows were not spotlessly clean, didn’t matter.
Tranzalpine to Franz Josef
The line travels East/West for more than two hundred and thirty kilometres from sea level in Christchurch to sea level in Greymouth traversing the Southern Alps. The highest point on the line is Arthur’s Pass, 740 metres above sea level. Yesterday’s cloud yielded to clear, sunny skies. It took quite a while for the train to reach the foothills of the Southern Alps. For the third occasion, I had been allocated an aisle seat in the direction of travel. The windows were spotless, which makes a huge difference to one’s enjoyment of the view. A succession of broad vistas of ice-capped peaks alternated with deep gorges as the scenery became more spectacular. The braided rivers are a fascinating element of the landscape. They are commonly found in mountainous or glacial regions, in areas with steep slopes and high sediment loads and form wide, multi-channel valleys a long way from the sea. For the final few kilometres to Greymouth, the train runs next to the Tasman Sea. It was altogether more alluring than the entire Coastal Pacific route. At journey’s end, I was walking to the front of the train to collect my suitcase, when a well-dressed man whose appearance could not have been more different to all the other passengers, descended from a carriage in front of me. In an instant I realised that the man was Michael Portillo. I greeted him, saying Mr Portillo, how great to meet you. I enjoy your programmes, and he turned and beamed at me. He looked in peak condition. Fortunately, the camera crew and production unit were between takes.
The bus to Franz Josef was waiting alongside the luggage van. It wasn’t full and I had the seat next to me to myself. It was as comfortable as the other intercity buses on which I travelled. The nearer we got to Franz Josef the lower the clouds descended. By the time we pulled up at my accommodation, none of the mountains were visible. One wouldn’t have known that a major glacier was in the vicinity. The only scheduled activity next day was a tour of the West Coast Wildlife Centre which was a five minute walk from the motel. It featured an encounter with a kiwi and with several tuatara, one of which had dropped its tail and was growing a new one, rather like an eastern water dragon in Australia. It was raining heavily and I was glad I had packed the jumbo folding umbrella which I bought in London. I handed the umbrella in before I started the tour and, to my total chagrin and disbelief, was told, on claiming it, that it had been given to someone else. The recipient must have known that the umbrella didn’t belong to them. I received a cheap replacement.
Franz Josef to Queenstown
I was booked on two small-group tours which concluded my time in New Zealand. The first was from a still-cloudy Franz Josef to Queenstown, via Fox Glacier. The guide had a hunch that we could see the glacier from the lookout. Remarkably, a gap in the clouds which obscured the peaks of the Southern Alps, revealed the full extent of the Glacier. The clouds lifted as we drove through ice-capped mountains and along the shores of two large lakes. A braided river valley filled the gap between them, in places extremely narrow, in places, quite broad. We ascended to 1,121 metres, the maximum elevation of New Zealand’s highest main road, shortly before beginning our precipitate descent to Queenstown. It was a long tour and I was glad to be dropped at my accommodation, close to the airport and a $4 bus ride to the waterfront.
I had a free day before the Milford Sound tour. The bus stop was just round the corner from the motel, and I enjoyed a leisurely drive through the suburbs to the waterfront. Queenstown was full of visitors from all over the world. It nestles against the high mountains and steep slopes at the end of Lake Wakatipu. In the morning I took the gondola to a lookout which is 480 metres, nearly the height of Tamborine Mountain, above the city. I made my way to the steam ship booking office, in the vain hope that I might buy a ticket for one of the six daily Earnslaw lake cruises. Of course, the boat was fully booked, but a manager, working at the back of the office, told one of the sales team that a ticket was available for the 3.30 cruise at a cost of $115, which I eagerly paid. I had time to kill and walked around the waterfront with its numerous cafés, restaurants and up-market shops. On alighting from the bus, I noticed a large Chinese restaurant on the first floor of a harbour front building, with panoramic windows overlooking the water. It didn’t take me long to find it. The food wasn’t quite as tasty as I had expected it to be, but at least, I ate my main meal for the day.
The Earnslaw is a screw propeller, coal powered steam ship, which was built in 1912. It weighs three hundred and thirty tons and is 51.2 m long. When built, it was licensed to carry over 1,000 passengers, though nowadays it carries 250. The lake cruise takes somewhat over an hour and a half. The boat is about the same vintage as the Swiss lake paddle steamers. They, and the ocean-going paddle steamer Waverley, are oil-fired. One can watch the Earnslaw’s stokers feeding the boiler with coal. The ship retains many of the original brass fittings in its saloon. It may reach a height above water level to the tip of the master of seventy feet or more. It is utterly dwarfed by the mountains it cruises past on the far shore. This was a scene to which I would return on the day of my departure to Australia.
Milford Sound
The Milford Sound Tour was the longest of my stay. We drove almost six hundred kilometres there and back, but in concluding my time in New Zealand on the tour, I had saved the best till last. The guide maintained a steady pace through farmland and into the mountains, until we reached Te Anau, where we had a short break on New Zealand’s second largest lake. From this point, the guide stopped for us to admire a number of characteristic features of the terrain, including the savannah-like expanse of the Eglington Valley, which follows the path of an ancient glacier through Fiordland. Perhaps the most eye-catching feature, short of the Sound itself, was the Mirror Lakes, on a boardwalk overlooking a stretch of tranquil water roughly thirty metres wide, which took in the entire reflections of the distant Earl Mountains. For this vista to be so completely captured in such a narrow channel of water was unique in my experience. As we arrived at the boardwalk, a duck created a ripple in the water, but beyond that first view, its pristine surface worked its magic. We pulled up at a couple of waterfalls before descending to the Sound via a tunnel which only allows one-way traffic.
Time and again on my travels, having familiarised the distinctive features of a major destination, I find that some- how, they are hidden from sight as I arrive. I was in any case confused by the Sound’s topography, thinking that it stretched for many miles inland. It was only after we parked that I actually saw the water and the iconic Mitre Peak, which rises sheer for a mile. We had a tasty picnic lunch on the boat as we cruised the dozen kilometres or so to the mouth of the Sound. There were many waterfalls cascading down the rock face. The captain took us close to a rocky islet on which a group of juvenile fur seals were resting. None of the many vessels which ply the Sound are really big, so that when they are seen against the immense slope of the mountains and the waterfalls tumbling for hundreds of metres on the far shore, they appear far tinier than the boats on Lake Wakapitu. We didn’t stop on the way back to Queenstown, other than at the obligatory halt at Te Anau.
My flight to Brisbane only left at five thirty the next day. I had plenty of time to take the bus to the waterfront and watch the boats vanish in the distant reaches of the lake. My Virgin flight operated effectively as a domestic sector, with the same penny-pinching offers of refreshments and entertainment, in spite of the fact that we landed at the International Terminal. The flight was on time and trouble-free. It is good to be home and free from feeling cold, which I often did in New Zealand. Like Tasmania, it is a beautiful place, but never reliably warm.