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Some of you may have been wondering what happened to NZ Week 2, well life happened I suppose, I got sent to Coventry, we got very busy and the precious memories I had set about diarising got neglected, but thankfully before they start to fade too far into the distance I have found a spare moment to set my fingers typing.

So we left off with the sun setting over Lake Taupo in the heart of NZ’s north island. From there we made our way to place called National Park. And when I say that I mean “the” National Park, not “a national park”. It’s actually a town if you see what I mean. Only in NZ. Quaintly named outback towns aside, we awoke early the next morning for what would be the single most adventuresome thing we did on our trip generally known as “The Tongariro Crossing”. A 19km walk across the ridge that passes between two largely dormant volcanoes called Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe. It is said to be the finest one day walk of all, but what they don’t tell you is what you’re letting yourself in for.

It begins at a gentle canter up the lower edges of the mountain terrain, but just as you’re getting into the rhythm things start to get a little steeper, then a bit steeper, and then steeper still, until you are eventually climbing with hands and feet up craggy volcanic boulders at about a forty-five degree incline. Perhaps an hour or so later you reach an extraorindary, other-worldly plateau that wows you with its crimson and black coloured panoramic views. It doesn’t last however, before long you’re on the ascent again, climbing to over 6000ft along the conventional route. For the hard core walkers a diversionary path can be taken to scale Mt. Tongariro in full. Another hour on, calves, quads and other muscles you weren’t aware existed and don’t know the name of are aching and imploring you for respite. When it arrives, it does so in typical NZ scenic wonder. The Emerald lakes deep green waters are astounding not just for the richness of their colour, but for the mere fact they even exist in the midst of the arid landscape.

The initial descent is also quite sharp and proves an unstable and windy affair that eventually leads you to the half way point. From here on in its all downhill and the scenes best described by Tolkein’s middle earth give way to something normally associated with the Amazon, lush, verdant and relentless rainforest. Your last few hours are spent on a gentle downward tilt shrouded on every side by palms and ferns, the occasional brook trickling down a rocky aperture in the mountainside and the unending wail of unseen cicadas furiously rubbing their wings together in the upper reaches of the trees. And then there is the end, the conquest-filled joy of legs collapsing underneath you and the satisfaction of knowing gravity can no longer burden you as long as you are laid out on the ground. Later that night there was sleep and lots of it.

The day after the big walk was supposed to be spent on one of the many fine beaches of New Zealand’s Kapiti coast, where I spent many a weekend in my youth swimming in the Pacific and consuming innumerable cones of Tip Top ice cream. Sadly, this was the first day that the weather was not in our favour. On the rainy-day recommendation of the Lodge-owner we rerouted our course to go via Waiouru and its National Army Museum, a fine exhibition of artefacts and regalia from the ANZAC involvement in the world wars among other memorial tributes and a vast collection of veteran’s medals. Despite the grey skies we still headed for my childhood home, the Hutt Valley, via the shores of the Kapiti, we even stopped off for a short nostalgic walk along the sands of Paraparaumu beach, better known as Paraparam. They were eerily familiar, almost like the same grains were laying there as those I played on some fifteen years earlier.

The next five days were spent the region of Wellington where I grew up. We stayed in Upper Hutt with my hugely hospitable cousin and his family. They took us up Wellington’s Mt. Victoria to take in the best view over the city and its harbour and then put on a good old Kiwi BBQ for us and other family. We also went back in time to some of the locales of my childhood, including my old house, primary school and the park I loved playing in as a kid. Strangely, I still rather enjoyed it! We also visited old friends from our time serving at the Baha’i World Centre now settled in the steeps of Wellington and still other family and friends in and around Lower Hutt including my long lost best friend Andre, his wife and kids which was truly a night of much nostalgia. We also managed to squeeze in one day to take in New Zealand’s national museum Te Papa in Wellington which is home to the world’s only fully intact Colossal Squid, as well as other excellent displays including an earthquake simulation, a 3-D holographic presentation and plenty of Maori art and architecture.

After a great time catching up, laughter, fun and reminiscing it was time to leave the north Island and cross the choppy Cook Strait to the larger, but less populated south island on board the Picton ferry. From Picton we took the coastal Queen Charlotte Drive to Nelson, a small town on the northern edges of south island within striking distance of Abel Tasman National Park where we’d take our second tramping trip, but that’s about enough for now. Abel Tasman, Kaikoura, Ashburton and Christchurch will appear in a whirlwind account of Week 3. Until then…