To The North

Our last month in New Zealand

By Heather & Pravin

May 11^th, 2020

Working on a Passionfruit Farm

After saying goodbye to our friends in New Plymouth, we hit the road towards the Bay of Plenty, hoping to pick up some work in the kiwifruit packhouses. We had heard terrible rumours of long, monotonous days of repetitive motion in giant export packhouses, but the work was steadier than outside picking in the orchards, where you were sure to lose a number of days of work to rain, as kiwifruit cannot be picked in the rain. We wanted to put in a couple of weeks of hard work to top up our bank accounts one last time in New Zealand, and the Bay of Plenty seemed to be where it was at in terms of being able to show up and get a job at a moment's notice. On the drive across the island, I came across a posting in a backpacker Facebook group for a small passionfruit farm that was looking for a couple to come and work the latter half of the passionfruit season. This sounded a lot more interesting than packing kiwifruit, and the wage they were offering was also quite a bit higher. I sent the poster a quick introductory message, and then we were told to show up the next day. We got a quick tour of the farm, which was located in Katikati, a little north of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui. It was the retirement/"passion" project of an older Kiwi-Aussie couple, and a couple of temporary workers that they employed were moving on and so we agreed to be their replacements. We found a guesthouse on an avocado orchard nearby that rented out bunk rooms to horticulture workers, but the woman who owned the place was absolutely lovely and insisted on renting us a self-catering suite that adjoined her house for the same (very low) price as the bunkrooms.

Pravin's duties around the farm mainly revolved around picking and washing the passionfruit, and then filling whatever remained of his day with farm chores like weeding, planting, cutting back gorse (an incredibly hardy and invasive species), and spraying fields. I was mostly confined to the packhouse, where I polished, graded, sorted and packed the delicate passionfruit. The best fruit was polished and packed and flown off for export to the USA that same day, while the lesser quality fruit was sold domestically. A couple of times, we hauled out the pulping machine, which took in whole fruit, split them open and (very messily) squeezed out the pulp and juice and spat the skins into a separate bin. The pulp was strained and sold off, or used for "passion" projects such as passionfruit-infused cider, which was in partnership with a local cidery. Other than in the packhouse, I also spent many hours shovelling dirt and filling up thousands of potting bags with soil for new passionfruit plants. Overall it was quite mindless work and I consumed dozens upon dozens of hours of podcasts!

Roturoa

We sorted out our jobs on the farm on a Friday and were meant to start work on the Monday, so in between we did a quick weekend trip to Roturoa, which is about 90 minutes from Katikati, and famed for the geothermal springs surrounding the town (and in fact, within it!). We were planning on camping for the weekend, but the weather was lousy and we decided to look into alternate accommodations. We found a hostel that was run by absolutely the nicest guy ever, and he lets backpackers sleep in their campervans/vehicles outside his hostel and use all the hostel's facilities for only $5/pp/night. It was a great deal for unlimited hot showers, use of a giant commercial kitchen, and plenty of lounge chairs and couches to relax in. We spent the weekend exploring the geothermal pools and features around town, which were equal parts frightening and fascinating. We soaked in several of the natural pools, including one really neat area where two branches of a river come together - one side is cold, while the other is steaming hot.

Coromandel

After 3 weeks of work at the passionfruit farm, our bank accounts were happy again and we finished up our last day of work early and hit the road for the Coromandel Peninsula. Our first stop was Hot Water Beach, and we made it just at the right tidal time. Hot Water Beach gets its name from the fact that there are underground hot springs that bubble up from under the sand between the high tide and low tide lines. You need a shovel to dig your own personal hot tub, so you either bring your own or rent one from one of the many entrepreneurs in town. We rented one and headed down to the sand, and it was quite the sight - there were so many people crowded into the small area where the hot springs came up! We chose a free spot at random and dug until we hit hot water, but it's actually quite tricky to get it right - if you dig too far, your hot tub quickly becomes unbearably hot, but if you pick the wrong spot or don't dig far enough, you're left sitting in a sandy pool of cold seawater. We were constantly having to adjust our pool because the sides are prone to collapse and the temperature can change quite quickly. It was a really neat experience and totally understandable why so many people go there!

We camped for the night at Hahei, and woke up to an absolutely spectacular sunrise. We made coffee on the beach while we took it all in, and then eventually packed up our campsite and headed off for a hike to Cathedral Cove in the Te Whanganui-A-Hei Marine Reserve. Cathedral Cove is another extremely popular tourist spot, but because we headed there first thing in the morning, we were able to beat most of the crowds during the one hour hike down and pretty much had the beach all to ourselves. The coast is gorgeous and dotted with white sandy beaches and rocky outcroppings and framed by pohutukawa trees. At Cathedral Cove, a giant archway in the rocks joins two beautiful beaches, and large sea stacks topped with vegetation sit in the water just off the coast.

From Cathedral Cove, we had a long and winding drive up to the very northern tip of the Coromandel at Port Jackson. During the drive, the weather changed dramatically for the worse. As we drove through the last town on the peninsula, it started bucketing rain. As we drove further north on washboard gravel roads, it was raining so hard that we had to pull over at times because we could not see a thing. The wind was howling and the air was just completely saturated with water. It was right about then that I felt a drop of water hit my face. I looked up in shock, and the interior dome light had filled with water and was now dripping onto me! We also noticed that there were dark wet spots spreading around the border where the interior sides of the wagon met the cloth roof, and we realized that we somehow had a leak. There were two large sunroofs, and we assumed that one of the seals must have given out with the onslaught of rain combined with the vibrations of driving on a gravel road. We pulled over, cut the engine and pulled off the light covers so that we could drain the water and try to avoid electrical issues, as we were completely in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, the rain started to let up a bit, so after partially dealing with the water inside the vehicle, we continued on toward the campsite. We were lucky that the sun came out by the time we arrived at the expansive beach, and the heat from the sun dried the interior pretty quickly.

Port Jackson was a recommendation from the lovely owner of the avocado orchard where we had rented a room while working in the Bay of Plenty, and we were so happy that we had taken her advice - it was a stunning spot and the perfect place to spend a few days relaxing.

Although the campground is fully packed all summer long, we arrived in shoulder season and there were only a few other campers around, and the campground was enormous so we had tons of space to ourselves. It was very, very windy in the evenings, and there were some old-school Kiwi campers with large, heavy-duty canvas tents that took it upon themselves to let us know that our tiny tent would never survive the windy nights. We were quite confident that they were wrong, having tested it out in a wide variety of conditions, including gale-force Patagonia winds, and lo and behold, it didn't fail us! It was indeed very windy and we did angle the car around to block some of the wind, mainly for noise, but we were quite cozy and comfortable. There were some beautiful hikes to do in the area that took us high above the beach amongst herds of sheep, and there was a nice covered picnic area with a sink and a BBQ grill, so we spent our evenings playing cribbage and drinking wine and watching the stars come out.

Northland

After Port Jackson, we decided to do a marathon drive in one day - all the way back down the Coromandel Peninsula, up north through Auckland on the sprawling motorway, and finally ending up at Uretiti Beach, just south of Whangarei. It was a total of about 350km, which is no small feat in one day on New Zealand's winding roads. The Auckland motorway was the largest, fastest and busiest road that we had seen or been on in a very long time - there is simply nothing comparable on the South Island. Our wagon had quite a difficult time keeping up to speed on some long uphill sections, and we were nervously hoping we wouldn't have any more engine trouble. Our time in New Zealand was coming to an end pretty quickly, and knowing that we would be selling the vehicle quite soon, we did not want to put another cent into it.

Uretiti Beach was another gem of a campsite on a long, gorgeous sandy beach. The campsite was informal and you could set up your site anywhere amongst a large field with gently rolling hills and expansive views. We spent the next day exploring the area and doing a beautiful hike called the Mangawhai Cliffs Walkway. It was a loop route that started on a long sandy surf beach, and eventually had you climbing over rocky outcroppings along the shoreline and dodging tide pools as you made your way towards the halfway point. Eventually, the trail climbed up through the forest and you found yourself on a stunning clifftop walkway that provided huge views in all directions. The trail took you back to the start all along the clifftop, in and out of unique vegetation and tropical ferns and palms. It was stunningly beautiful and we had the perfect weather to enjoy it in.

Later that afternoon, we decided to visit the Waipu Caves. New Zealand is famous for its glow worms, and we had already been lucky enough to visit several spots where you could see them at night. The Waipu Caves were rumoured to be something else altogether, and we were very excited. We drove a short distance from our campsite to the trailhead, then walked for a few minutes through the forest before we came to the cave entrance. There were a few other people there, but it wasn't too crowded. We didn't have to walk far into the dark cave system to notice that the ceilings were absolutely covered in glow worms! It was magical and peaceful, and although the darkness would be spoiled every so often by someone coming or going with their headlamp, we were able to just stand in the pure darkness for long stretches of time and marvel at the ceiling above us.

Waitangi

The Waitangi Treaty Grounds, in the Bay of Islands, were a stunning site to visit. This is the place where the Māori people signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the British monarchy in 1840, and they've done a wonderful job of developing the site into an educational attraction that highlights Māori culture and shows the history of the land from a Māori perspective. One of the most interesting things was seeing the large ceremonial waka (war canoe) that was carved from kauri trees and can fit up to 150 paddlers. Each year the waka is launched on Waitangi Day as part of the annual celebration and ceremony.

Cape Reinga

From the Bay of Islands, we drove north towards Cape Reinga. Stopping for the night to camp at the scenic Maitai Bay, we woke up very early the next morning and headed for the cape, which is quite literally, the end of the road! It's the most northern accessible point in New Zealand, and it is a spectacular place where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. From above, you can see that the two bodies of water each have their own distinct colour, and then all of a sudden they meet at Cape Reinga. The cape is a very special spot for Māori people; there is a pohutukawa tree that is over 800 years old at the very tip of the cape, and according to Māori oral history, the spirits of deceased Māoris leap from this tree into the ocean and are returned to their ancestral homeland.

Visiting Cape Reinga was quite moving - you can feel the spiritual reverence that the spot holds for so many people, and even for us, with it being the literal "end of the road", we felt the weight of knowing that our journey in New Zealand was almost over. We were so grateful to have been able to spend almost a year in this magical country, and it was sad to think that we were down to 10 days left before flying off to our next destination.

On the way back down from Cape Reinga, we had to stop by the Te Paki sand dunes. The dunes are enormous and stretch along the ocean for many kilometres. We definitely had sand in every crevice after leaping and frolicking in the dunes while the wind whipped up grains of sand around us!

Tane Mahuta

On our journey back down the North Island towards Auckland, there was one place that we were dying to visit. Tāne Mahuta is a majestic tree that is New Zealand's oldest known living kauri tree, and is very significant to Māori people. In Māori mythology, Tāne Mahuta is the son of Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, and all of the living creatures of the forest are considered to be the children of Tāne Mahuta. It's hard to describe seeing this tree - it's larger than you could ever imagine and no photograph could ever convey its elegance and majesty. It's so large that it is in fact the third-largest (known) tree in the world based on trunk volume.

Kauri trees are at huge risk in New Zealand right now due to a disease called kauri dieback disease, which is spread through soil. Before doing any walks where you might encounter kauri trees on Department of Conservation land, there is usually a footwash station where you are to scrub your footwear free of soil and then walk on a mat that contains a liquid disinfecting solution in the hopes of killing off any traces of the microorganism before you bring them to the kauri trees. As well, to avoid damage to the kauri roots, you can often only approach the largest kauri trees on boardwalks built above the forest floor.

Auckland

All good things have to come to an end, and so did our time in New Zealand. However, we ended it off in the best way possible - by spending a week with Pravin's cousin, Anita, and her family in their beautiful Auckland home. We became fast friends and we had so much fun spending time with them. We played lots of games, ate good food, and saw some beautiful parts of Auckland. Anita and Dave's kids were so much fun to play with, and we were quite sad to leave at the end of the week! At the end of our time together, I think we were all left wishing that we lived closer to one another so that we would be able to spend more time together. We hope to see them soon in Canada, and we can only hope to show them half as good of a time as they generously showed us.

Aside from having fun, we did have one order of business to accomplish in Auckland - selling our 2003 Subaru Outback wagon. We knew that it would be tough as it was the end of backpacker season and getting into fall/winter, when very few tourists come, and as we were selling the car with the sleeping platform and some miscellaneous camping/cooking gear, we were hoping to be able to sell it to a backpacker because we knew it would fetch a higher price in this market.

I spent hours posting in backpacker Facebook groups and responding to messages from potential buyers during the weeks leading up to our arrival in Auckland, but as we were coming into the city, we still didn't have any firm interest. There is a weekend backpacker car fair in Auckland, and it just happened that this was taking place the day after we arrived. Anita and Dave very kindly let us unpack the contents of the car into their guest bedroom, and we had already given the car a very thorough cleaning inside and out at our last campsite on the road. We paid our NZ$30 entrance fee for the market, and pulled into what we hoped was a lucky parking spot. It was a grim atmosphere, with a few dozen backpacker vans and cars hoping to be sold - everyone looking a little bit desperate in the hopes of selling before having to fly back home.

There was only a handful of buyers wandering around the lot, and we saw only one or two actual sales take place. Then, a German couple that I had messaging with on Facebook Marketplace showed up to see the wagon in person, and they were very interested. They hadn't driven on the right-hand side of the road before and were too nervous to try it in downtown Auckland in an unfamiliar vehicle, so we drove them around the city for a test drive. They were happy with the vehicle, and offered us our asking price! We were over the moon to sell the wagon for NZ$200 more than we had originally paid for it. Aside from one repair, we had only spent money on routine maintenance and one tyre in the 7 months that we owned the wagon.

The funniest part about the car fair was seeing our old campervan, Silvia - a 1994 Toyota Estima! We originally purchased the van when we arrived in New Zealand in Christchurch in May for NZ$3200, then we sold it in Nelson in October for NZ$3800. The Argentinian couple that purchased it from us put a lot of work and money into the van and sold it to a Canadian couple in Queenstown for NZ$5000, and these Canadians were trying to sell Silvia when we saw her in Auckland. By the time we left the car fair, overjoyed to be walking away with cash in our pockets, Silvia's price was down to around NZ$2000. While we know that her owners made it back to Canada, we don't know what she finally sold for - hopefully it wasn't to one of the shady dealers that was walking around offering NZ$500 cash for any vehicle!

We couldn't have picked a better country in which to settle down (well, kind of) for a year. We loved our time in New Zealand - the quality of life is superb, the landscapes are beautiful, and the people are friendly, laid-back and extremely practical. We worked an odd assortment of jobs that were at times frustrating and at times lots of fun - we house-sat in exchange for accommodation, I temped in industrial kitchens and worked at a coffee shop, Pravin worked in a mussel factory, and then we worked together at a fruit tree nursery and at the passionfruit farm. We met lots of characters along the way - especially in some of these jobs.

We spent most of our year on the South Island, and loved it for its rugged and remote beauty. We weren't expecting to like the North Island as much as we did (South Islanders love to talk down about the North Island), but it is also very stunning in a different way - the volcanic landscapes are otherworldly and the coastlines are jaw-dropping. We were so happy with our decision to rent a flat and live in Nelson - it would have been difficult to find a town in a comparably idyllic beach setting with the endless outdoor recreation opportunities that Nelson afforded us. Part of what made our time in Nelson so special was the fact that we had a number of visitors stay in our flat - my parents; Pravin's brother, his wife and their baby; my sister; and my friend Ashley. Our friend Dan also visited, but we weren't yet living in Nelson at the time and were still on the road in our van, so he was extra-lucky to be able to experience budget vanlife with us!

I think it's safe to say that we'll definitely be back to visit New Zealand again in the future - it will always remain a special place for us. Kia ora!