Starting the Journey South

After a slow morning, my grandmother and I headed to the Coromandel bakehouse for our breakfast. I tried my first ever (English/nz style) sausage roll and a chicken cordon bleu, and grandma had an apple turnover and coffee. Everything was delicious and quite affordable. We then decided to act on a recommendation received the previous night and visit the Driving Creek Railroad, a local attraction just outside of town. When we arrived at the railroad, we were pleased to see that it was not just a short rail tour, but a nice little art gallery, a small nature preserve with birds and geckos, and a short walk over to an old gold mine. With some time to spend before the next train departure, my grandmother and I looked at the gallery, and I took a quick look at the nature preserve. Not many birds to be seen, though I caught a brief sighting of a wood pigeon and heard many more. Luckily, for me at least, the geckos were being kept in enclosures, and I managed to get a good look at three different varieties. After that, we hopped on the train for about 1 hour 15 minutes. As the old train worked its way up a steep hill covered in ferns and other local flora, we learned that the land had originally been used for logging, then a large pottery factory (the train was built to move coal for the kiln originally), then finally preserved with some pottery still being made there to this day. As the train arrived at the top, we rose above the trees revealing beautiful views of the surrounding peninsula and the Firth of Thames. The train then took us back down to the start where we took another stroll around the nature preserve and set off for a fairly uneventful, though gorgeous, drive back to Auckland to return our rental car.

After returning our car at the airport, we took a shuttle to Auckland city center, then walked a few blocks to the nearby hostel I had booked for the evening (pictured below). I’m still adjusting to hostel accommodations, and was surprised when they handed us bedding at the front desk when we checked in. There were lots of people, but all were fairly quiet, and we had an early morning so I went to bed fairly early after settling into the room we shared with two other travelers.

Our early morning the next day involved calling an Uber across downtown to a train station, where we caught the once-every-three-day train running all the way from Auckland to Wellington. We elected to get off near the halfway point, on the outskirts of Tongariro National Park. After making a call to get a shuttle from the station to our reservation in the park we had a short ride and finally arrived and settled in for the evening. The site was filled with people, in cabins, camper vans, and tents, all sharing a single large kitchen and bathroom building. After talking to a few people and hearing about a great weather forecast the next day, I decided to book a shuttle for the next day in order to hike a famous local route, the Tongariro Alpine crossing. Having not brought any substantial food, we ended up shopping for dinner and hiking snacks at the camp store. We got a mediocre frozen pizza for dinner, and I made some sandwiches for the next day’s hike. I also got some chicken-flavored chips, a local favorite, and Whittaker’s chocolate, a local brand. Finally, after washing our dishes, I went to bed early again so I would have time for breakfast before the next day’s 8 am shuttle and big hike.