New Zealand Road Trip

[J DUNN]

This is boating related, sort of, lol.
Tomorrow night my son and I fly down to NZ for a 12 day road trip. I lived there for two years in 97 and 98 while serving a mission for church. Promised my sons I'd take them back on a trip there when they each turned 16. We had a trip all planned in April of 2020 when Covid put a stop to it all. Now my son is 18, graduated HS, attending Cal State San Marcos, learned to weld and making $4,000 a month in his own business, and he's engaged to be married. Yeah, I'm a proud Dad. This will likely be a good last father son trip before he moves on to married life. We have a lot of activities planned including mountain biking, hiking, cave exploring, jet boating up long rivers in NZ forest (google "bridge to nowhere, New Zealand") and hanging with friends. I'll try to post pics along the way if you're all interested. For now, here is a pic of Matthew and his bride to be that he'll be leaving at home. And a pic of the rest of the family that I will be leaving behind.


Audrey, Matthew, Mary (21yo in front of me), Lauren (wife by me), Emily (17yo), Blake (13yo).

 

[rivermobster]

OMG...

I can't wait for the trip report!!!

I've wanted to visit NZ for awhile now. Looking forward to hearing every detail!

@Racey may know a little bit about the place.

Congrats!!!

 

[Hoodoo]

Wife and I were there nearly a month back in 2000. Awesome trip. It was their winter and we spent most of the time on the South Island. Would love to do it again.
Have a safe trip.

 

[Tio Pancho]

So awesome. Have a great time. I spent 6 weeks backpacking the north and south islands in 88. Then spent 4 1/2 months through Australia. Did the entire East coast. Some of the best memories of my life.
I want to hear stories.

 

[jetboatperformance]

I sell parts to AU and NZ , last year we aided a repower in one of those Crazy wild river boats (twin Volvos got swapped for twin LS motors we sent) , wonderful people BUT when I talk to them I'm constantly saying Huh ? They seem to be talking thru a bowl of oatmeal..... Cant wait to see your tour Pictures

 

[Ziggy]

Yes, please post up pics .

 

[Xtrmwakeboarder]

Sounds amazing. I’d love to road trip there for a few weeks. I’ve heard the northern side is significantly diff than the southern side.

 

[HST4ME]

Want to do the Dart river SO bad.

 

[renodaytona]

NZ is on my bucket list for a hunting trip for Red Stagg and Tahr.

The jet boat deal sounds like it will be fun.

 

[rivrrts429]

You have a beautiful family, @J DUNN.

Yes please post pictures. New Zealand with your son is going to be a blast. Tons of great memories to be made.

Looking forward to the updates.

 

[Spudsbud]

Good luck !
Following !

 

[Racey]

If i had of known i would have sent these down to you. Grab a set when you get your car. Lots of places with bad cell coverage out in the sticks. These map books kick ass.

I still have family in New Plymouth and Auckland. My mom grew up just outside New Plymouth in one of the small farming towns south of there.

Im jealous, i was down there 2017, 2018, and 2019 and still dream about all the fish and chips i ate

If you make it to Queenstown book a reservation at a restaurant called The Bunker. Usually they are booked out so call ahead

Edit: Also in Wellington i highly recommend checking out the WW 1 exhibition at the museum. It's mind blowing, all of the prop work was done by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings)

 

[J DUNN]

DAY 1


12 hour flight from LAX to Auckland. Left on a Friday night at 8pm, landed Sunday at 6am. Cashed in a bunch of Amex points to get by son and I the upgraded seats.

Drove to Hamilton and spent the day with the Puriri family and spent Sunday night with them. This is Arama and his boys eating lunch after church.

A Marae (Maori Meeting Hall) in Hamilton on our churches temple grounds in Temple View. I slept in this building back in 1997 when a large group of missionaries traveled to the area for a large conference.

Arama Puriri, my son Matthew and I in front of our churches temple on Sunday afternoon.

An overlook of a large area of land church owns for camping and recreational activities.

My son went with the Puriri boys to a friends ranch to help them clean their dirt bikes from riding the day before. It was just something to do. Apparently while there they put my son on a dirt bike. First time he's EVER ridden a motorcycle. Plenty of stalls getting going.

Same friends ranch, their baby niece passed out in my sons arms when he picked her up.

A great friend Whetu Taukamo, from 25 years ago came to visit and reunite. I had a couple pics of him and I that I shared with him. Many missionaries go through the local areas over 25 years and it's hard to remember us all especially when we come back as bald and fat as I am. One of the things I shared with all of the people that I was able to reconnect with was that I understand in 25 years how many different missionaries can pass through and many seem the same and the local people may or may not have a connection with but to me (from the missionaries perspective) these people are the only small group of people or families that I met while serving here and their love, faith and service to us has shaped my life from that time to this. I tried to properly express my gratitude for their impact on my life.

Arama and Heidi Puriri recreating a picture with me from 25 years ago. This was Monday morning before we left. We did a lot of stuff on Sunday and we were exhausted from the flight and passed out early that night. Monday morning we got up early and hit the road. The Puriri's were awesome hosts and we had a great time hanging and visiting with them.

 

[SpectraPat]

Who’s running the shop?

 

[J DUNN]

Who’s running the shop?

We’re more successful when I’m not there….

 

[J DUNN]

DAY TWO

We woke up and had breakfast with Puriri's before a couple hour drive south to Rotorua. We had Mountain Biking scheduled at a Bike Park with a chair lift and had rented a couple bikes. No friends to see in this town just a bunch of touristy stuff. Got our first fish and chips here. Had some for lunch and then found a small neighborhood shop for dinner with fish and chips. No pics of that place but it was a typical neighborhood shop in the middle of a bunch of 70's-80's track homes. It was pretty common back then to build in each neighborhood a strip of about 3-4 small shops that people could walk to. They're much less common now but you still find them in older neighborhoods. One is usually Fish and Chips then a Dairy and a few other small shops that rarely do well. Dairy's are little corner convenience stores and they're all over. Basically gas station convenience store without the gas, usually.



Top of the mountain biking hill with Lake Rotorua in the background. We biked on some great novice trails through redwoods so thick and shaded that we couldn't even keep our sunglasses on during the ride. Did get a bit sunburned going in and out of the trees. Temp was a nice low 70's.

Gondola ride up. We had 30 passes and used about 15. All down hill but still tired me out. Son panicked a bit everytime we tried to fit those bikes into and out of that moving gondola, lol.

Lunch at the restaurant on top of the mountain we were riding down. Pretty typical when I mix fun with exercise, I get distracted, blood sugar drops (Type 1 Diabetic) and we had to stop for lunch earlier than expected. They served the potato wedges with sour cream and thai sweet chili sauce. We go them on the side but tried it and would highly recommend it.

Did this nice tree walk after dinner. A couple thousand feet of cable bridges among all these redwoods elevated 30'-60' off the forest ground. Cool view of the tops of all the ferns.

This is the closest we wanted to get to all the natural geo-thermal activity in the area. The whole city stinks of sulfer smell (rotten eggs) and this was inside our hotel room. Constant flow of steam coming up in this park where you can pay to go smell the crap that you can smell for free from the street. Lol.

That's it. stayed in Rotorua one night and hit the jet boat tour in Taupo the next day. Next post for that one.