Travelers who love taking photos will come home from New Zealand with some of their best-ever images. Here are three places you shouldn’t miss if you want to take photos worthy of framing and hanging – and maybe even selling.
tongariro
National Geographic Bungles Story on New Zealand’s Tongariro
I’ve read National Geographic since I was about 10 years old. I always got excited when I saw some cool place I would want to go (these places often involved pyramids!).
This means I was extra-excited to see someplace I’d already been in the July 2009 issue. I headed straight to page 82 for “Between Fire & Ice” by Mel White. It was all about Tongariro National Park in New Zealand, one of my favorite places on the planet. I’d just been there in February 2009. And boy, was I disappointed in the story.
My only guess is that Mel White has never been there, and only interviewed a few hand-picked people. I’d also guess that the story had an agenda: To decry the effect of invasive species and the non-Maori people. I’ll address these two points separately.
First, the article conveys absolutely no sense of the park’s majesty. It’s a pretty flaccid description – no mention of steam oozing from the cracked floor of desert between Ngauruhoe and Mount Tongariro. No description of the Devil’s Staircase or the exhausting scree slope. What about the blasted, colorful mini-Mount St. Helens of Red Crater? And the striking lack of life? Near the volcanoes, you will see no form of life -flora or fauna- until you see a handful of birds at Blue Lake. That’s hours of hiking with no life but other hikers! It’s seriously lunar in its lava and gas-blasted devastation.
There’s also a pretty poor commitment to accuracy, as shown by this photo [...]
14 Days in New Zealand – Jump Start Your Travel Plans
If you live on any continent but Australia, visiting New Zealand involves a lengthy flight. That means spending at least two weeks is the only way to go. Here’s my two-week itinerary, including some highlights and a few ideas of what I would change with my newfound knowledge.
Day One: Arrive from Los Angeles at 6 a.m. local time. Drop bags off at hotel in Parnell near the downtown area. Grab a few flat whites at Ben’s. Ogle crazy foods at local Asian markets. Take a ferry to Rangitoto and hike to the top of the volcano. Return to hotel … check in and shower. Then off to dinner and wandering the streets of Auckland. Hindsight is 20/20 … and mine says I should’ve rented a car after the flat whites and driven the easy two hours to Rotorua, thus affording some time in the fun capitol, or extra time in Wellington. I was planning to feel far more jet-lagged, but the symptons never came.
Whole dessicated duck, anyone? From New Zealand Volume 1
Day 2: Bus from Auckland to Rotorua. Arrive around 2:30 p.m., check into hotel. Visit Kairua Park, walk around Lake Rotorua. Watch for the sulfury lagoon where the lake turns color. Eerie! Indian dinner at Ambiance. General hanging around the town.
Day 3: Breakfast, drive out to Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. Amazing! After lunch, off to Agroventures. Zorbing is the highlight. Try the Schweeb, too. We followed this with driving around the countryside at dinner at Fat Dog. An extra [...]
Update from Wellington Airport
Well … it’s been some time the past few days. Waitomo has some awesome caving, and the glow worms inhabiting them are a pretty incredible sight. Waitomo itself … as my new friend Billy Black says, “it’s a two-horse town, and one horse has died.”
That adds up to a lot of quiet, fresh air and clothes that reek of musty caves. The drive to Wellington took us past our old friend, Tongariro National Park. It was good to get a final glimpse of Mt. Ngaurahoe again. Lots of cool little towns between there and Wellington. I have a boatload of photos to share, so stick with me.
