Looking back at my last post and it's been a while! Time is flying by here in NZ and its scary to think that I'm already over 1/3 of the way through my travels!! Leaving England back in September seems like a long time ago...but July is creeping closer and closer :(
Since the last update I have been doing a lot of activities and its been incredible!! We headed back down to Auckland on Boxing Day only to stay overnight (not a fan of Auckland!) before moving on to Hot Water Beach in the Coromandel. The accommodation at Hot Water Beach was by far the best I've stayed in yet, it was a brand new dorm in a wooden cabin with mini kitchen facilities for every set 2 rooms to share. Because we only had one night there that afternoon we headed down to the beach to build our very own 'hot pool', the beach sits over a natural geothermal spring and the water was very hot in places! The next day was an early bus ride to Waitomo, again only had one night, but managed to fit in Blackwater Rafting which was SO SO SO much fun!! We went on the 5 hour 'Black Abyss' tour with the 'Legendary Black Water Rafting Co.' which involved abseiling 38 metres into the caves (lucky me got to go first...), from there we walked deeper into the cave before zip lining into a cavern in the pitch black. We stopped for hot chocolate and flapjacks before grabbing tubes and launching ourselves a couple of meters down into the freezing cold water...again me first which was pretty scary! The water got very cold after a few minutes of sitting on the tubes but we were donned with full wet suits, booties, hats and helmets. We sailed along on the tubes for a while before turning our headlamps out and looking up to see loads and loads of gloworms! After that we sailed back on our tubes before leaving them behind to wade through the water. We had to launch off a rock and got completely submerged at one point was pretty fun. We then had to squeeze through a tiny gap in the cave, scramble through lots more water and finally climb up three waterfalls to make it back out into the daylight. It was definitely by far one of the best activities yet!!
The following day we got back on the Kiwi bus to head to Rotorua...very smelly town! Its full of geothermal activity and there are loads of fumaroles providing the lovely sulfur smell that engulfs the town. However en route we stopped at a clear blue river where we could fill up our water bottles with the pure water straight out of the river! At around 1pm we arrived in Rotorua in the pouring rain. Regardless, at 4pm that afternoon we managed to fit in whitewater rafting. Carolien, Per and I joined another guy from the Kiwi bus in a boat along with our guide for the rafting. When we arrived we put on wetsuits, life jackets and helmets and made our way in the minibus to meet the rafts at the river. We had a quick briefing before entering the water and then had 5 minutes practising paddling and ducking down in preparation for the waterfalls. We went over a couple of grade 3 rapids and two waterfalls before the big 7 metre drop. We watched the group ahead of us go down the waterfall and prepared to go ourselves. We had to paddle to the edge of the fall and then get down into the boat and cling on in the hope that we didn't tip over...apparently it's a 1 in 5 chance that you will tip and definitely not something I fancied! The waterfall started off as great fun until we hit the water...I was so worried about clinging onto the boat that I had tucked my paddle straight under my arm and the impact of landing meant that it hit my elbow really hard. It was by far the most painful thing I've done this trip (pretty suprising seeing as it turns out I'm very accident prone and hurt myself on nearly all activities) and thought it was broken at first, it hurt A LOT but turns out its just bruised. Unfortunately that put an end to the rest of my paddling for the trip, but I still got to sit on the side of the boat and shout encouragement at the other three :) at the very end we had to paddle (or at least the others paddled) into a mini waterfall. I was sat at the very front of the boat and got completely drenched but it was lots of fun!
The following day was a bit of a write off, we were pretty hungover from a night out at the 'Lava Bar' and it rained all day long. That evening we did manage to go to Tamaki Maori Village where they put on a show, told us about Maori tradition and we got to try a Hangi...a HUGE buffet feast that is cooked underground with lots of meat, veg and stuffing. At the begining of the show we all had to stand around the entrance to the village whilst we were greeted by the Maori's...we were not allowed to laugh, speak or smile as they pulled funny faces with bulging eyes. We also got to see how they used to live within a tribe and saw Maori dancing and singing. The next day (New Years Eve) was onto Taupo where Carolien and I were due to spend 6 nights (!!), we had planned to go on the East As route of Kiwi Exp. on the 2nd Jan but this bus got cancelled so we had to wait until the 6th for the next one. Over Christmas I had promised to make Banoffee Pie on New Years day, so when the bus stopped on the way to Taupo we stocked up with all the ingredients. On the afternoon of New Years Eve we didn't get up to much due to the rain (again!!) and at 4:30pm we started getting ready for the big night and began drinking. We drank the last of my 58% Fijian rum before dinner (evil stuff) and headed down to the bar for the $10 meal and drink deal before heading back to the dorm for yet more alcohol...when we finally got back to the bar, after fitting around 20 people into a tiny 8 bed dorm for drinks, it was empty and we were the only ones on the dance floor for a good hour or so. Before long it was packed and it turned out to be a really good night, minus any fireworks due to the rain. The next day was spent hungover and catching up on sleep before heading out for lunch, for dinner we cooked a group meal between the 6 of us followed by my Banoffee Pie. That evening we had a serious lack of sleep due to the very loud music and bass coming from the bar opposite and then had to wake early to say goodbye to several of the group who were heading onto the next stop on the Kiwi bus. That afternoon we sat by the lake in the sun (finally, wohoo!) before a reasonably early night ready to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing the following day. The early night was very ambitious and we had another night of sleep deprivation due to the really really loud music so were not feeling too refreshed when we got up at 5am ready for the hike.
The Tongariro Alpine Crossing was really great, even if the weather wasn't. After a 1 and a half hour drive we set off along the trail at 8am, it started off fairly flat and sunny but it soon turned pretty damp and cold. After around an hour of walking we stopped for a quick break before heading up the side of a volcano for an hour or so, it was pretty hard work and quite cold not to mention very steep with shear edges on both sides at times! But the views at the top (through all the cloud) were amazing and you could see three emerald lakes sitting at the base of the crater. We then had three and a half hours of downhill which was not good on our knees but after 6 hours we completed the 19.2 km hike and it was totally worth it! That the night the music was much quieter and we managed to get a good nights sleep before doing some souvenir shopping the following day. The day after that Carolien and I hired a scooter to drive around Taupo on...I was designated driver on the very touchy scooter so had a bit of practice around town before we set off with a map and aim of reaching Craters of the Moon. We stopped along the way to refuel at a fuel garage...took a little while to figure out but got there in the end with several drivers looking at the two of us like we were mental. After leaving town and heading a few miles out of Taupo we soon saw an 80km/h sign, not too big a deal but scooter speed limit is 50 so we dawdled along a bit further (with a top speed of 20km/h uphill) before we went past a 100km/h sign. This is where the panic began to sink in as we realised we were now actually on a highway and cars were speeding past us as we struggled up and down the hills. After a several kilometres we saw a layby...on the right hand side...but managed to make the turn across the road. We sat down on a bench to recover for a bit before realising on the map that we had in fact taken the highway to Craters of the Moon and not the side roads. We turned around and headed back along the highway before stopping at a viewpoint and then taking the correct turn and drove along the backroads, eventually reaching our destination. It was definitely an adventure to remember!! We did the 45 min walk around Craters of the Moon, a geothermal site with lots of boiling mud pools and fumaroles, before sitting on a bench for our picnic lunch. After lunch we hopped back on the scooter (which took several attempts to start) and planned our route to the Honey Hive, we expeted this to be pretty interesting but it was just a shop selling loads of honey products, although we did buy an amazing honey ice cream. After that we drove a kilometre or so down the road to the Volcanic Activity Centre...again not quite what we expected - it was a just a little hut - but walked around reading about the earthquakes and volcanoes in New Zealand.We got to sit in an Earthquake simulator and watched a video on the Christchurch earthquake. We then got back on the scooter once again and made our way back towards Taupo to drive round the lake. We got as far as Acacia Bay, sat on the beach for a bit before heading back to the hostel...by this point I was knackered from the stress of driving the bike and Carolien had had enough of clinging on for her life on the back!
The next day we got on the East As bus, our driver Pedro was lots of fun and there were only 9 of us in total. It was very different from the usual Kiwi Experience which was nice and we stayed with Maori families and left when everyone was ready to go rather than to a strict schedule. The first stop on the East As was Gisbourne where we hoped to go shark cage diving, however to no suprise it rained yet again and the dive was called off. That evening we did an adapted version of wine tasting, we had 9 bottles, some cheese, chocolate and some pineapple. One of the guys who worked at the dive centre talked us through the bottles (the actual wine guy was unavailable hence the adapted version), descriptions becoming worse and worse as we got through more and more wine. We eventually got through all the wine and sat chatting for a while before heading off to bed. The next morning three of us got up to go sting ray feeding which was AMAZING!!! We put on waders and headed out around 150 metres off the shore on the reef to where the sting rays were. We had to line up and hold our bamboo stick supports in front of us which held us up as the sting rays shoved themselves against our legs looking for food. We soon had loads of sting rays surrounding us - Shortailed and Eagle rays, some of them were almost 2 metres wide but they were all really friendly letting us stroke their backs and rub their noses. Feeding them was a bit more difficult/scary becuase we had to take a piece of fish and hold in under their noses so that they could eat, every so often one of the millions of King Fish that were also swimming around would bite your finger or steal the fish, I wasn't so keen on those! We fed and stroked the stingrays, including a pregnant one, for around an hour or so before we had to head back up and jump on the bus to make our way to Rangitukia. At Rangitukia it began to rain (again!!) however we did manged to get out on a horse ride on the farm that we were staying on. We went out riding for 2 hours initially heading to the beach where we got to gallop along the surf before heading up a cliff which should have had amazing views if it weren't for the rain. As we made our way back down it began to get pretty slippery and one of the horses did fall over but got straight back up ok, minus it's rider. When we got back to the hostel we helped untack before showering and making our way to a barn where we played an adapted version of ping pong (6 of us running around the table) before doing bone carving. The bone carving was good fun, we had each pre selected our desing and got it given to us on a piece of bone which we then had to cut out and shape before polishing it and making it into a necklace. That evening it really rained so we sat inside with a few beers that our driver had bought us and played cards before bed.
The next day it was STILL raining so we packed up and headed to Te Kaha where we were greeted by Chay, a very random crazy Maori guy. The accommodation here was pretty good (maybe not super clean) but there was a hot tub right next to the ocean. We quickly changed and headed down to the hot tub whilst the rain held off and sat there for an hour or so. We had a BBQ for dinner which was really good and then had a few drinks before heading back down to the hot tub. The rain stopped again for a while so I managed to get a go on the trampoline before falling off, not once but twice...few more bruises to add to the collection. We stayed up drinking and chatting until around 1:30am before bed. The next day was back to Taupo for our 7th night! We didn't get up to much apart from laundry and dinner and the next day we were back on the main circuit of the Kiwi bus heading to River Valley.
River Valley was lovely, tucked away in a valley in the middle of nowhere. The dorms were for 16 people and were just two lines of 8 matresses on a wooden base, so it was pretty cosy in there of a night time! We stayed for one night and chilled out by the river, getting bitten by loads of nasty little black flies. We did play a bit of volleyball before dinner and Carolien and I created a colourful picture for the 'drawing competition' that our bus driver had set up. Every entrant had to create a colourful picture of anything they wanted and the winner would get an $85 picture/dvd package for the Nevis Bungey. Turns out we were the only entrants so didn't quite dare to actually admit we had spent 45mins our our masterpiece so now we are just carrying it around just in case other drivers might hold a similar competition...haha. The next day we set off for Wellington we arrived at around 4pm and only had that evening to explore before moving on to the south island at 7am the next morning. We went for a wonder around the city and had dinner before meeting up with Mat, who we had met on an earlier Kiwi bus. That evening turned out to be very drunken and Carolien and I stumbled back to bed at around 3am so didn't end up with much sleep! The next morning we made it down to the bus and set off for the ferry which took three hours over to the south island - with amazing views on the way!
We are now in the first stop on the south island, Kaiteriteri. Its really pretty and right on the beach AND the sun has been shining!! We have three nights here and have so far been on a walk up to a view point overlooking the beach and today we have been sitting on the beach all morning in the sun :) We have also met quite a few people who will be on our bus down to Queenstown so looks like its going to be really good! Everyone says the south island is much better than the north so I'm glad we have done it this way round and am really looking forward to all the stops we have over the next couple of weeks! Apart for the Nevis Bungey...134 metres...aaahhhhhhhhhhhh. It feels like that is the only activity left to do now after Franz Josef so really have to do a bungey jump in NZ, just not too sure how I'm going to convince myself off the ledge! We will see...
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