Today up bright and early…im talking 8ish..well that’s early enough. We had to be at the glacier walking by 9:15 so plenty of time to wake up. Arrived promptly and were soon told what to do, where to get things etc. We were given hiking boots, spikes for the ice which clipped onto the boots, rain coats, optional hats and gloves but we purchased ours before anyways…erm…that’s it I think…oh and thick socks too if we wanted. Soon we were getting on the bus in direction to the national park and the glacier. We arrived about 10mins later then were walked [View Full Entry]

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Today up bright and early no problem, about 8am ish and the coach was due to leave at 9am. We were heading to Franz Josef. YAY…A place we have both been looking forward to because of the amazing scenery and the glacier walk which I cant wait for. We took a short trip to a place called Pukekura. We stopped and went into a café/museum of a famous guy that used to catch the deer in New Zealand when they were ruining the countrys rainforests. It all started when they tried to introduce mammals on here as it was only birds [View Full Entry]

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Up bright an early today infact I got up at 7:30am…this must have been enough sleep for me as I woke up by myself, no alarm or anything, only to my surprise a bloody cat on my bed which I was not impressed with. All in all River Valley lodge….NOT A FAN… Went downstairs at about 8:20 ready for this awesome adventure, oh by the way the Rangitikei River has grade 5 rapids, infact it has 10 grade 5 rapids, the most is grade 6, this is only for professionals, like the guides only though.…WOW. Now the trip is going to [View Full Entry]

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Today…first thing…not feeling too bad. Quite impressed with ourselves really, maybe the hangover hasn’t kicked in yet, quick Charmaine get them ibuprofen..oops sorry I mean ibufofen….(haha…private joke) On the bus we all got, some people were so tired, some people were so ill, some people were still even drunk, it was a funny morning I think everyone went full out…silly eh! Now we have about a 4hour bus ride to River Valley. Today we stopped randomly at a waterfall…JP the bus driver said did anyone want to jump in?…he said it was about [View Full Entry]

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Today we headed off to the apparent cool town of Taupo. The stop we did today was at Haku Falls, it was quite amazing actually and I’ll post the photos to see yourself. Arriving at about 2pm after a longggggg trip straight away I went out to explore, had a little look round the shops for a coat as we were doing the Togariro Crossing 19.4k walk up a mountain tomorrow. Ahhhh. I managed to find a few coats for me and Charmaine; had a little gander then went to the hostel bar until about 11. we then went back to [View Full Entry]

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Once again were on the move. Today we head out of Turtle Cove from Mercury Bay to the lovely Rotorua. I have heard that this place is very nice and am looking forward to making an appearance there. We set off bright and early about 7.30ish. Our first stop today was at some old gold mining caves. We got to see how they managed to get the gold and along the way there was lots of boards which explain how and what happened; you know like the process and everything. We got to go into some caves which were even too [View Full Entry]

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This morning up bright and early…actually…not that early, we nearly missed the bus at 7.30...oh dear…not to worry though we were soon on our way to Mercury Bay; via a few stop points to see some of the sights I might add. First stop was at the top of Mount Eden and the views were amazing, We got some cool photos…check em out! I think that now were going to be travelling more then we will be writing a lot more as there will be plenty to write about. The photos of us with grass behind us is in a big [View Full Entry]

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Today was another day of waiting around. Having to be up and out of the room by 10am and then waiting around for the bus until 3, we did not plan to do anything today. The morning consisted of tea and pot noodle for breakfast/lunch, mid morning to lunch, and then we sat around in the television room and watched the film Superbad…which we have seen before but it was awesomeeee…of course. After buying some travelling supplies, like water crisps etc, we got back on the bus at 3pm and headed back down to Auckland and managed to arrive there at [View Full Entry]

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This morning we were all set to go. I think I forgot to mention that Charmaine kindly made us sandwiches and we sorted out some little bits to eat for the whole day out at sea. We set off at 9.30 and by about 10am we encountered something…An orca whale. Infact it was a whole group of them, there must have been 10+. Now the guy that was the captain had been doing it 26years and he said he had only ever seen something like this 3 or 4 times. INCREDIBLE! I found this thing on my camera which did quick [View Full Entry]

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Today after having a mammoth 12 hour sleep we wanted to do something today…something…like an activity or just something so we aren’t wasting the day. We got up around 11ish and went to make some breakfast. We spoke on skype and then decided to walk to Paihia’s little town to book a trip. We decided that instead of just going to dolphins and doing the half day trip for $89 we were going to the full day trip for $99 which included all of the bay of islands and took the whole day. Bargain. This would also involve supply drops to [View Full Entry]

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