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Published: March 11th 2008
Coastal Walk
On our way back to the ferry terminal on Waiheke IslandHi Everyone
It's been a while since the last entry, so long in fact that we're about to leave Sydney having already visited Melbourne. Lots of reasons why, but mainly having a lot of fun. Any way, we left you at the end of our journey round New Zealand.
Having left Rotorua where we'd visited the thermal spas we moved on for two nights in a place called Taupo. Now most people go to Taupo for their bungy jumping, sky diving and water rafting but we went for another reason: Prawn Park. Yes, we made a detour from our planned trip to visit a prawn farm which we saw advertised in our first week in NZ.
So please try to continue reading while laughing at how un rock and roll we are. We started by having lunch at the Prawn Park restaurant (a dozen fresh prawns, of course), and followed this by playing some prawn golf which is actually just real golf but you hit the ball from a platform into the prawn ponds in the distance. Apparently you're very unlikely to kill any prawns while doing this, particularly if you hit the ball as inaccurately as we
On Our Way, Again
Catching the bus from Taupo did.
Following this we had a tour of the park and learnt about how they breed the prawns etc. We fed baby prawns and looked at the prawns they keep for reproduction: a kind of prawnography. Sorry.
Finally we got some fishing rods and headed out to the pools to try and catch our own prwans for our tea. This is notoriously difficult we we managed to hook five and they went very nicely with garlic and chilli back at the hostel.
And that was Taupo. The following day we had a five hour bus journey and 40 minute ferry to Waiheke island. Waiheke lies just north of Auckland and is known for it's wineries and good beaches and walking. Jaime had wanted to stay here after reading about it in a magazine, and it offered the chance to unwind on the beach for a few days before getting back to city life in Auckland.
The hostel on Waiheke was a bit of a dump unfortunately and we got very little sleep on the first night as a bunch of Argentine students decided to party in the kitchen. The walls were so thin that they might
as well have held the party on our bed. It didn't matter too much as the following day we burnt all their clothes. That's not true. Did you really think we'd be capable of that? No, it didn't matter because the next day we planned to relax at the beach which we did, followed by a lovely tapas meal at the only restaurant in town.
The second night was a bit better, as apparently the owner had got pretty peeved with the noise as well and had had a word.
Our final day on Waiheke was blessed with fantastic weather and after lugging our bags on to the local bus and to the ferry terminal we walked to the stunning Cable Bay vineyard that looks out over the coast, while in the distance you can see the Auckland skyline. While we were sat outside the wine bar (eating, of course) a couple flew their helicopter onto the lawn and whisked themselves into the restaurant. With the weather and the view, we could understand why.
From the winery, we took a two hour walk around the headland back to the ferry terminal, taking in the beautiful coastline.
We then got the ferry back to Auckland where we had three nights booked before our flight to Melbourne. Now, I was still having some travel fatigue and the weather wasn't great, so I'm not sure we made the most of Auckland though our impression was that it wasn't that impressive a city. It seemed to lack a bit of life, a bit of city vibe. Strange. Anyhow, we did have a good walk around the harbour and did a bit of shopping but didn't really do much of the touristy activities that were available.
So, we set off for Melbourne and the start of our stay in Australia. We were really excited about seeing a new country and after a four hour flight we touched down on a baking hot Sunday evening...
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Richard Bacon
non-member comment
The real reason for the delay of this blog...
... was quite obviously the fact you've spent 2 weeks thinking up that feeble "prawnography" pun. By the way, would it be unprofessional for me to post your bonus result on this blog??