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Bayswater
Kirsty and I overlooking the Auckland harbour from our hotel After Christmas, I had been in Auckland a whole two weeks, so obviously it was time for a break. Luckily I had Kirsty coming over to visit from Australia for her first ever trip to NZ. After chatting to her so much and not seeing her since June last year, it was great to finally see her again. We started off with a bit of a tiki tour of Auckland, but unfortunately the weather didn't play its part and she didn't get the best view of what can be a truly beautiful city when it wants to be.
After New Years, I had planned a road trip for us and we headed down country - thankfully in much better weather, and had our first stop in Thames. We wandered the town but generally kept it fairly low key before the following day where we went up into the Coromandel. The plan was to get to Hot Water Beach at the right tide times to experience the hot water but due to some bad advice we missed out. We managed to amuse ourselves clambering around the rocks before we walked along the beautiful Hahei beach.
We got to Rotorua in
Hannah's Birthday Drinks
Myself, Hannah and Steve the evening and based ourselves here for three days. We lived as tourists and did the main things like gondalas and luging, a Maori hangi, mudpools, Paradise springs, and we even made a day trip down to the Waitomo Caves for some Black Water Rafting. Kirsty was fairly nervous but she was fantastic. But like all holidays, it ended far too quickly and I was saying farewell to Kirsty as she headed back over to Oz.
A week later, I was on a plane myself as I flew into Cairns to visit my Uncle and Aunty. I hadn't seen them in years so it was great to catch up with them. After checking out the city for a couple of days, I lived a dream in getting out on the Great Barrier Reef. I hadn't been diving for 4 and a half years so I booked in a snorkelling trip first up and I am glad I did. The divers went off first and as us snorkellers were getting a briefing, we hear this screaming coming from the divers about 20 metres away. The tender raced over and what had happened was one of the divers had had an
Hannah's Leaving Drinks
Kristin, myself, Hannah, Leah, Josh and Barbara. And yes, she drinks a lot. epileptic fit while under the water and was technically dead by the time they dragged him out. Thankfully after CPR, he was brought back and it was later that we found out he had brought it on himself. He hadn't declared he had epilepsy on his dive form, he had run out of his medication 3 days previous, and even with the medication he had 3 fits in the previous 2 months. Idiot. On the bright side, we all got our trip refunded!
Before my Cairns adventure concluded, my Uncle, Aunty and I went along to a crocodile farm which was pretty incredible and I got some great shots of some huge beasts. My second diving trip was much more successful and getting back in diving after so long was no problem at all. It probably helped that the scenery was so spectacular. Between the occasional turtle, clownfish, ramoras, giant clams, small sharks and the stunning coral, there was no chance to worry. Based on that, I booked another diving trip for when I was up in Port Douglas and the 3rd dive of the day was easily one of my best ever dives. We were on the very
Hahei
One of our road trip stops. Not the best weather but still a beautiful beach outer edge of the reef and jumped off the boat as it was still moving. We went down and drifted with the current and on our right was a wall of coral dropping 40 metres down, and on our left was the ocean stretching out and out, and occasionally we could see silhouettes of bigger sharks drifting by. Amazing.
After this it was on to the second part of my Australian adventure - down to Melbourne where I had tickets to all the semis and finals of the Australian Tennis Open. I got there, found my hotel then wandered back into the city via the 'sporting district' and already I was enamored by the city. I loved the whole sporty vibe and it is one of the few cities alongside the likes of Madrid and Montevideo where I could see myself living. Dom flew in to join me for the tennis and as each day started about 2pm, we managed to get quite a bit of sightseeing done as well. We saw the inner city, did the M.C.G. tour and walked around and had brunch with Kristin (who had come over for the finals) and Laura in St. Kilda,
Rotorua #1
Boling Mud Pools park which is a very cool suburb.
In terms of the tennis, I count myself very lucky. Although my favourite player, Roger Federer was knocked out in the semi final, we witnessed one of the all time great games in the final between the World Numbers 1 and 2, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. The game lasted for a record 5 hours and 53 minutes, finishing not long before 2am local time - it went on so long I was starting to look at my watch wondering when I would have to leave to get back to the hotel to get to the airport in time for my flight! Thankfully it didn't make it to that and I saw one of the world's greatest sporting events. Both players were visibly exhausted after the match and couldn't stand through the presentation ceremony. As for ourselves, we headed back to the hotel and I got a couple of hours sleep before I said goodbye to Kristin and Dom and headed back to Auckland and the prospect of a new flat, a new job and a new path at University. So very sadly, that means there will be no more holidays for a
Rotorua #2
Boling Mud pools while now! At least I will have all these blogs to look back on to prove all this travel was actually real. Until the next overseas adventure.....
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