Advertisement
Published: October 13th 2011
Edit Blog Post
After escaping from the farm we had a massive trip ahead of us, although we weren’t really caring now that we had the taste of freedom! It was a 7 hour journey back to Perth and a quick catch-up with Tina’s work-mate, then an overnight flight to Melbourne where we wandered about like zombies for the day and then an early morning flight to our next stop at last– New Zealand!!
We arrived in Auckland really excited but also pretty exhausted, our first port of call was to pick up our campervan and new home for the next 4 weeks. We were pretty pleased with our new set of wheels and since it was decked out in ‘All-Blacks’ we decided to name him Mr Haka, geniuses eh.
Since our body clocks were still trying to catch up with all the hours we had lost we decided to head north from Auckland for a couple of easy days to get back into the swing of travelling. That night we made it to Matakana which was a braw looking wee place, but more importantly it wasn’t long until the bed was out for a 15 hour sleep. The next day feeling
a bit refreshed we made it up to Whangarei, where we found an Irish bar with a pub quiz – things must be a bit different here though as they had a ‘pretty-boy’ round meaning Tina having to put make-up on Paul who came a respectable 3rd place!
Once Paulie, sorry Paul had re-dignified himself it was time to start the journey back down to Auckland. We’d arranged to stay at Paul’s friends Stu and Kim’s for a long weekend so we were looking forward to catching up with them and in true style we arrived to Stu cooking up a BBQ . The following day we were chauffeured around to see some of the stunning spots of the city.
One of the big things we were really looking forward to in New Zealand was that our time here coincided with the Rugby World Cup. That night the four of us headed into the city to the giant fan zone they had set up to watch our new adopted team Ireland (as well as take great pleasure in seeing England getting kicked oot!!). The atmosphere was pretty electric with lots of fans from all over singing, dancing, faces
painted, a flag in one hand and a beer in the other. We had also a while ago treated ourselves to quarter-final tickets which had a chance of being Scotland vs. All Blacks . . . we all know that was never going to work out (we were about greeting the week before on the farm watching Scotland crash out!!). To be fair we were still geared up to see the All Blacks take on Argentina and on Sunday night we headed to the game at Eden Park and decked out in our ‘borrowed’ All Blacks tops.
We both thought Auckland is one of the most stunning city’s we’ve seen so far, it has an amazing sky-line that sits right on the harbour and it was great to catch up with Stu and Kim. It was time though to get back onboard Mr Haka and go southwards to Rotorua – the main thing to see here is its famous bubbling mud. They weren’t too difficult to find as all we had to do was follow our noses because it reeked of rotting egg (no word of a lie!). That night we decided to escape the smell and continue down
to Taupo – don’t worry about the names we’ve had enough funny looks trying to pronounce them to locals!
All in all it was a couple of heavy days driving to reach Wellington but we’re glad to finally be stopped in the same city for a couple of days. Wellington is, although much smaller, another great looking city with yet another nice harbour. On our first night we headed up to Mount Victoria to watch the sun go down over the city with a bag of fish ‘n’ chips. We also had to spend about 5 hours trying to scope out where Paul could watch the Scotland vs. Spain football game. Unfortunately all that meant was the next morning seeing Scotland being knocked out of their second tournament in the space of 2 weeks. The joys of being Scottish!!
After the game Paul picked himself up and we indulged in a bit of culture and headed to the Te Papa museum and wandered around in the pissing rain for a good couple of hours until we decided to resign to the pub where we currently are now! So we’re not sure how this blog ends yet but we’ve
already had a drink on the house so it’s probably all downhill from here!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0567s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Dave Barnes
non-member comment
New Zealand
Hi guys Great blog as usual and great pics. New Zealand should be interesting (more sheep) and looking forward to your updates. Betty and I are counting the days till you get Stateside and hook up with us in November here in New Jersey. It's Autumn now or I suppose Fall as they call it here and the trees are starting to turn a beautiful shade of yellows and reds. It's definitely the best time of year with much cooler conditions but very wet as well. Don't know what it will be like by mid November but snow is always a possibility!! Take care Tina and Paul/ Pauline or whatever yer calling yourself pal,,,ha ha,,,Betty is fine with you borrowing her makeup and lippy btw!!!! Lot's of love from the both of us. Dad.