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Published: December 21st 2008
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'Sweet as bro', we arrived in NZ and all was good. Our first destination was Aukland for 2 nights, we checked in, ate pizza and pretty much just planned our 'Kiwi experience' for 2 days.
From Aukland we jumped on the bright green kiwi bus and headed north to Paihia (Bay of Islands), it felt a little bit like Devon but really sunny! The bus ride was fun and we were already feeling good vibes about everything. That day we were about to attempt to cook our first meal in 2 months, until a Norweigen girl called Ellen walked into the room. She had been fishing and taken her catch to the 'fish and chip shop' to be battered and cooked. To our delight she turned to us and begged us to help her eat her fine food, we kindly obliged! We decided to save our food to cook at dinner. However, the time came and we caught wind of a BBQ so again felt obliged to get involved. This turned out well again, as we were happily eating our food when two nice German girls came and sat by us. We made allies over several drinks.
After one
night we then headed back to Aukland adament on not drinking, so we would be ready to begin the propper tour of the north island the next morning. We were greeted by the hostel with a $1000 free bar tab! The next morning we rose early to catch the bus and too our suprise the only 3 people we spoke to in Paihia were all on our bus and all stayed with us for our whole trip of nz. These were Nicole, Katharina and Ellen. Our driver was a lady called Flea and due to are time schedualing it also worked out that she was our driver for the whole trip. From Aukland we hit the road and towards the east coast to Mercury Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula. Here we visited some hotwater pools. Due to the positioning of the tectonic plates uner nz grinding together... blah... blah... blah... well basically if you dig into the sand you get really hot water comming up and I do mean really hot! We then went to another beach and did our standard jumping off rocks into the sea (the good old Bigbury days). The next day we continued on our journey
for an action packed day in Rotorua. Our first bit of action was white water rafting, the highlight of which was a drop off a 7m waterfall in our raft! The highest comercially operating water freefall. Wethen rushed back to the hostel, showered and changed and headed out to a traditional Maori Hangi and concert. This was an awesome night with great entertainment and food. We also informed the Maori chief on the sly that it was Katharinas birthday. To her suprise she was called up infront of about 500 people and had happy birthday sang to her! That night we had our first taste of goon ( cheap boxed wine), well 3 litres of it to be precise, and spent the rest of the night pulling Maori faces! Another early start and this time our destination was Waitomo, famous for its limestone caves. Along the way we stopped of at a rabbit shearing farm which was highly amusing. Especially when she stretches the rabbit fully out, ties its arm and legs, and rotates it on a strange contraption, whilst shaving it! Later that day we did black water rafting. This is basically sitting on a rubber tube while travelling
through the pitch black caves. Pretty cool, especially the glow worms. We got back to the hostel cold and wet so headed to the bar for 'round the world drinking'. "If he hits the slide now, you'll be in trouble" and "George Brown it" were added to the list of best trip quotes. Yet again just another 1 night stop off, with Taupo being the next stop. This was quite a chilled out day as we had 2 days in Taupo. On our second day we rose at 5am dressed in our hiking gear for the Tongariro crossing. This has been rated as one of the top 5 one-day walks in the world, however sadly not when you have only 15m of visibility. Yes, the weather was sh*t! We didn't let this get us down though and infact ended up having a great day with Jackie and Rick 2 other kiwi experience travellers. Having bonded with a few more of the group another big session was on the cards as we all began to gather in the downsatirs bar that night. From here we headed south following lake Taupo and through the Tongariro National Park, stopping at native bush, waterfalls
and cool moutain streams of this alpine volcanic region. The highlight of this day was jumping off a 9m waterfall. Congratulations have to go to Mike (a guy on our bus) who jumped naked into the ice cold water; he may have thought it was a manly thing to do, all though he definitely didn't come out of the water looking that way!!! We stayed the night in a nice lodge in River Valley, where our 32 bed dorm consisted of just a couple of really big beds. Nick and Nicole also discovered why night time beach volleyball has never taken off as a sport. The next morning we made our way to Wellington, this was not only our final destination in the North Island but was also where we were meeting up with Mike. Our third muskatier.
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