The wheels on the bus go round and round... - Tine's New Zealand adventure

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Day 1





My New Zealand adventure started early in the morning in beautiful Auckland, the “city of sails”. Auckland is the New Zealand’s biggest city. 1.4 million live here, that is the same amount of people that live on the entire south island.



I was going to do a 6 day trip on a New Zealand backpacker bus called ‘Stray’. “Stray” is a very good and cheap way to travel in New Zealand and you have the chance to hop-off and hop-on wherever you want on their route. On top of that it’s the perfect opportunity to meet new people and make friends.

After our amazing driver “Salty” picked us up from our accommodation we went to the Stray office in Penrose and got a wee introduction about how the booking system works. Travelling with Stray is very easy, you just need to login to the online booking system if you want to change busses - hop-off somewhere to stay longer or hop back on at a different place.



The good thing is that at every overnight stop your first nights accommodation is guaranteed – even in peak season! Saving you time and the annoying search for descent budget hostels.

After all necessary information was shared, we were ready to start our adventure.

To get rid of the shyness our driver made us all stand in front of the bus to introduce ourselves. So here we were 34 different people from all over the world but with one thing in common: we all have the dream to discover this beautiful country.

With cool music and interesting commentaries of our bus driver about the countryside, we head off to the Coromandel. That is a peninsula in the east of Auckland with gorgeous white sandy beaches and tropical forests.

Our destination was a small place called Hahei. Another big plus about Stray is that you avoid only visiting the typical tourist places – true to their slogan “get further off the track”. We drove via Thames to have a grocery stop so everyone could get some drinks for the night J

As we arrived in Hahei we went to see the famous “Cathedral cove”, a bay with a cave that connects two beaches. A great walk along the beach and through the forest led us to our accommodation at the far end of the bay. I also highly recommend a visit to “Stingray bay”, which is on the way to the Cove and in contrast to the big tourist attraction the bay invites you to have a swim or just relax in the sun.



Returning to the campground our bus driver was already waiting for us with a delicious barbecue. As a little welcome party he invited us to the dinner and some drinks. We had such a fun night and we all made friends very easily.





Day 2





After just a few hours of sleep we left the campground at 7am to go to our destination for the day, which was every New Zealand surfer’s paradise, Raglan.

Salty, our driver, was looking after us very well and it seems like he could read our minds when he took us to a coffee place as the first thing in the morning.



On the way we got to know a New Zealand rarity: the Kauri Tree.

It is over hundreds years old and it sticks out because of its height and width (up to 4 m). That was not the only cool thing we saw on our way to Raglan. Our bus driver put much effort into showing us many natural spectacles on our way through the country. The “Bridal Veil waterfall” caught our attention at the next stop. It is supposed to be one of New Zealand’s most beautiful waterfalls with its 55m. No one really expected this breath catching waterfall that was hidden in a forest. Through many stairs we got to the bottom of the waterfall and had an impressive look on the body of the water.



The next stop was finally our destination Raglan. We had a quick look around the town before Salty drove us along the beautiful Raglan coastline to our accommodation, he also warned us that we would not have phone reception for the next 20 hours, it was going to be that secluded but we were all looking forward to heading into the “wild”! We had soon arrived right in the middle of a native reserve where beautiful tropical plants surrounded our lodge. We could hear crickets, birds and when night fell we could see glowworms!

In the afternoon we had the opportunity to have surfing lessons or go for some bush walks. I choose to just hang out with some other travelers at the raglan beach and enjoy the sun as long as it is still summer.

The beaches on the west coast have black sand because of the volcanic origin.

That night out Salty spoiled us again with a delicious kiwi dinner: ‘bangers & mash.’



Day 3





“The early bird gets the worm” – that was today’s slogan again and so we left our beautiful hostel and went off back to the east coast to Maketu.

On our way we had a longer stop over at the Waitomo caves as it is a must see in New Zealand and we obviously did not want to miss that. Several caves tours were offered and I choose the glowworm tour that involved two caves. In the first cave we needed some torches to lead us the way but after a little while the glowworms appeared and there were thousands of them!

I never expected that to see that many! We went slowly down a little river with a raft to enjoy the view of the glowworms. Our guide gave us plenty of interesting facts and figures about these flashing worms.

The second one was a dry limestone cave and totally different to the one we were previously in. In this cave we could spot some very old bones from the extinct moa bird that used to live in New Zealand. It was a flightless bird that is similar to an ostrich.



After our caves tours we headed off to our next stop Maketu.

We had the pleasure to spend a night in a traditional Maori marae and to experience the culture of New Zealand’s natives. First of all the eldest of our group had to become our chief and it was his task to represent us. “Uncle Boy” who was the chief of the tribe that we visited was very serious about these traditions. If our chief would not accept the invitation that Uncle boy gave him then we would have had to leave the place. Luckily our chief made us stay.

After the ceremony the boys learnt the “haka” and we girls got taught how to dance with a “poi”. After we trained for a while we had to perform for the boys and then they had to perform their Haka for us but in tradition the boys started to perform their Haka first, followed by our Poi show. We had so much fun and this is how an eventful day ended…



Day 4





The next day was supposed to be a very special and exciting day for most of us. The final destination was Lake Taupo that day and it’s probably the best place in New Zealand to do a sky dive. Many people on the bus had SKY DIVE in big capital letters on their to-do-list. As I’m not a big fan of heights I chose to do a different exciting activity – white water rafting! On our way to Taupo we stopped in Rotorua to do a rafting trip with “Kaitiaki Adventures”. They are the only rafting company in the world that offers a rafting trip involving a seven-meter waterfall! After we put on our safety helmet and life jacket, we went in a van towards the Kaituna river.

On the spot the guides taught us how to react in case we fell out or the raft turns upside down. From that moment everyone’s faces changed from a happy look to a worried one. How would we manage going down that massive waterfall without falling out of the raft?

We must have been a good team as we only lost one man during the tour. J

The raft tour was so exciting and I will definitely do it again!



On our way to Taupo we stopped off at another three stops to see some cool natural spectaculars. First stop was at some hot pools where we all just relaxed and it felt as we were sitting in a hot bath. It was so nice and warm that we did not want to leave at all. As we had such a busy schedule that day, we had to leave our nice bath. The next cool stop was at a big grey mud pool. It was very impressive to see how it bubbled every now and then. Just before we drove into Taupo we had one last stop at the massive “Huka Falls”. Every second the falls throw over 220,000 liters of water to the river below!



At night I and 10 other people in our group went on a sailing cruise to see the sunset. This sail felt like a spa treat! We sat back in our beanbag with a glass of wine in our hands and enjoyed the view of Taupo. The captain and his wife looked after us so well and prepared a yummy barbecue for us! We felt like we are in heaven and everyone tried to figure out what job we had to do to be able to afford such a boat one day. J As the sun was almost down we reached a mysterious place. We saw a cliff coast with giant Maori rock carvings.

What we did not know was that the “Barbary” is the only floating cinema in New Zealand. So as it was dark they showed us a concert on the sail. That was a very nice end to travelling with that group, as I had to hop on a bus to Rotorua the next day.



Day 5





The last day of my journey was spent in Rotorua. I caught up with some people that I met on the bus and we strolled along the park to have a look at the mud pools and hot pools. Rotorua is known for it’s hot springs, geysers and geothermal activity. This is why Rotorua smells a bit like rotten eggs, but you get used to that very quick. We were lucky that there was a free music festival that day at the lakeside. Plenty of Maori songs were sang and many famous songs were performed by a big band. The highlight of the night was the firework display at the end of the concert. Unfortunately that was also the end of my Stray trip.



The next day I was off to Auckland again.

I had such a good time travelling with Stray and I met so many nice people.

Whoever is searching for an adventure in the land of the “long white cloud”, you cannot go past Stray!

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