Everything else

After our smelly time in Rotorua we headed to the east coast in search of some beach action. Our first stop was Mount Manganui which we reached in pretty good time which left us wondering what to do for the rest of the day, well when in "mount" manganui it is rude not to climb the mountain so off we went up a rather steep mountain with the sun cracking the flags as well it made for a rather hard climb (well for lisa anyway). Once we were at the top it was worth it, there was a beautiful view up the coast and to the surrounding off coast volcanoes, there were also some guys handgliding from the top which was pretty cool to watch whilst we got our breath back. We decided to take the easy route down the large steps and headed to the beach where i hoped i was brave enough to enter the icy water as i haven't had a bath for a while (i have showered though....ish). Anyway we checked into our campsite and headed the 5 min walk to the beach and lazed around trying to get the tan back. I did brave he water for a short time but as we are coming into autumn here it was a bit chilly.

We then headed further north with our main goal being hot water beach where at low tide you can dig yourself a nice hot bath with the boiling water from an underground sump bubling up through the sand. We got to hot water beach about 2 hrs before low tide when it is possible to start digging. We hired our spade and off we went down the beach along with a few other people all hoping for a kind of hot sandy bath. The tide was just receding from where we needed to dig so we all strarted to dig for the hot water to no avail until one guy finds it. It was literally boiling and needed to be cooled down with sea water to be of any use but that wasn't realy a problem as every couple of minutes a rogue wave would come and smash all our hard work making it worthless. We then decided to work together and build a wall of sand to protect our area from the waves and in true man style it was a wall to beat all walls...........well apart from when a big wave came and smashed it over meaning we had to start from scratch. As the tide receaded more it got a bit easier and our wall stood up for a short while alowing some form of satisfaction but not the success we had hoped. All in all it was realy good fun even the blisters on my hands couldn't put a dampner on things so after a couple of hours we left everyone else to battle against the waves knowing the tide was turning.

Back in the van we headed north to the Coramandel peninsular which is what it says on the tin.....a peninsular. There were some nice walks, again up a hill and along the bay which was nice and the scenery again was nice but really not a patch on the south island, just nice.

In need of something to wake us up we headed to Auckland, New Zealand biggest city. We eventually found our camp site in one of the suberbs however it felt like one of the suberbs of Beijing, full of chinese. In fact i am sitting in an internet cafe with about 20 chinese all playing compuet games.....realy could be back in China. Anyway, we decided not to drivw into the city and get he bus instead which was realy good value and rather entertaining as the bus drivers were bonkers. Auckland centre itself has a realy cosmopolitan feel and we took a hand in hand stroll along the marina which was nice picking out the boat we would most like to have yet never afford. The sky tower was also pretty cool to see (the big tower you see in all auckland pics) and we saw one guy doing the free fall off the edge (although held by a wire you still free fall most of the way...scary!). The problem we are having however is the fact that most big cities are all the same, they all have a zoo, sea life centre, art gallery, museum etc. so it is hard to get too excited.

We had just over a week left so we decided to head north where the weather should be the best as it is furthest north and there are meant to be some realy nice beaches and towns so guessed it would be a nice way to end our NZ trip. We realy couldn't be more wrong. We basically did the twin coast road which took us up the east and down the west and our only highlight being the bay of islands where we managed a bit of R&R on the beach for an afternoon and we also found a great value site for the night which always helps. You could do a variety of boat trips here but the weather forcast wasn't good and again it looked nice but not spectacular. Now speaking of the weather, 2 days into our week it started to rain and basically didn't stop which didn't realy keep spirits high when going through grotty towns full of grafitti and generally not feeling safe to stop. Other travellers we spoke to also felt the same and couldn't wait to get moving. We managed to get to the the top of the country 90mile beach but again not much fun in the rain which got worse and aculminated in thunderstorms with people getting struck by lightning and drowning in rivers so we thought it best to get back to Auckland and spend our time making sure we have everything done before heading to the hopefully sunny islands of Fiji.

Hopefully this has put us up to date with our travels as tomorrow we fly to Fiji where we may not have any contact for a couple of weeks as i believe elecricity is a luxury on some of the island let alone internet. Hope you are all enjoying the blogs and all is well back in blighty.

G & L

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