First 5 in NZ

Hi everyone!

Well I have been here for about 5 days now and it is time to blog now I have found a wireless connection.

Flew into Auckland on the Saturday morning and spent the day just wandering round and getting to know it. Auckland is surrounded by water and is understandably named the 'City of Sails' and is the biggest city in NZ, with about 1.3 million people. Kiwis are quite political it seems, and I witnessed a protest on the main shopping street, which was a march against the bill the PM is trying to get through parliment about free speech (it seems). NZ at this point seems like Australia albeit a bit off. Familiar yet slightly foreign.
Met some poms in the hostels which I then went out with for drinks and dinner. They were really friendly and offered me a bed they had free down in Queenstown for Chrissy, if I don't find anything to do by then.

The next day I met up with Mark, who I met in Croatia last year. We were meant to be meeting down in Feilding by Friday along with Ree and Dan, but we happened to be in Auckland at the same hostel. For the Sunday we headed to Devenport on the North Shore of Auckland. It was a sweet little town that seemed to be celebrating something when we arrived (we might appear on NZ Nickelodean :-s) There was a old fashioned horse and cart waiting outside the ferry docks for tourists. The laid back attitude of Kiwis was in perfect display when the driver yelled out to us - "Come for a ride! You will have a reasonably good time!" Needless to say we turned his offer down. Mark and I climbed the old, small and extinct volcano here for a good view of Auckland, had a drink in a cafe and even got nosy and went into a home open - only $NZ1.6 Million. We are still considering.

On the Monday I climbed the skytower in Auckland (the tallest building in the southern hemisphere) and just as got to the top with a great view of the area discovered that my camera was broken. Oh well, murphys law ah - will buy a . Headed to the viaduct Quay for lunch with Emily afterwards. Emily was a housemate and friend back in Dublin, and is an Auckland native. It was nice to catch up and see what our mutual friends are up to. Mark had rented a car earlier that weekend and was heading down to Feilding in it, and it made sense to join him so that arvo we were off for our first stopover on our way south. We got to Waitomo 3 hours later (not before a stopover in Hamilton, where we spent a while searching for an appropriate sign(s) to take a photo in frount of. Disappointingly the town itself did not live up to the expectations that a Hamilton should). Waitomo is a tiny village known for it glowworm caves. We settled into our hostel and made friends with some other backpackers who were all on the hop-on hop-off tour buses called the Kiwi experience. Had a great night of food, cards and travel tips. Met a few I will keep in contact with - including a dutch girl who might give me a lift from Wellington south. Or even English Rob who is heading to my hometown Perth later next year.

Tuesday the 4th: Headed to the Caves - there are heaps of them. Mark went on a wet and wild inner tube adventure while I stuck to the dry and cultural paths. I was only one of two people on the tour and the other person was actually a local. So technically I had two tour guides. Amazing caves with a great political history. Glow worms were everywhere - they glow as to attract bugs and make it look like there is a sky of stars above you in the darkness. There were also fossils found in them from the moa bird - the biggest bird to have existed, although extinct now from over hunting. Next on the bill was watching Angora Bunnies be sheared. hmm...yes you got that right, they shear the fluffiest bunnies you will ever see, right there in Waitomo. Drove on from that unique experience towards Rotarua, with a bit of a detour in Matamata - where they filmed Hobbiton in the Lord of the Rings movie. Slightly disappointing as there isn't really much left and we skipped the tour. Finally reaching Rotarua meant being met by the smell of rotten eggs. Rotarua is in the Taupo volcanic zone, and has a lot of geothermal activity around thus the smell as all these gases are released from the earth. Saw some hot springs around town before a quiet night of Indian food and Lonely Planet reading.

Wednesday the 5th: TODAY! Finally, this entry is coming near an end. Headed to the Rotorua Museum and Gallery early. One of the best museums I have been to. The building is a grand Elisabethan one, built initially as a spa for tourists - they got the theraputic waters and muds from nearby. Also medical 'cures' including electical baths (seriously) were a drawing card for the visitors. Learnt all about the local Maori tribes and the Tarawera volcanoe eruption of 1886. After learning all about the volcanoe we went to it, cos we are fearless adventurous backpackers, not worried about the fact we just learnt lots of people died when it last went up. The Waimangu volcanic valley wasn't too far out of town and we did the stroll/ part hike through the valley, finding many craters, Geysers, terraces of silica hot baths, Hot streams and lakes that looked like they were boiling (apparently it was just the gases being released). It felt like I was in the film Jurrasic park with the trees, mountains and steaming lakes all around - yet since the 1886 eruption destroyed everything and changed the landscape to reveal all this geothermal activity - it is all relatively new and a unique opportunity for scientists to watch an eco-system re-establish itself.

NB: National Jandals day 7 Dec!!! Watch this space for celebratory pictures.

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