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Published: March 27th 2007
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The journey continues............
After Franz Josef we headed north to Nelson for some chill out time and in preperation fot St Patricks day i wanted to be somewhere fairly busy (Franz Josef has a population of about 4000), Nelson was slightly dissapointing as no one was bloody out for Paddys day, even the bar staff were saying how quiet it was bloomin typical!!!!
We decided to get out of Nelson fairly quickly and headed to Kaikoura where........ yes i know i keep harping on about it but finally got to go swimming with dolphins and also did some whale watching and i'm not just talking about sitting in McDonalds car park watching a load of fat birds tuck into a Big Mac. The dolphin swimming was absolue quality, there were about 3 pods of dolphins over 350 dolphins in each pod, so about 1000 dolphins in one area, you dont know where to look there are sooooo many, i had a fair few the night before so the cold water woke me up a bit, the idea is that when you go swimming with them you are suppose to entertain the dolphins not the other way around (lazy
bastards!), so you have to make squeaking and clicking noises under water to attract them. I decided to go with the 'Moo'and 'feeeeeeeeeeeb'approach but that doesnt work unfortunatley. After much clicking and squeaking i manage to get quite a few of them interested and had couple swimming around me till some dickhead decided to jump off the boat and over my head and scared most of the pod away, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I kept pursuing it though and got 3-4 dolphins swimming round me for ages which was cool and they actually make eye contact with you and get up up really close so you can tuch them.
So enough of the dolphin frollickin already i will stop going on about it now, did go whale watchin though in search of spunky sperm whales, i felt i could relate to them as we are both about the same length and girth in the trouser department, although i didnt want to get mine out whilst on the boat as i might have made moby feel embarrassed. Anyhoo, spotted two sperm whales and watched them dive and saw their tales sticking out of the water. The guide on the boat tells you all
kinds of information about the whales, one story in particular was about a whaling ship that went out after some whales (obviously) and the ship was destroyed by the whale and the crew were all presumed dead, a few days later another ship went out and harpooned the whale and when they lifted it out of the water they saw its stomach moving, they cut it open and the captain of the previous ship fell out covered in stomach acid from the whale and he was still alive, they took him back ashore and he was completely insane (not suprising after being eaten alive), apparently this is a true story sounds like a load of old beeeeeeeeeeeep to me.
Said goodbye to the south island, "goodbye my lurve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and headed to the north island for Wellington, I quite like Wellington, it has plenty of bars and strip clubs and lots of fit student ladies running around the city on a friday night in skimpy outfits trying to collect certain items within a time limit to win a load of beer, what a game corrrr! Decided to hire a car again and head North to see some Volcano's and thermal
areas around New Plymouth and Lake Taupo, Mark has been getting slighty worried about my driving, he reckons i drive to fast (yeah right!), so i let the big girl drive the other day and its like driving Miss Daisy, "must not let the rev counter go over 2000 deary". I got back in the driving seat and have managed to half the driving times as stated by the lonely planet, nice one!
Around Lake Taupo there are thermal springs, bubbling mud pools and large steam vents coming out of the ground and you can walk around all of them. Whilst in volcanic area's it does tend to whiff of eggy (suphur) patches a bit, it gets a bit pongy but on the plus side if you suffer from a slight case of windy pops you can blame your little parps on the volcano, ahem which i might add i never had one case of breezy trousers, not even after a dodgy curry. Rotorua is pretty cool, loads of activities to do i just cant bloody afford to do half of them as i did most things in the South Island, still you cant do everything. Mark had a
go on a wind tunnel, its suppose to be like free falling when your skydiving, $70 for 4 minutes sounds quite a lot but it looks like quite a good laugh. I decided not to bother though as i had already spent $530 on doing the real thing.
After leaving Rotorua we went to the Waitomo Caves and head into the tunnels to see glow worms, very exciting stuff i can tell you. Got out of there pretty sharpish and headed straight to Auckland to meet up with Fred, Tonia, Dwayne and Michelle. Dwyane and Michelle have put us up for free which is pretty dam good of them and saving us loads of money, so managing to stay in the Auckland region really cheaply. Fred and Tonia took us to the Northland to the very top of New Zealand where we stayed with Fred's Family, very nice people and very kind of them to let us stay. We checked out some of the hidden coves and beaches and as we were with the locals we found places where we would never have thought to go, so it was good to have some inside knowledge, when we went to
the most northern point of new Zealand you can see where two oceans colide and the tides go against each other which looks really cool. After visiting the Northland its definitley worth looking at buying a plot there for as little as 50grand you can buy a really good sized plot with views of harbour, sandy beaches and green valleys, i need to get my arse into gear when i get back to England to buy some property over here. So Thats about it for New Zealand, I am jumping off the SkyTower tomorrow which i am absolutley shitting my pants about but i have to do it! (will add the photos at a later date for that one) and then leaving on Thursday for the Cook Islands so thats 6 months in now and 6 countries done i think i deserve some relaxation time on the beach. I would just like to finish off and say a big thank you to Dwayne, Michelle, Fred and Tonia they have made our stay in New Zealand a great laugh and a more insightful look into local life (basically drinking and Tonia having wind problems), they have also saved us a few
quid aswell although i may have spend that on beers i cant remember. Till the next blog ta ta!
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