New Zealand - North Island

Wellington

Arrived in Wellington on the 8th June. Things we did here included a visit to the Te Papa museum which gave information about the whole history of NZ, as well as the wildlife, past geological activity, a collection of artwork and a cafe that does rather bad espresso. We also walked around much of the city centre and visited the University, which I would seriously consider going to, to do an Engineering Masters, if only they did the course I want. Oh well, maybe Auckland Uni. Anyhoo, we also went up the cable car, to get a very good view over Wellington and the bay, had a picnic in the botanical gardens here, and for some very unfortunate reason, I got persuaded into watching the new 'Sex and the City' film at the cinema. This is a very BAD movie. I recovered by getting my hair cut. As well as visiting countless cafes (I'm sure starbucks was included) we went to see a funk band one evening here. Their name? 'The Volunteers' I think. Maybe they will be big one day. We spent 3 days in Wellington overall. I really liked it here.

Napier and Lake Taupo

Our next destination on the Magic bus route was Napier. Not a great deal here worth mentioning. It was just a one afternoon/evening/night stopover. Wandered about the town, starbucks (I feel like I'm just doing a latte tour of NZ by now), a wine tasting session including 6 wines, outdoor hot spa pools, and KFC. Next place.....

Lake Taupo. Not much here, just a smallish town on the edge of a very big lake, with some mountains around it. We had attempted to hike across the famous Tongariro crossing from here. It is supposed to be the most amazing scenery in all of NZ bar none. Unfortunately, weather conditions prevented us from doing this, so there's another thing to do next time I'm in this country.

Rotorua and Mount Maunganui

Arrived in Rotorua the next day, now the 14th June. This place smells of Sulphur all over. Yes, if you like that rotten eggy smell, you should live here.

I will post more on these locations when I have more time.

Waitomo

Waitomo is a single piece of road with a holiday park, a shop, a couple of information centres, a restaurant, a bar and a rabbit shearing house. So the first day we arrived there, I simply spent several hours in the holiday park hot tub. The next day however we did a full-day caving expidition in the nearby caves of Waitomo. A short walk from our base took us to the vertical cave entrance. This was huge, I do mean very big. We abseiled down into the cave for 100m. This was exciting. I can't post a photo of this right now, but see the following link for a realistic image: http://www.hakatours.com/images/AD68_WEB_LOW_RES.jpg. At the bottom, we had lunch. The view was damn good from here. We then began our walk, swim and crawl through the cave system. At times it was like a huge underground waterpark, with unecessarily cold water. Climbing up a small waterfall and falling several metres in pitch black into water. Much fun. We saw a cave area full of glowworms. This was nice. It took us hours to pass through the the cave. Overall probably the best day I had in NZ. Definitely do this if you go there! Energing from the cave just before sunset, we walked across beautiful countryside back to the base, and had a bbq dinner. A beer and time in the hot tub rounded this day off perfectly.

Auckland

The final destination in my itinerary of New Zealand and the biggest, most populous city in NZ. I would have liked to go further up north to see the Bay of Islands, but I didn't have enough time to include this so there is another thing to do next time. The first day I spent in Auckland I spent a good half day doing the 16km coast to coast hike across the city. This gave me the opportunity to see different areas of the city: marina, city centre, university, suburbs, the peaceful residential areas, several parks and some great views from the summits of Mount Eden and One Tree Hill. In the evening we went to the 'minus 5 degrees bar', a rather small room (for a bar) where everything was ice: bar, seats, sculptures, walls and the glasses from which we drank. A very novel idea I thought. We need one in London if we don't have one already. Upon exiting this place we got free rides in executive saloons to a bar where we got a free whisky each. Some new brand were promoting their new drinks and had gone to the extent of taking people to the bar holding their launch promotion in their rather posh, almost luxurious cryslers. Free stuff is good but the whisky was crap.

I had breakfast in Vulcan lane for 3 days in a row while here. There are several rather classy coffee houses here, well worth a visit if you're going to Auckland. Other things we did in this city were a visit to the markets and a trip up the Auckland Sky Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the southern hemisphere: good views of the entire city from the top. We also watched (in a non too lively pub) England lose a rugby match to the All Blacks for the second time during our stay in the country. Oh well, the All Blacks rule. We got thrashed, on both occasions, and the Irish had no luck against them either.

Summary of New Zealand

I'll make this brief. This is the only place I've ever been to that I could seriously consider emigrating to; Singapore was too hot/humid and comparitively boring. The south island is significantly more beautiful but I sometimes felt that there were too few people. I am told that a third of the population of NZ lives in Auckland. Here, Wellington or Dunedin are the places I would consider living in should I move here. I thought the most scenicly beautiful place to live would be Lake Wanaka but this really is a very quiet town far from anything. The most fun I had would be either the Waitomo Caves, Franz Josef glacier hike and skydive, or the bungy jumps in Queenstown. I have no doubt I will be coming back here, possibly to stay. The Kiwis are as kind, polite and tolerent as the Brits, but have the laid back lifestyle of the Aussies, so life here doesn't appear half as rushed or stressful as it is in England. I love this country, though (as I'm sure Dad will be pleased to hear) I do have a stronger respect for England than when I left; it isn't so bad after all. New Zealand has many similarities to home; maybe that's why I like it so much.

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