All good things...

Kia Ora everyone!

Rotorua

This town is famous for being the most active geothermal area in NZ. The crust is so thin that you wander round the town and steam is rising from the ground. Tried not to think about standing on top of all the lava and stuff! Wandered round a few parks with some cool geysers, the big one Pohutu is 30m tall. Some pretty cool boiling mud pools too.

Had to wait a few days to raft the Kaituna river, which has the highest commercially raftable waterfall in the world-7m! Had been raining for a few days so the water level was too high when i first got here but managed it on the day i left. Grade 5 (obviously) and pretty cool with lots wicked rapids and then the big drop-didnt know much about it at the time as i shut my eyes and held on for dear life but looking at the photos we were very close to tipping over-in which case you were supposed to stay in the raft until the guide righted it (yeah right i was thinking) or if you had fallen out and try and get out of the rapid/washing machine like cycle! Glad that didn't happen anyway.

This place also has lots of maori culture and they have lots of cultural shows with singing and dancing and a traditional hangi which is a meat and vege feast cooked in a wooden steam pit by hot stones. Very yummy! Some of it was a bit touristy but had to be done.

Coromandel

This peninsula is one of the nicest spots on the north island, very quiet and picturesque. Started off in the not so nice town of Thames sorting myself out, then did a day walk up to the Pinnacles, some cool volcanic rocks up a mountain. After that drove further round to stay at a farmstay in Colville, a tiny little town. I was the only person here so has the house to myself for a bargain 18 dollars! They also let me take one of the horses out by myself for a few hours round the big sheep and beef farm-he was very well behaved on the whole but very stubborn when he didn't want to go a certain way or had decided that it was time to go home!

After that further round to Whitianga and Hot Water Beach where had a hilarious few hours with lotsa folk trying to build little spa pools. All the books and hostels say that you get there 2 hours either side of low tid eand digin the sand and make yourself a little pool to laze in. Well in reality the water was so hot you couldn't even stand in it but the main problem was that even at official low tide every 10 min or so just as you were getting your little pool to look quite good with little walls and everything a big wave would come in and wreck it all. I've not laughed so much in ages! The sight of all these women in their bikinis getting soaked by freezing waves while their hubbies tried valiantly to dig big walls and then watch all their hard work disappear...i never got further than putting my feet in and standing round chatting.

Took some German girls I had met at the beach down to the goldmines which we wandered through in the pitch black with only my crappy headtorch to light the way. Pretty spectacular location though in a massive gorge.

Northland

Up to Auckland for the weekend to see Bonnie and Claire, 2 girls from vet school who have been working here for 3 months and had a wee night out on the town before heading further north to Northland for the week before starting work again.

Was raining when i left Auckland so kept driving up to Pahia where the Bay of Islands is. Decided it was more of a summer activity so didn't go on a cruise but headed up the next day to Kaitaia where the trips to Cape Reinga and Ninety Mile Beach leave from. This is the far north of New Zealand and very nice, if a bit windy. Have these massive sand dunes which everyone sledges down, bloody hard walk up and then looks very steep from the top. Kinda forgot the advice about keeping your mouth shut as i screamed my way down and then was chewing sand for the next hour! Sand got everywhere, right down to my underwear (as i discovered that night!) but was good fun! Also went to Waitangi, which is where the treaty was signed to give Britain sovreighnty over NZ.

On way back down stopped at Tutupaka to go diving at the Poor Knights, the best diving spot in New Zealand and one of the top ten in the world. Was bloody cold, never felt so enclosed in double wetsuits and hood etc and still cold! Funnily enough all the guides were wearing dry suits! Lovely islands, puts the Bay of Islands famous hole in the rock to shame. Lots of holes in the rock which you can drive through and a massive sea cave where apparently they have concerts. Diving was good but not spectacular, think is the wrong time of year for the really cool stuff but saw lots of morays, scorpionfish and nudibranchs.

Auckland

Back to Auckland and a few days to do all my shopping and spending far too much money before starting work. Had gone to Wiaheke Island with Bonnie and Claire the previous weekend which is only 30 min from Auckland and quite cool. Went over to Rangitoto Island, which is only 600 years old and the result of a volcanic explosion. The island is pretty cool, everything is black volcanic rock and you walk up to the top of the volcano for cool views of Auckland and then can walk around the rim. Auckland itself has volcanoes everywhere, every hill is one pretty much.
Had moved into the house Bonnie and Claire were living in as their flatmate had gone over to Europe for 5w, so had all the home comforts and also whole series of Gossip Girl, Heroes and Greys Anatomy to watch when we came in from work!

Finally (thankfully for my bank balance!-do i really need that many fluffy kiwis?) the shopping stopped and i started work for a chain that Bonnie had locumed for in 2 little clinics in various parts of Auckland for 2.5 weeks. Both generally very quiet which meant long lunch breaks where I could go to the beach and lie in the sun and then spend hours each day on the internet. Not so tough! Weather in the North Island is lovely and its only the start of spring. So hot when the suns out that it would be the nicest day of the summer back home! The flatmate came back so for the last week and a bit moved into a really nice little hostel in Ponsonby (a really trendy part of Auckland-i fit right in lol!) which has gorgeous views of the Skytower at night from the terraces.

Been up the Skytower which is pretty cool, views over the harbour, bridge and all the islands. Had great fun taking lots of photos of us looking like we were standing on the edge. Also finally did my bungy jump off Auckland Harbour Bridge-went with Simon from the house and it was amazing! Not even that nervous when we got up there and standing on the edge-just jumped off and did it. More concerned about not doing a crappy jump actually and think i managed to look ok! Did do the obligatory scream on the way down though! Quite cool you get to walk along under the bridge on the way there and wave at the boats as you are bouncing up and down! Would definitely do it again!

So anyway last week or so in NZ spent trying to frantically squash all my many clothes into my bag, posting home everything that doen't fit and all my purchases and trying to sell my car and sort out a vague plan for South America. All this while living on a very frugal budget in an attempt to make myself feel better about money and also try and drop several kilos to make the thought of bikini wearing again less scary!
Needless to say none of these plans went very well! Onwards to South America!

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