North Island Blitz

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My 3rd International flight was supposed to arrive in Auckland around 11pm but, as always, something went wrong. The flight was overbooked and I got bumped onto a later flight. Every single international flight has been late for me so far. So I showed up at Auckland International at 12:30 am with no accomodations and no idea how to get there if I did.

I managed to look a place up and assuming they had room I jumped on a shuttle. It worked out really well, I got a really cheap room in a nice part of Auckland city. I spent two days in Auckland. I didn't do much but book buses, ferries, and tours. I only had a week in the North Island and wanted to do as much as possible. The first day I could only find a bus to get to a town but nothing to either leave again or stay the night. Frustrated I gave up and said, "screw it". I decided to hitchike to Wellington from there over several days. The next day in Auckland I looked at some more options and managed to string together an unlikely bus connection saving me enough time that I could see the town of Rotorua before heading to Wellington.

I ended up spending a day in the Bay of Islands (really nice beach), a bus tour to Cape Reingha (northern tip of NZ), and a day canoeing with a Maori guide in the Bay of Islands. Then I spent a day in Waitomo black water rafting and that night in Hamilton (in a pub). The next day was in Rotorua (geothermal hotspring hotspot) and the next in Wellington.

I really like Wellington. I don't know why exactly. It's a harbour city like Sydney, or Auckland but I definetly liked it better than the others.

I left Wellington really early one morning and caught the InterIslander Ferry to the South Island which is a 4 or 5 hour trip and very scenic. You spend a lot of time travelling south into and to the head of a fjord to get to the port on the South Island. There are lots of sail boats and power boats in the fjord and its very beautiful.

oh ya, I shipped my memory card home so I have no photos of NZ right now but I'll put them up when I get home.

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