Last part of New Zealand

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Spent one more night in Wellington, in an all female room. One girl had arrived to study in New Zealand and was from India, another had come over to find work and was from China. She was hoping that she could find more work than just in a chinese restaurant, which was where many of her friends had found themselves. Overall it was a bad night, because our room was right above the bar Blend, and it seemed like the entre bus load of Contiki people (who sounded like they consisted of mostly British) had entered Blend, had proceeded to get drunk and scream at each other for getting with the guy that other people liked...who knows. About 1 or 2am they finally left, the bar closed and I was awake at 6 to catch the 7am bus to Taupo, with a brief stop in Palmerston North.



In Palmerston North, I sorted out some more travel plans, discovered I had run out of money on both my debit and cashcard, and met up with Jan, a guy I had met in Costa Rica (he was one of the interns before me). Had lunch and then went on my way to Taupo. The bus was about 30 mins late, not too bad I guess, I had heard of worse stories. Taupo seemed like a cute town, didnt see much of it, met some people in the hostel called Blackcurrant Backpackers (no bunk beds...was amazed), and went for an Indian later on. Next day, the bus was not to arrive until 1pm so checked out of the hostel, found an organic food cafe, and deposited myself there for about 3 hours... really good food, think it was called Fine Fettle Cafe. I went back to the hostel, picked up my bags, and went to the bus stop. The bus was an hour and half ish late. Got into Rotorua later than expected because bus was late but managed to find the hostel Crash Palace Backpackers (I think). Really nice place, looked very relaxed, really interesting people there. Found an Italian place to eat round the corner, then went back to the hostel to watch the movie of the night ...Blue Streak - never actually seen it in full. I ended up staying here for 3 nights, as I looked very late in regards to looking for a room in Auckland on a Saturday night. I also visited Hobbiton where there are 40 or so Hobbit holes. The structures had been taken down after the filming of Lord of the Rings, but when the Hobbit was made, the locals decided to buy the land and have it as a tourist site for the next 50 or so years. Also got a free pint in the Green Dragon, which was really good fun.





On Sunday, I got the bus back up to Auckland, checked into the Nomads Auckland, and found a really cheap sushi place to eat. The next day I did a tour of Auckland and a wine tour of Waiheke Island, tried some really, really good wine including Chardonnay and different types of red wine. When I got back to the hostel, I discovered that Sofia, a girl I'd met on the second day of being in NZ was in my room. She had originally tried to apply to do research for her masters in Australia, but the process was taking too long (she had been waiting since early December to find out if she had been accepted) so she was going back home to Sweden to do the research instead. We went out to the same sushi place as the night before with another girl we met in the room called Taru, sorted some issues out with the beds and went to sleep. The next day, I woke at 5:30 to catch the 6am bus to the airport.

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