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Black Water Rafting
sexy outfits just before we plunged into darkness! before i start, can i just say I HATE MY TRAVELLING TOWEL!!!!
We arrived in auckland on the 29th april and we were not prepared for the cold weather at all!! all we had with us were summer clothes!!! so we decided to stay in auckland for 3 nights and sort stuff out like buying warm clothes!!!!!!!!!!! it was raining all the time when we were there! it was sooo strange coming from fiji to new zealand! felt like we had landed in england by mistake!
we jumped on the kiwi bus on the 2nd may - this is our transport all around the country and you generally stay with the same driver if youve got a good crowd of you on the bus, which we have. Our first night ont he Kiwi bus was in a small place called Mercury Bay. Wedidn't really get to see much here because we arrived in the evening and left early morning!! But the hostel was probably one of the best we have stayed in so far on our whole trip! It was run by two old couples who cooked us a lovely meal (obv for a price of $10) and
Rotorua
Beautiful sunset on the lake in Rotorua we watched Anchorman!! what a film!! Nobody really knew eachother on the first night which is really strange to think back to because now we are all good friends! me and ellie challenged two of the boys (who later became our good mates) to a game of darts - which we won, then a game of pool - which we also won!! they owed us a few drinks after that!! and unfortunately, we never won again on the whole trip!!!
our next stop was Rotorua which is famous for the geo-thermal heating! it absolutley stinks everywhere but you get used to it after a while! there are natural geysers randomly dotted around the town which squirt out water and gas all the time because of the ground heating and volcano action and all that jazz! many hotels and restaurants dont have a heating system as the naturally heated ground does the job for them! for free!
here is where we went on a Mauri night to learn more about their culture and at the end you geta massive meal given to you and all you can eat!! the food was AMAZING!! they cooked the chicken and lamb slowlyunderground all
Skydiving
in the plane just about to fall!! day so it was really tender and juicy! they also gave us pudding (which im not a fan of generally anyway) which consisted of pavlova, steam pudding and fruit salad!i never knew pavlova was a traditional NZ dessert!!
one of the guys off our bus was chosen to bechief for the night which is a pretty scary role to have!they have to give an offering to the mauries before we can all be accepted into their village!! it is forbidden to laugh or talk when the mauries are doin their scary thing at the beginning!apparently one guy did laugh and the chief of the mauris head butted him!! and they couldnt sue! so we were silent!
our bus driver was mad!! on the way back after the mauri night, he drove round a roundabout 4 times making us sing "she{ll be coming round the mountain when she comes"!!
the next day we set off for Waitomo. this is sort of in the middle of nowhere but you just go to do the black water rafting which of course, we did!! this entailed getting geared up in wet suit and very unattractive shorts and helmet with a torch on, grabbing
a rubber ring and making our way down into underwater pitch black caves! on the way down we had to jump backwards down a small waterfall, holding the rubber ring so your bum lands in it!! great fun!! it was a pretty dangerous activity as the water had a very strong current, and if you slipped on one of the rocks which you couldnt see, you would float down with current, as ellie experienced!!! she fell and the guide somehow managed to stop her going all the way down!! so funny!!! when we happily floating down, they told us to switch our torches off and we looked up and there were hundreds of gloworms above us!! it was like looking at the midnight sky on a clear night!! perfect! this was one of the colest activities we did in NZ but only to be expected as we were 90m down!!
that night, after making a disasterous spagetti bolognaise with chris and rob, (most of the spagetti ended up in the sink and we had to fish it out!) we checked out the one pub in this place!! it was full of drunken inbred ppl!! they were really friendly though
Tongariro Crossing
The start of the humungous trek!!! and we had a laugh! one of them is the only person i have met who got hit by a tractor in a hit and run accident!! i still dont understand how the tractor got away!! its like the slowest moving vehicle in the world!
the next day we headed to Taupo where we were due to do our skydive!! rhis came aroiund so quickly that i hadnt thought about it much - then the nerves kicked in!! we were to do it that day at 1pm!! ahhhhh!!! i was excited and nervous at the same time!
anyway, after a few plane load of people went up, jumped out and landed, it was our turn! we got suited up an then had to wait for half an hour until the clouds cleared! by this time it was 4.30p and gettin dark so we had 2 be quick! we got onto the plane and i was 2nd to last 2 get on which meant i was 2nd to jump - ellie being 1st to go and amy 3rd! me and ellie sort of turned histerica with excitement and fear! then they opened the hatch to jump out and before i
Tongariro Crossing
View from the top - the emerald lakes knew it, ellie was gone!! i saw her fall sooooooooo fast and i knew taht would be me in a few seconds!! and sure enough i was then sitting right on the edge of the plane with my feet dangling outside and then i was gone!! i did a couple of spins and ended up upside down for a few seconds!! we had 45 seconds of freefall and a videographer filming you and taking photos! once we hit the couds, the instructor put up the parachute successfully!! then it was a nice slow float down to the ground looking at the sunset on lake taupo!! beautiful!! it was such an adrenalin rush, and as soon as i hit the ground, i wanted to do it all again - but couldnt afford it!!!
the next day, we were to get up at 5.15am and hike up an active volcano which meant walking 17km in 6 hours!! This hike is called the Tongariro Crossing! mount doom is on this where lord of the rings was filmed. the first hour was pleasant flat walking, then we hit the devils staircase!!! it was basically rock climbing! it was vertical!! anyway, we all did it and felt such pride when we got to the top!! my legs were burning with muscle ache! unfortunately the weather wasnt very good and we nearly got blown off the top bit of the hike!! as we descended slightly, the clouds cleared up a bit and the view was stunnnig!! there were lots of lake that had been formed in craters which were emerald green!!! after 4 or 5 hours we reached the end!! we did it a lot quicker than expected but the descent felt like it went on for years!! i preferred the ascend to the descent because my knees started to really hurt (bad knees in the family!) and they still hurt today! chris and rob somehow ran the whole crossing and finished it in 3 hours!! ridiculous!
when we got back to taupo we walked to the natural geo thermal pools and had a well deservd soak! i stupidly put my head under the water which is how you can catch meningitis!! sorry mum!! i survived though! then it was time to have a well deserved drink....or 3.............................
we then made our way to a small place called river valley which is only really use don the kiwi experience for the white water rafting or horse riding! but seeing as we had done 3 big activities in 3 days and were absolutely shattered, we decided not to do anything and just relax for once!! so not much to say about river valley apart from that it was a gorgeous place!
then it was off 2 wellington where we were to catch the boat to the south island the next day! once again we didnt have chance to do much here because we arrived in the evening and left early in the morning! but we still managed to fit in a night out! we found out on the way back up to auckland a few weeks later that wellingotn is actually a really nice city - but i will explain in the south isand blog!
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danielle
non-member comment
boring
sounds like a right boring time you lot are having!i can't believe you all jumped out of a plane!good on ya girl!bedtime now..lots of love to you all,dan x