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Published: March 28th 2009
Mirror Lake
Lake MathesonSo I left my friends in Australia in search of adventure in New Zealand. And I wasn’t disappointed it. It was an action packed month including a nerve-racking skydive, adventurous glacier hike, exhilarating white water rafting, and surreal underground caving as well abundance of parties including the fancy dress in a remote West Coast pub and a 3 legged pub crawl. Not only is New Zealand an action-packed fun place, it is also the most beautiful country I have ever visited. Glorious coastal scenery, magnificent mountain ranges and picturesque lakes seem to be everywhere you look. It’s a photographers dream.
When booking my flights to New Zealand, in the excitement of it all, I booked my flights under Mrs. Peter Brosnan. Despite that initial mishap, I landed in Auckland, safe and sound. In Auckland, I explored the volcanic island of Rangitoto and visited the iconic sky tower with incredible views of Auckland. Although I enjoyed Auckland, I was eager to get on the bus and see the real beauty of New Zealand away from the cities. Despite missing my first bus, I eventually got my Kiwi Experience Bus and got out of Auckland.
As I was now travelling solo, I
was eager to meet new people and the Kiwi Experience gave me ample opportunities to meet fun and interesting people from all over the world.
Kiwi Experience is so much fun with funny and informative drivers, educating and entertaining us at the same time bringing us to some remote and random places such as Cape Reinga, the tip of New Zealand where two oceans meet, Matamata AKA Hobbiton, River Valley Adventure Lodge, Lake Maninapua, Puzzleworld as well as the jaw dropping beautiful places such as Taupo, Franz Josef and Queenstown to name just a few.
Our first stop after Auckland was Paihia in the Bay of Islands, home to some of New Zealand most beautiful beaches and birthplace of the nation with Waitangi Treaty House and Grounds. I took the opportunity to go on a day trip to Cape Reinga, the most northernly point of New Zealand where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet. This was my first taste of New Zealand outstanding natural beauty, everywhere you look is picture postcard stuff- absolutely stunning! After travelling down 90 mile beach, we came to Paki Stream where massive sand dunes make it ideal for sand boarding. So
with a 1 minute instruction, I jumped on the body board, and careered at great speed toward the bottom of the sand dune. At the bottom, of the sand dune, I dusked myself down and climb the sand dune to have another go, it was so much fun.
One of the most interesting places we stayed was Rotura. It’s interesting because when you drive into town, you see steam arising from the streets. It’s due to the geothermal activity in the area and the sulphur dioxide gas gives the town a very distinct smell. Rotura is also known as Sulphur city, Roto-Vegas and Rotten-rua, not a pleasant smell at all. Rotura is also a very important place in Maori history and here where I got my first taste of Maori culture. We went to Maori cultural concert and hangi (feast) where we visited a Tamaki Maori Village and watched a vibrant and compelling reenactment of important events in Maori history. The evening was a fascinating insight into Maori culture which was topped off with a delicious traditional Maori hangi.
We made our way to Waitomo, the home of large limestone caves waiting to be explored. Black-water rafting or
On the raft
River Valley Black Labyrinth as it is known involves exploring the underground caves by foot and in a rubber tube, jumping off waterfalls and floating down stream while thousands of glow-worms light up the caves. It was a truly remarkable and enjoyable experience.
Our next stop was Lake Taupo, a magnificent place and one of my favourite places in New Zealand. The town sits beside a glorious Lake Taupo, the largest lake in Australasia, which was formed by one of largest volcanic explosions ever in second century AD. Lake Taupo seemed like a good place to jump out of perfectly working plane, considering there are over 30,000 jumps a year. Jumping out of plane at 15,000 feet (yes 15,000 feet!) is not something you do every day. Understandably I was terrified, considering I am not great with heights. My nerves settled a little bit when I met my tandem master. His name was Paval and he was from Czech Republic. I was his final jump of the day, having already done 10 that day and over 8,000 in total. Paval talked to me in the plane to calm my nerves, explaining that I can’t do anything wrong and just enjoy the
jump. I relaxed a little until he said”when the door opens, just hang your legs out of the plane”. What the f*ck!!! Within seconds, the door opened and we departed from the plane flying to the earth at over 200km/hour. The 60-second freefall felt like a matter of seconds, the parachute opened we glide peacefully over Lake Taupo, one of the most beautiful places in the world. It was such an adrenalin rush, simply the best thing I ever done.
Another favourite of mine was River Valley Adventure Lodge. A remote country lodge located in stunning valley with breath-taking scenery everywhere we looked. This also where we did some awesome white water rafting. With our instructor screaming “back, forward, get down! Back on the job!” we manoeuvred our way through the rapids, although we didn’t manage to avoid being dumped into the freezing cold water. On one of the dangerous grade 5 rapids (we were later informed that people have died on this river), we set up to tackle the rapid with our instructor screaming “Hold on”. We all grabbed on tight and flew down the rapid and were all relieved to be still in the raft. However, our
instructor took a big hit on his back of one of the rock. The video replayed we watched later confirmed it was painful, but he struggled on gallantly to the end, which included a rick jump out in my case a rock step as I just stepped of the rock and plunged into the water. It was a pulse-racing adventure and ranks as one of my favourite days in New Zealand.
Wellington, the capital of New Zealand signaled the end of my North Island Adventure and it was also where I said goodbye to a lot of the friends that I made as I would stay on for extra day to explore Wellington. In true Kiwi Experience fashion, we partied late into the night and tore up the dance floor if I remember correctly. My extra day in Wellington allowed me to catch my beloved Liverpool record a famous victory at Bernabeu over Real Madrid. It also allowed me to visit the impressive Te Papa Museum with a fantastic array of exhibits covering all New Zealand culture, and a tour of Wellington Parliament House (very interesting for someone with an interest in Politics, probably not so interesting for most
normal folk). So my North Island adventure was over, it had been a fantastic trip so far and I looked forward to exploring the South Island.
So I crossed the Cook Strait by ferry to catch my new South Island bus. A new bus meant new friends to be made as well as some friends from the North Island bus. It’s also meant a new driver called Smiley. He is known as Smiley because his smile never left his face. He was a top guy, keeping us entertained by playing pass the pretzel on the bus.
After spending a night in Nelson, we made our way to Westport. Along the Buller River, I decided to go Jet boating. Unfortunately the engine cut out and the driver spent 20 minutes trying to fix it. The rest of us were a little bemused and disappointed when we finally got going again as it never reached the top speed we hoped for. However we put our disappointment behinds us and got ready for 3-legged pub crawl organized by Smiley. The idea is simple, a guy and a girl are tied to each other and stumble around the pubs in Westport. To be
honest, Westport is the kind of town where you need to be tied to someone to have a good time, a strange place. It was such a laugh trying to hobble from pub to pub and a great way to get everyone on the bus interacting with each other. After the pub crawl, we went to Westport only nightclub, not the biggest nightclub in New Zealand. At this stage I was very drunk and got myself locked in a tiny toilet, where the door handle had fallen off. After ten minutes of serious banging on the door and genuine fear that I would locked in there for the night, the door suddenly open by someone on the other side- great relief.
After Westport, we continued down the wild and wonderful west coast. The west coast is full of amazing coastal scenery, the best in the world I would imagine. Our next stop was remote Lake Mahinapua Hotel. Les, the 83 year old publican cooked up a delicious meal and put on a fancy dress party in the pub. The theme for the night was What the F**k? With little time to prepare, the whole pub was decorated with the
most random costumes. I bought a child puzzle set and stuck all over my body. Smiley nicknamed me “Puzzle Pete”. It was such a fun night with nearly everyone getting into the swing of things. It was one of my favourite nights on the Kiwi Experience with everyone laughing and joking all night long, not to mention a strange amount of jugs being drank and even more shots.
Our next stop was the incredible Franz Josef Glaciers. A full day hike allowed us to explore the spectacular ice glaciers which are the fast moving in the world. Kitted with all the essentials such as ice boots, jackets, gloves hat and ice axe we set off to explore the ice formations and conquer the glacier. Fitting through tiny chasms and climbing ice formations leaves you with a breath-taking view, literally the cold air sees to that. A day on the ice was a mixture of unsurpassable natural beauty and sense of personal achievement and certainly one of my highlights of New Zealand.
After staying a night in Wanaka and visit to the mind-boggling Puzzleworld, Queenstown was next on the itinerary. Queenstown is the Adventure capital of the world and
the biggest party town in New Zealand. As I had done most of the adventure activities I wanted to do (a bungy jump was literally a step to far) and Mr. Visa informing me that I was desperately short on funds, my Queenstown activities centred around going out and partying. Queenstown is the end of the road for the group as most people have different plans after Queenstown; this gave us an extra reason to party if we needed one. Our first night in Queenstown was a big party with most of us ending up in World bar, drinking out of teapots from some reason! The following night, a big group of us went on kiwi pub crawl stopping by a number of pubs, playing games, doing shots, before ending up in again in World Bar. Of course then there is Ferburgar. A Queenstown institution which I indulged a lot in my short time in Queenstown. A burger of gigantic proportions ready to satisfy anyone hunger day or night. Queenstown may be famous for adventure activities and partying but it also one of most beautiful places in New Zealand. Situated beside a picturesque lake, surrounded by massive mountain range that
in the winter are awash with skiers and snow-boarder, it certainly was alpine conditions!
Leaving Queenstown was very sad because is meant the end of my kiwi experience, spending a couple nights in Christchurch before returning to Australia. I met so many fun and interesting people from all over the world. From Skydiving in Taupo to Glazier Hike at Franz Josef, I did things I thought I would never do. New Zealand in my opinion is the most beautiful and spectacular country in the world. My Kiwi experience, as the locals would say (and I said more than few times) was sweet as bro!
Author Note: I am no good with cameras so sorry to anyone who has the red eyes in the photographs.
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