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Published: December 18th 2006
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Henley and the war man
Henley sitting next to his old chum on the 12 hour long flight.. Kia Ora!
Finally found an internet cafe that allows us to upload pictures!
Got here ok, the two 12 hour flights wern't that gruelling for Laura. For Henley, the first 12 hours he was sat next to an old man who had faaarrrr too many war stories and a captured audience (Henley) to tell them to... Laura put her headphones on and watched a few films and left him to endure the pain. The second 12 hours, we swapped seats so Hen got the window seat but also then got a child behind using his seat as a football. Any attempt at sleeping was ruined so he sat staring at the clouds for hours instead, Laura slept..for hours....
When we finally arrived at Auckland airport Henley was feeling sleep deprived and weird and Laura was not at all jet lagged and full of energy. We jumped in a mini bus and went on over to pick up the campervan that was to be our home for the next month.
Our van has a kind of snake, dragon, fish thing on one side and some fighting cocks on the other. It's pretty cool and people keep giving us
The Van
Our van (on the right) parked up next to another Escape camper we found. the thumbs up when we drive by so the Kiwis like it a lot.
The first day we spent looking around Auckland and getting some bits for our journey. We headed out to a camp site to park up for the night and get our bearings. We have the advantage of a GPS unit to help us find our way but unfortunatly they neglegted to test whether females can grasp how to use it, so the first day was mainly spent with Laura navigating us the wrong way. She got the hang of it eventually though.
We spent the next day doing 'canyoning' in the Waiketere Forest which was awesome - Canyoning basically involves going deep into the forest and jumping into or abseiling over waterfalls, big rockfaces and swimming through rivers and streams. Laura really enjoyed this which was surprising to both of us, we also learnt the invaluable skill of backflipping of waterfalls which i'm sure will be of great use in London.
We then travelled North up to the very northern tip of the north island where we saw the beautiful 'Bay of Islands' and spent a day on a boat travelling round the
various islands. We were supposed to be swimming with the dolphins, but one of them had given birth the previous day and as they are protected by the Department of Conservation, we were not allowed to swim with them in case we upset the mother. They were swimming all around the boat, and jumping out of the water which was awesome to watch. Laura also did some boom netting which involves sitting in a net hanging off the side of the boat in the freezing cold sea water (I don't think she really thought this through beforehand) and being dragged around by the boat with a load of other squealing women in wetsuits. While up in the north we also drove up the gorgeous ninety mile beach (which is actually 64 miles long) and boogie boarded down huge sand dunes which was good fun.
We then headed southward and spent a day in Auckland, where Laura managed to persuade Henley (who you may or may not know is not fond of heights) to do the Sky Jump - This is advertised as 'the highest jump in New Zealand' and is off a platform 200m high off the Sky Tower
which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh yeah, it is also in the middle of the city so when you look down from the platform, all you see is other skyscrapers, people and cars below you. You then hear the man telling you to jump off the platform, shortly followed by the voices in your head asking what the hell you are thinking! This was great fun though and the freefall is amazing. Needless to say, Henley is now looking forward to his 15000 ft skydive which we are looking to do in the next few days....
Other than the things already mentioned, we have done caving - with millions of glow worms lighting the way with an eerie green glow, at some parts we had to float through some of the flooded caves in old inner tubes. We were underground for a few hours and the experience was great. We have also been to natural spas in an area where the earths crust is it's thinnest, so we saw lots of natural bubbling mud pools, hot springs and cool geysers. We sat in a natural spa which was 41 degrees, far too hot for Henley's
At the very Northern Tip
Cape Reinga, doesn't get much more North than this on NZ. If you keep going north from here you end up in Russia, eventually. liking but the ice cold shower after was quite invigorating! We also went wet Zorbing (which we recommend everyone try once, especially if you've ever wondered what it's like to be in a washing machine..!). Zorbing occurs when you make a huge bouncy ball, hollow it out and then put two people in with some water - sending them off down a steep hill... The experience is pretty mind bending, leaving you wondering which way is down when you reach the bottom. Highly amusing and very wet.
We also stopped off at a camp site last night which has the largest air pillow in NZ. Imagine a bouncy castle with no sides coupled with owners who actively encourage adults to be stupid on it and you have an air pillow! We went on it in the rain when it was very slippery and that was more fun than we thought it ever would be.
We were supposed to do our skydive today but the weather just tuned and started raining so we will have to postpone it. We are instead heading south ahead of schedule and hope to jump in a hot air balloon to sail across the
Henley faces his fear
Henley, seconds before the plummet. Hawkes bay wine region early tomorrow morning so hoping it will be clear by then.
Hope everyone is well, we must go now and continue our travelling but we will hopefully write again later when we find another internet cafe.
As the Kiwis all say, "Sweet as BRO, see you later!"
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Rich
non-member comment
Pant filling?
How have you managed to achieve so much in such a short time? The look on Henley's face in that picture is priceless, but what is stranger is the guy strapping you up bears an uncanny resmebalance to a certain Northerner call James H!. Enjoy yourself, more pics wouldn't go amiss! :)