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Published: June 23rd 2008
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Top of some hill......
The view Katy didn´t get to see..........
Rolled off the ferry into the wind and rain that was Welligton. Headed straight for a campsite surrounded by ducks having to battle for space in the kitchen as it was swamped with kids! Next day with even more wind and rain headed back to Wellington 1stly as it was dryand 2ndly it was free we went to Wellington museum, whh actally turned out to be alright s far as museums go! Folloing the bible (lonely lanet) we jumped othe cable car which promised panoramic views botanical gardens etc etc..... however when we reached the top we were greeted with more wind and rain and miserable grey views! We left pretty sharpish and visited Napier and Gisborne. Gisborne being the 1st city se the sunrise each morning ....how exciting. Apart tfrom that there was not a lot remotely interesting so after advic from one of Greg´s mates we headed towards Tauranga. After being overwhelmed with stuff to do at the information place we decided to treat ourselves to a hot chocolate and do the only free thing on the list which was to climb some volcano thingy! not sure if it was dormant or what but saw no molten lava spurting
Fishing...
Doing my garden gnomie impression.... so guessed it was ok!! After realisig he was peaking to himself for a while Greg noticed Katy had given up and ventured to the top on his own. Getting many good pics then trotting back down....
Left to go to Rototura (probablynot how it´s spelt) AKA smellyville which had lots of thermal sulphur activity hence the strong eggy smell! We gave in, in style to our detox by raiding the local supermarket buying ice-cream, chocolate, crumpets, sweets etc it was a very exciting time for us! Bright and early one morning Greg decided we would go zorbing ( basically rolling down a hill in a giant inflateable plastic ball) Katy taking one look saying ìs that it?´and Do we really have to do this Soon enough we were in our shorts and t-shirts and after pissing off every Kiwi there with our lack of knowledge about rugby or cricket we were being taken to te top of the hill in the back of a 4x4. After a couple of buckets of hot water were chucked inside we each took it in turn to superman dive into the ball! All zipped up and given the nod we started walking (picture
Shawn the prawn.....
Katy with her prize catch...... a couple hampsters inside a ball!) Now we were tumbling, sliding, bouncing, rollig all the way down the hill laughing hysterically out of control slid out the ball and emerged soaked to the skin! We´d obviously made an impression on the staff as seeing us still giggling they stamped our hands again and sent us up for a free go! Result! This time Greg was slightly concerned he may drown as he was face down in the water with Katy rolling around on his head ( yep, we´d just paid to do this)
All warm and dried off we hit some Maori/New Zealand culture, visiting the not so hidden village. There is a semi-interesting story to this if you´d like to learn feel free to google it or we´ll be happy to fill you in on our return.
Lake Taupo was next stop, though wasn´t really sure what we were going to do. Apparently it´s the trout fishing capital of the world however not willing to part with 130quid each we opted for te cheaper 10quid option of going prawn fishing! This included a tour, prawn feeding, trout feeding and ending up with the prawn fishing! The "fishing" consisted of
Zorbing.......
Stupidly fun................ a high tech 5ft bamboo cane for the rod equipped with 4ft of line and a tiny hook, add to this a teeny piece of meat and we were all set. Queue the rain and cold rain, dangling our rods over the thermally heated pools that supposedly had 29´000 prawns in it! How hard could this be?........2 hours later with numb bums and blue hands we had a whopping 3 prawns in our ice bucket! Which we dutifully cooked and ate as soon as we got back to camp.
Also vidited the Huka falls and visited the dam watching one of the scheduled opening of the gates (Gregs idea) Sunday was our 5 month trvelling anniversary so we headed for the teeniest cnema ever to watch Sex and the City. We followed this tret with a night time dip in the local therml pools (most unnatural feeling to in your swim stuff when its just above freezing temperature!)
Went on a mammouth drive north ending up at bay of islands. Pretty much just chilled. Very pretty but we were out of season for a lot of boating activities definitely a summer place!
Making our way back into Auckland we stopped
Not so hidden....
A traditional Maori house from way back...... at Orewa beach which was full of kites and all things kite related! Like the two old people that we are we sat on a bench looking out at the sea watching the kite people! Had top put up with some annoying brats where we were staying but apart from that it was all good!.
To be honest the day we had for Auckland was not the best but we made the effort and went to the top of Mt Eden another volcano where you can see the crater still. Had it been a clear blue sky day it would have given some awesome views ovr the city but as it as rainy and cloudy it was pretty drab! In a bid to save money we failed miserabely and headed to the cinema yet again! Watche "The Zohan" which is highly reccomended unless perhaps you are Israeli or Palestinian!!!!
As you can probably tell the north island was not as exciting as the south, well for us at least. But it was a bit warmer! New zealand overall was all that we thought it´d be and more, and we thoroughly enjoyed it- glad we had 4 weeks instead of
Gorgeous.....
The spectacular views from mount Eden.......... the original 2! Looking forward to being out of our depths once again in South America.........
xxx
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big sis
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WET WET WET
hiya this still looks like you had a great trip even though it wasnt as good as the south island but at least you enjoyed it. you did loads in NZ hope you get to do the rafting in south america. i cant believe you saw sex and the city before me either great film. my one week holiday was good although made me more jealous of your 8 months holiday very very jealous. cant believe you still have so much more to see and do. hope your both still ok and miss us all (bet your having too much of a good time) cousin laura had a little boy last night too. love ya both xxx