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Published: January 7th 2010
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26/11/09 Onehunga - Gave back our van to Wicked Camper. Made our way to our hostel in Mount Eden, a suburb of Auckland. We stayed at The Pentlands Hostel which turned out to be a great place for meeting people (the guests at the other place we stayed were boring and kept to themselves). Auckland city isn't exactly walking distance, about 45 minutes, from the hostel but we wanted to save cash and so made the walk almost every day to see the city. Our main thoughts were to find a car since we can see cities at home anytime. We quickly learned they were more expensive here as a lot of travelers arrive with the same idea. We spent 4 days exploring the city center, and enjoying the odd Christmas parade, before we felt it was time to move on. We got ourselves a cheap bus ticket to Hamilton and left the next day.
30/11/09 Hamilton - The bus journey didn't take too long and dropped us off in the centre of town. In the first day we found a car, a Honda Ascot '94 2.0l beast for $1700, which was plenty big enough for us and all our gear.
Pleased with ourselves we then booked a trip to the Waitomo Caves for the next day and celebrated with a cold beer!
01/12/09 Waitomo Caves - Woke up in our run down YWCA hostel non too impressed with the room but excited about the caves! Drove our new car (tentatively as we have no insurance) to Waitomo to the Rip Raft and Rock tour company. Our experience began with an ab-sail 60m into the cave river. Thankfully we were wearing wetsuits and wellies! We then waded and rock climbed upstream to a large cave where we turned off head-torches which revealed thousands of tiny blue glow-worms! Plus a huge insect called a Weta, and a funnel-web spider. We waded a little further upstream before being given a big inflated tube to sit on and black water raft our way deeper into the cave past where we entered. Then our tour guide made us cave through very small openings and cracks in the walls, often full of rushing water, eels and insects too. Although initially quite a scary prospect it turned out to be fun non-the-less. We stopped for a light picnic of chocolate and warm orange juice and continued with
a bit more rafting. To finish we had to rock climb up the rock face we ab-sailed down earlier. We had a great time and didn't mind buying the photos afterward. Got back into the beast and drove back to Hamilton for another crap night at YWCA.
02/12/09 Rotorua - We stayed at a hostel called Spa Lodge which, coincidently, had a spa pool, naturally heated and which gave off a lovely sulphurous egg smell. In fact all of Rotorua smelt eggy! The first day was very wet so we booked a cultural trip to a Māori village. We met many people in our 'tribe of many nations' and sampled our first hangi (a Māori tradition where the meat and veg is cooked by heated rocks underground). A wet and dark walk into the forest brought us to a small river where Māori men paddled a Waka (Māori boat) to us whilst chanting. These same men we saw later amongst many others at the Māori village. The Māori Haka war dance was very impressive and we learned weapon names and about their tatoos too.
03/12/09 Another wet day in Rotaroua so we just chilled out. We read books, explored the
town a little and relaxed in the spa pool with a glass of wine (more like a box) in the evening.
04/12/09 We drove north east on the thermal highway to Whakatane, where we had lunch in the sunshine (Russell actually managed to resist a plate of nachos and had something different for a change!). Next we drove to Opotiki to find a place to stay but the hostel was fully booked; we decided to drive round the east cape, keeping an eye out for a backpackers. After driving for sometime along the beautiful winding coastal highway we stumbled upon a corker! we had found Mareahako Bay Retreat in Waihau Bay. The long, steep driveway opened up to a secluded cove and a tropical hideaway. The hostel sat just of the shore and was surrounded by jagged rocks, hammocks and a water fall. The hostel itself seemed to be made of driftwood and other bits of flotsam and jetsam. Our room was on the ground floor and our french doors opened to within meters of the beach. There was also a jacuzi spa which we have developed a fondness for! Our host Pihi also had free kayaks to use but
the weather the next day was poor so we didn't manage to take advantage of them. Unfortunately we had booked to WWOOF soon near Gisbourne so we couldn't stay on the east cape too long. With this nagging thought in mind we regrettably left Mareahako Bay Retreat hoping to be back sometime in the future.
05/12/09 After leaving we continued along the east cape towards Gisborne looking for our next hostel. We found Brian's Place in Tokomaru Bay before too long and this place also turned out to be amazing! The bay itself was beautiful but the town was rundown and mostly derilict, we learned that was because a fishing business moved to Gisbourne. At the hostel we met loads of people, Swiss, German, French, English, Kiwi and South African and had a great time. Rachel really liked the Mexican-style outdoor fire. So good we decided to stay 2 nights and drive straight to Gisborne when we left.
07/12/09 - 13/12/09 John and Marie's farm, Morere, Gisborne. If we had time we'd do a blog solely for our time at the farm. When we arrived Marie was looking after the farm on her own, John we later learned was working
in a mine in Australia. Marie read palms and inner energies which was actually fascinating to watch and to participate in, naturally we're both unsure of this sort of rough science but her ability neither proved or disproved us, she was sometimes very accurate. Each day we had to work 4 hours on the farm to earn our keep and meals which included picking fruit and vegetables, chopping firewood, collecting eggs, feeding the chickens and emus, weeding the garden, helping to make dinner, cleaning the house or even helping Chris, the handyman who also works on the farm. Russell also did electrical work around the house which Marie was very pleased about and allowed us to work less hours. We also once rescued a goat with its head stuck in a deer fence. Very funny and really hard to free! One day Rachel made Puffin; it was originally meant to be a quiche (¾ cup of flour which Rachel interpreted as 3-4 cups!) but turned out like a pie/muffin. Still she managed to make it tasty! When we had a day for ourselves we went sight seeing in Gisborne town center and went to the cinema. We had a great
time at Marie's and a good start to our WWOOF career.
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Kerry
non-member comment
Happy New Year
Hey Guys, Great to see what you've been up to. Happy Christmas and New Year, bet its been a bit of a different one for you both this year. Love the Ice bar photos. We kept saying we were going to go to the one in Sydney but never got there, they look ace!! Continue to enjoy and I hope 2010 brings plenty more adventure and new experiences. Love to you both Kerry x