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Published: September 15th 2009
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We left Dunedin behind in the typical weather, rain to one side and sun to the other! We were going through the motions of the “magic bus” (a backpacker bus) to get us up as far as Taupo as we had free tickets to use up. We spent the night in Lake Tekapo which was beautiful, we had the most amazing scenery that night with the full moon reflecting on the lake over the top of the mountains.
When we got up to Kaikoura Aaron decided to go out sea fishing as its something he has always wanted to do, he came back with over 20 fish, Sea Perch, Blue Cod, Bream and best of all a grey SHARK! It was well worth it because our meals were sorted for the next 3 days, fish for lunch and dinner sometimes even breakfast!
Then it was time to cross the Cook Straight for the 3rd time, again it was a perfect crossing. After a night in Wellington with a free live music concert in the Botanical Gardens we headed off on the bus to the Tui Brewery, it was 11am and we had no choice but to purchase 3 pints of beer, 1 of each kind for a total of $2, you cant get much better value than that!
We were due at Taupo by midday to catch our connection to National Park where we would start our Kayaking trip but we were running late, we arrived half an hour late but the company had arranged for someone else to pick us up, we had our own personal Mercedez Benz transfer - not quite what were used to! We arrived at one of the stranger places we have stayed, Slalom Lodge in Raurimo town of about 5 people that all work in the same place. We got our things together and food for the next four days of kayaking.
Over the next 3 days we kayaked the 88km down the Whanganui River, the rapids a bit tamer and sparse than we had expected. It was great fun though and beautiful scenery. After the first day and 38km down the river my arms were really aching - not surprising as the furthest I have kayaked before is about 100 metres. It was time for more fish though, as Aaron thought he would try and catch a fish from the kayak, he attached a lure to some fishing line and tied it to the zip on his pocket and ten minutes later we had a Brown Trout for dinner - yummy!
Aaron desperately wanted to capsize us and I was doing everything I could to make sure we didn’t (except for crashing us straight into the cliff - oh and several large rocks!) the last day were the biggest rapids and we were coming up to the biggest waves, we paddles as fast as we could to get through but somehow we must have timed it wrong as we seemed to go under each wave instead of over the top, each time our boat got slightly more waterlogged until the two of us were sat there paddling and we suddenly realised the whole boat was submerged - we must have looked really stupid! We didn’t have much choice but to abandon ship and try to empty the water out - not easy when there are no beaches to do so, the power boat watching us clapped at our failure and motored off into the distance without even checking to see if we were ok! We eventually managed to get all the water from our boat about a mile down the river when we found a beach.
It was a great time and our passports and camera’s survived being submerged underwater for about 5 minutes!
We are now in Bangkok and staying at our usual little guest house for $2 a night! Last night we were wondering up and down Koh San Road, as you do and we heard someone shout, it was one of Aarons friends from Uni, so we spent the evening with them eating nasty fried bugs and showing them how to convenidrink and spot the ladyboys!
Tomorrow night we head off on the overnight bus to Chaing Mai.
Sarah xx
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