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Published: April 6th 2008
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Kia Ora - Welcome! Well I finally made it to New Zealand...paradise as my kiwi friend Craig calls it and i have to say it is beautiful. The lovely Jean welcomed me at Auckland airport having patiently waited for over an hour due to delays at passport control where they only saw fit to have on 3 officers for over 500 passengers. Not much of a welcome at 1am i must say. However moving on......Jean has been the perfect host. Turfing out Sarah from her room to provide me with my own room and a double bed that was far too comfortable and had me sleeping in on my first day here...clearly needed the rest. This travelling lark really does take it out of you! I had, unusually for me, given my trip here absolutely no thought whatsoever, bar the dates I was arriving and leaving, so set about looking at the itinerary Craig had given me and promptly handed it over to Jean! I wanted to go to the museum (of course) and diving, so Jean took me to Auckland museum and a drive up to Mount Eden (an extinct volcano...one of over 45 which make up the stunning NZ
scenery) for amazing views over Auckland and a tour around the city. We then met up with Francie and Jack and Sarah, with whom I was staying and went for a meal...take a peek at the steak....WOW!!! Cooked on a hot stone and it was delicious. I then arranged my diving trip up to the Poor Knights, up in Wangarei, (pronounced Fangarey, try pronouncing Wukatani...you get the idea!) some 3 hours north of Auckland and Jean insisted on driving me up there. Once again the views were amazing. It is regarded as one of the top 10 best dive sights in the world and it is easy to see why...30-35 metres vis and was crystal clear. We saw a 4 metre long - tailed sting ray who stayed around for a bit, after warning us off with raising her tail vertically, but then after calming down, gracefully flew off. Also met some lovely people on the boat, with the possibility of doing my dive master in Tonga...options options.
Returning to Auckland, I had decided that I was to tour the rest of NZ by the Magic bus, as it basically was going where I wanted to go and avoided
the nightmare of the Kiwi experience and their drunken teenage passengers....it doesn't bear thinking about! So, I was to leave the next morning for Waitomo. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Jean, Jack, Francie and Sarah for having me in their home. I was totally spoilt by their hospitality. I would also like to apologise to Juliette for barring her from her room. I know she was very put out and relieved when I left...but thats cats for you!
So since I left, I went to Waitomo and went Black water rafting; caving and abseiling. I've never abseiled before and this was a 20 foot abseil into the cave, with a further 2 abseils down waterfalls. Fantastic! It was the Haggas honking Holes if you ever wish to do it. I highly recommend it. I then went on to Rotorua, where i went White water rafting (allegedly the highest commercially rafted waterfall at 7m) and to Hells Gate, the largest geothermal area and treated myself to a facial...the BEST facial and head massage i have EVER had! If you are ever there, GO! I also went to a traditional Mauri evening complete with Hangi (the traditional
method of cooking in the earth) and my god, the food was amazing. I piled my plate very high indeed and pigged out big time....not that I've been starving or anything. It was pure greed. I stayed at the Kiwipacker and as luck would have it they were out of dorms so had to upgrade me to a twin on my own...YEY!!!!
Following 2 days there, i headed to Taupo.....and yes I did it......my 15000 feet skydive. OH YES!!!! What a rush. What an amazing awesome feeling. Despite keeping me waiting for ages to go up (i did admittedly dither somewhat as to how i wanted this fete recorded, finally deciding on a handycam for posterity) my name was called. After my 7th toilet trip, I was ready to get into my jump suit, which annoyingly had trousers which were a bit short for me and I was concerned as to how it looked...but then I reasoned that this was frankly the last thing to be concerned about at this juncture. The man I was to be strapped to was Pavel and off we went to start recording. The plane trip took about 30 minutes to get to the
15000 feet height and the views over Lake Taupo were spectacular. We kept ourselves entertained by sneakily breathing in the oxygen from the tubes on the side of the plane...you dont need to but its fun! On the way up, we got rid of the lightweight who was jumping at 12000 feet and on up we went. The door was slid open and it was freezing! I would add here that NZ is one of the very few countries that actually jump from this height as 14000 feet is regarded as the safe height to jump for oxygen levels, but if ur gonna do it, do it right!....anyway, where was I...oh yes, high on oxygen, we jiggled ourselves forward to the open doorway and i dangled my feet over the edge. I turned around for my exit photo and out we went. Now I have to say in all honesty that I think my heart stopped for a few seconds as my mind and body simultaneously realised that i had actually just fallen out of a plane and boy it was a LONG way down and you cant help but gasp. But then oh my was it fun! Freefall was
for just over 1 minute and you can do anything you want, dangling from this guy who is recording your every move and facial reactions as you hurtle towards the ground very quickly indeed. I even managed a bit of a dance..he he! Superb! Once down though, I had to go down to Lake Taupo for a lie down to recover for the rest of the afternoon and was in bed by 9.30pm!
I then headed for Wellington, the capitol for 2 days, before getting the ferry over to the South island and more activities....
Thank you to those who are keeping in touch. It's always nice to hear from you, even though no-one seems to be doing very much of anything, it's nice to know ur alive! 😉 Keep those comments coming! I'm glad you all like the blog. I love doing it! I love you all!!! he he 😊
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