I'm dreaming of a white christmas! (Yeah Right!)

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I can't believe it is December and nearly Christmas! Not only has the month I've been traveling gone too fast but its also lovely and sunny and warm and unlike home, New Zealanders actually wait til December to even start thinking about and promoting xmas and trees etc! Its great! Even better we have now decided where to go for xmas as i was determined to find somewhere nice and beachy! We're heading to a hostel by the beach on the Coromandel peninsula and we're having a free 3 course dinner and free alcohol for us and the other 22 guests, I can't wait! I'm actually going to get my Christmas on the beach that i bored you all silly talking about before i came away! Yay!

Anyway, I'm still having the most awesome time, we do so much everyday that I lose track! I didn't get to see Dolphins in Whangaroa but we did see one out to sea when we took a beautiful scenic drive around the coast! After leaving Whangaroa we headed back towards some form of civilization (well tourism anyway) as we went to Pahia which is a tourist haven but manages to stay quite nice anyway! We did the main tourist attractions which was quite novel after having been in such unpopulated places! We also spent a day in some hot sulphur springs which was ace but v smelly (and a bargain at $4, about a quid fifty!)! We also did a ferry trip over to Russel where it actually tipped it down for a while but was ok as the sun came out in time for the wedding we saw being set up on the beach which looked so much fun!

After Pahia we spent a fantastic few days in a 'city' (v small by city standards but really lovely!) called Whangarei where we made some good friends and generally had a fab time. Me and Charlie went to Abbey caves where its free public access but involves proper caving, in terms of pitch black, wading through water, climbing over rocks, with head torches and caving shoes, the works! I'm v proud of myself as we went into two out of the three caves and I'm usually a big coward when it comes to that sort of thing! The caves both had loads of glowworms in which, when you just sit and turn off the torches, look like the night sky but with a greenish glow! We didn't go through the last cave because it involved wading though chest hight freezing water which contained eels and god knows what else, no thankyou! We also went for a night walk with a group of friends from the hostel to walk up a cliff path that followed a stream to a waterfall and again the hedges were full of glowworms which are some of the coolest creatures in NZ!

Also in Whangarei the hostel owner organized for me, Charlie and our 4 friends to go to a bird rescue center where we met a talking Tui bird (they don't normally talk!) which sounded exactly like Yoda but kept asking us if we wanted beer and how our colds were! Bizarre! Coolest of all though we got to meet and touch a Kiwi bird which was immense, he was huge, bigger than a chicken and kind of spiky! It was such a unique thing to be able to do (quite literally as they don't do it anywhere else in NZ!)

After leaving Whangarei we found some more caves and decided to be brave again (now having bought our own head torches and caving shoes!) and found our way into the most amazing cathedral cavern in this huge cave which had more glowworms than all the others we'd seen put together! Its so difficult to describe but I'll never forget it, it was incredible! From there we headed down to Orewa where we met a group of school kids who live on Great Barrier island staying in our hostel (oh the joy! insanely hyper children!) but their teacher was lovely and invited us to stay with her on the island so we'll hopefully get over there early next year! (Its more difficult to get to than most islands so not many people go but apparently is well worth it!).

Anyway, I'll have to write again when I've got my diary with me, we do so much that i can never remember it all in one go! But for now I hope its not too cold back home and that the Christmas season is going well!

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