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Published: July 30th 2010
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Hello everyone, or ‘Ki-or’a as they say around here
Hope you’re all well and enjoying the summer, hopefully you’re getting some nice weather. Thanks for all your comments and emails, it’s great to hear news from home and makes the journey feel less daunting.
It’s only been 2 weeks since we arrived in NZ but it feels a lot longer! I’ll go back to our first day in Auckland to kick things off…
We left sunny LAX on Friday evening and after a 13 hour flight, we touched down in Auckland on a Sunday morning - we lost Saturday somewhere along the way! My first impression of New Zealand is that it’s darn cold! We knew that July was in the middle of winter here, but I don’t think we were quite prepared for the contrast in weather. As we drove towards downtown, I can’t get over how English everything looks…they even drive on the left.
Auckland is the biggest city in the country, but it’s fairly similar to the large cities in the UK and it seems to be constantly drizzly. Even their famous Sky Tower that dominates the city skyline, looks pretty gloomy surrounded
by grey clouds. We immediately make the mistake of booking into a hostel that turns out to be dull as dishwater. It’s on K’Road in the city centre, but it has no atmosphere and is full of ‘lurkers’
(nb. ‘Lurker’ is our new word for a certain breed of hostel dweller - they’re the strange ones who sit in the kitchen on their own, scowling at you whilst you cook food. They’re usually armed with a laptop or doing something creepy like slowly peeling an orange with a penknife)
So the first 2 days are fairly unremarkable as we sleep off the jet lag and go shopping for warm clothes. The real fun begins when we hop aboard the Magic Bus for the first time. The Magic Bus is set up for backpackers as a hop on - hop off bus service that goes to all the best bits of the country. We get picked up from Mount Eden and meet Lisa, our coach driver for the next week. She’s a bubbly, larger than life Kiwi, who says ‘Sweet as guys’ after everything that comes out of her mouth. She acts as tour guide and entertainment on board
the bus and tells us stories about all the places we pass through.
There’s a real melting pot of people on the bus, from ‘Gap Yarrs’ (posho gap year students) to ‘mature students’ (over eager, older travelers - sorry, we can’t help making up catchy labels for everyone!)…they’re all really sociable though and because you’re following the same route there’s a feeling of camaraderie. As a couple, you do feel like the odd one out sometimes…but people soon realise that we’re easygoing and up for a laugh.
As it’s Winter, the schedule is a lot tighter so we’re on the bus almost everyday at 7am, and every journey is about 5 hours long so it’s exhausting… however it’s nice to be able to listen to music and look out the window. I’ll give you a run down of the highlights so far…
Rotarua
The town with the funny smell!! The whole place is a geo-thermal hot bed and the excess sulpher creates a distinctive stink, that’s similar to rotten eggs! This was our first overnight stop and we took part in a ‘mauri experience’, which involved visiting a traditional village. I was picked as the ‘chief’ of
our group (everyone called me ‘Chief Alistair’ all night!). We met a tribe who were all dressed in traditional outfits with body paint etc and as chief I had to stand in front of the Maori warriors as they did a Haka before we are welcomed in. They pump up the tension by telling me that I’m not allowed to smile or laugh at the warriors in case they become enraged! They swing weapons in front of my nose and stick their tongues out at me…it was genuinely terrifying and I don’t think I could’ve laughed even if I wanted to! When they finally let us in, we get shown round the village, treated to a maori concert and a ‘hangi’ (traditional maori meal where the food is cooked underground). It was an amazing experience and the food was pretty good too. At the end of the night, all the lads got to have a go at doing a Haka - I can happily report that it’s well easy, just stick your tongue out a lot.
Waitomo
A little town on the way to Taupo, famous for glowworm caves and giant bunnies (that are constantly sheared like sheep or
they’ll die apparently!) We miss out on the giant bunnies but take a trip through the caves. The glow worms are worth seeing in all their glory twinkling like stars (Clio is concerned that may drop off the ceiling of the cave and into the boat though)
The final stop on the North Island is the capital city of Wellington, which turns out to be quite a bad day for a few reasons!
The city is nicknamed Windy Wellington and more than lives up to it when we arrive. We sprint through the torrential rain storm to our hostel, the Downtown Backpacker and it’s clear as we step into the lobby that it’s a total dive! The whole building is falling to pieces and very dirty. We booked a twin room to save money and find ourselves in bunkbeds. I also discover that I’ve somehow picked up the wrong ID from a previous hostel (they kept my drivers license for security purposes - which is strange in itself!)
They’ve accidentally given me the ID of a 20 year old lad from Yorkshire! They also forgot to give me back my credit card in Rotoura so my wallet
is beginning to look a bit empty. After a terrible nights sleep, I wake up on the top bunk to find that I’ve been bitten by bed bugs!!
No time to dwell on it though as we’ve got a ferry to catch to the south Island in the morning, so we stuff anything that I might infested, into a plastic bag and dash to the docks.
Things start to look up on the ferry though, the sun has come out and I call the hostel in Rotoura who tell me they’ve got my credit card and license so I should be reunited with them in Queenstown!
So onto the South Island, which we’ve been told is amazing. If it’s half as spectacular as the North Island then we’re in for a treat.
Chief Alistair and Chief Wife Clio
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anonymous
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Love your Haka pic. Full participation is needed Chief Alistair xx