New Zealand Part 1

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Hi Everyone,

It has now been about a week in NZ so we have lots of stories to tell. We landed in Auckland and had one night before we set off on the kiwi experience. We headed off to the Bay of Islands at 7:30am with a longish drive ahead of us. We had decided on the bus that we would do the eco adventure boat tour, which allowed us to drive out into the bay and swim with dolphins. We didn't have much time when we arrived so set off straight away on the boat. We weere warned that as these animals were wild that we may not be ableto see or swim with them, however, we got to see them and a big group at that. It took a while but eventually we found a big group and they became quite active, giving us a show of flips etc. This meant that they were in a good mood to swim with people, so we jumped in. However, i dont think we weere fun enough and they swam away. We tried again but the same thing happened so we gave up. We did get to swim close for a bit so we can say we did it. The following day we decided to go on a jet ski around the islands. this was great fun, a bit choppy but we got to go places the boats couldnt. We had to head back to Auckland that night again to then head south, so we adventured around there a bit more.

it was now time to go south to hot water beach. On our way to the over night stop, we do visit some towns on the way and do some activites. Before we got to Hot water beach, we went to Cathedral Cove. Its a long walk to a lovely beach where we got to swim and chill. once wegot to our overnight stop and had dinner, we headed to the beach about 8 so that we could build our small pools on the beach. This beach has hot water springs running under it so you can dig a ditch and have a hot bath on the beach. You have to be careful as it can get too hot and you have to get some cold sea water mixing with it, its a weird experience.

From here we headed to Waitomo. On the way we went to see an old abandoned gold mine, with the tunnels and tracks still in place. Our activity for the day at our overnight stay was black water rafting. There were 2 packages, we chose the bigger package. We got to absail down 35m into a cave, then zip line deeper for us to get into rubber rings and float down through the caves. Its full on glow worms which looks like a a night sky with sparkling stars. for us to get out we had to walk a lot of it and then climb out. This consisted of squeezing through small holes and climbing up 2 waterfalls. It was extreme stuff but amazing.

Our next over night stop was Rotorua. here we did some fun activites as a group. We did the luging and zorbing. we all raced arund the track which was so fun and then jimmy and i went into a zorbe together which was very funny. In the evening we got to go for a dinner and experience at a Maori village where we learnt about their ancesters and their way of life now. we were taught how to do the huka and learn their skills they have aquired over time. They served us up a large feast which was cooked under ground using hot rocks.

We will add more of our adventures soon

Lots of love xxxxxxx

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