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Published: March 18th 2012
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Casual drink on the Ute at local Supermarket Right, time for a small update on what’s going on down under!
Since the last time I did an update, I have been farming, mountain biking and generally having a good time.
Me & Rob travelled to Rotorua on the 6
th, to spend a week with a family doing general farm work and gain some experience of Kiwi life. Rotorua is a pretty special place in itself, due to large amount of volcanic activity there, the major downside of this activity however is that the whole city stinks of shit! (Due to the sulphur) We however were staying just outside the city, in small town called Oropi.
We were greeted by the lovely Lilly family, who welcomed us at their small farm, and introduced us to their daughter, her boyfriend, their 8 year old son, the family donkey, dog, cat(s), horse, eel, and of course 12 cows.
Over the week our general duty was to chop a shit load of wood, and stack and rearrange their wood shed. We also get ourselves involved in the local school fete, which was brilliant fun! On the Friday we had a day of riding, so Rob blagged a bike, and
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Me, Peggy and Rob at Rafting Centre we hit the road in a borrowed 80’s Datsun Ute to hit some trails (note Ute is Kiwi talk for pick-up truck).
We also managed to erect 7 marques as a lunch stop at the school on the same day, which meant come the end of it we were really knackered! After the riding we nipped to the local supermarket, where we sat on the Ute, and shared a can of beer and some biscuits, which was not the best look! We had been told of a local hot spring, which also served mean burgers, so me and Rob hit the hot pool to relax after a hard day.
On the day of the fete we rocked up in the Ute, made friends with the headmaster and ate a New Zealand food called Hangi. This is simply meat and veg cooked in the ground, but tastes really good! I was also able to climb Mount Maunganui which is a large dorment volcano, and offers fantastic views of the Pacific and the surronding land.
We made food for the family while we were there, which was a pretty standard meatloaf, but they seemed to enjoy it! On one
of the days we were there we had the offer of riding their horse. Rob jumped at the chance, but I’m not interested, so me and Vinny (Daughters boyfriend) went to a few scrap yards looking for parts for his car, which was more enjoyable I think.
The final night with the family we spent it having a fair few bottles of wine with the parents, getting quite drunk, and listening to the mother (Peggy) talk quite a lot which I can assure you is her favourite past time.
The next few days we stayed with a friend of Rob from kayaking Andy, who was living in Rotorua. Andy was a raft guide at one of the best rafting centres in the country, which has the largest waterfall you can raft off in the world. I was lucky enough to have a free raft down, and so jumped into a raft with a middle aged cockney guy called Colin. We were also joined in the raft by a Taiwanese couple called Hank and Alice, however I’m pretty sure that’s not their real names, due to the fact they couldn’t really speak any English, and didn’t answer the those names the first time!
The rafting was a brilliant experience, and the waterfall pretty exciting, seeing as it’s a 8 metre drop, but I did have to suffer the small problem of being hit numerous times in the back of the head with a paddle from an out of control Alice. Thankfully the raft guide confiscated the paddle off her before she knocked me unconscious!
Andy’s house we were staying in was particularly brilliant; it resembled an 80’s pornstar house in Malibu, and the largest TV I’ve ever seen. It also was situated right on the edge of the river, so you woke up with brilliant views everyday.
After hitching a ride with a German skydiver I returned back to Auckland, and am currently on Waiheke Island with a friend called Becca.
I have spent a few days on the Island and it’s a brilliant place. I have been wine tasting, and have had a nice meal at the local vine yard called Mudbrick with Becca and Benjamin. I have a flight to Queenstown on Wednesday so the fun will continue hopefully.
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