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Published: August 13th 2010
Hello!
We’re back in Rotourua and enjoying that old familiar smell of stinky eggs! We’ve got 3 days left before we arrive back in our final destination of Auckland, so we’ve decided to jump off the bus in Sulpher City to check out the thermal parks and hot pools properly (we didn’t have time on the way down).
The hostel we’re staying at is the Funky Green Voyager, and might be the most ‘right on’, hippy hangout we’ve stayed at. There’s recycling bins everywhere and a poster on the wall that underlines the dangers of watching television (they describe is as ‘chasing the electronic dragon’!). However it’s very comfy so we’re using it as a base to plan our route round Fiji and Australia (we’ve barely done any planning for this yet!).
Since the ‘EXTREME’ action of Queenstown, we made our way back up north on the Magic bus stopping in a variety of places along the way. Our new bus driver is called Mark or ‘Jimmy Two Times’ as we nickname him, as he repeats everything he says in a comedy style! Mark takes us to the very Scottish city of Dunedin, known at the Edinburgh of
the South. We only have a few hours to explore the city and we discover they even have a statue of Robert Burns in the city centre…it’s all vey nice but not very exciting (to be fair, it was Sunday evening). Next is Lake Tekapo (pronounced like ‘take a poo’) where we decide to try out our first dorm experience.
Now all you seasoned travelers reading this blog will no doubt think dorms are easy peasy and you’re right, however the first night of bunking down with 4 or 5 strangers can often be a little daunting, especially when you’re sharing with 2 German ‘lurkers’ (who don’t even say hello and stay in the dorm all evening) and the bunk beds squeak loudly with every slight movement! That evening we keep our distance from the dorm room lurkers, watching movies with the other sociable backpackers, but we finally have to return to the room to face the music (or the loud squeaking).
7 hours later, we’re getting back on the bus…we survived unscathed, but VERY tired! Luckily we’ve got 3 days in Christchurch to re-cooperate. We make a pact that we will stay in dorms as much as
we can, as it will save us a lot of money and it’s just a bed at the end of the day. On the way to Christchurch we lose half the bus at the airport, as many people are flying up to the North Island today. We say goodbye to John and Gregg who we’ve been travelling with for the past 2 weeks and have been a good laugh.
Christchurch is very much the most Anglo influenced area in the country and we feel like we’re arriving back home! There’s a River Avon running through the city and the road names are along the lines of Gloucester Street or Worcester road! It’s a very nice city though and we easily fill a few days walking round the free museums and galleries. We even go for a swim at the local leisure centre, mixing it up with the locals and spend an evening at the cinema to check out ‘Inception’ (really, really good film).
When we jump back on the bus a few mornings later, we’re reunited with Ann-Marie and Miriam, a couple of nice Irish girls we met on day 1…as well as ‘mature student’ Melvyn who we’d
already said goodbye to in Dunendin. We catch up with our travel mates and make our way to Kaikora.
Kaikora is mauri for ‘meal of crayfish’ and boy do those Kaikora folk take their fishing seriously…in fact the town and its activities all have a very fishy theme. The locals make a fortune from taking backpackers out on boats to see whales and dolphins, charging 100 quid a time! We don’t have that kind of money so we go for a bike ride instead.
We ride down the main road and make a stop at local whaling house that is built on whale vertebrae. The view along the beach, with the mountains in the background is really stunning (you think we’d be complacent about scenery by now) and we finish off the afternoon with a dip in the hot tub at our hostel, before getting stuck into the local delicacy...you’ve guessed it, fish and chips (surprisingly they’re pretty average…they could’ve been improved with a bit of gravy :-))
The next morning we make a stop to check out the seals at a local waterfall, a stop that turns out to be one of the highlights of the
trip. The stops on the Magic bus really vary in excitement, sometimes it can be something as random as ‘huge boulders on a beach’ (as exciting as it sounds) or beer tasting. This was one that was well worth getting off the bus!
As you get closer to the waterfall, you can spot the little blubbery fellas, sticking their heads out from behind the bushes or playing in the water. However this was just a tiny taster of the craziness that we see at the waterfall. We arrive to the sight of hundreds of seals splashing about in the water and running up like friendly dogs (with flippers). We filmed it on our camera and I'll upload the video to this site when I get a chance...it has to be seen to be believed!
So we wave goodbye to the South Island and hop across the Cook Straight to Wellington, for the second time. Last time we were here, it was torrential rain and I got bitten by bed bugs. This time we’re met by slightly nicer weather, although it’s dark when we arrive so we’re destined to never see the capital city in daylight!! We’re staying at
a hostel that offers a free meal - sounds good, until we sit down at the hostel bar and they serve us salty chips and 2 mini spring rolls! They then tell us we’ve got 10 mins to finish our food before the bar shuts for a private function!! Doesn’t that defeat the point of a hostel bar?!! (Plus I think they nicked our meal from the buffet!).
We make the most of the Wellington nightlife and watch the All Blacks play the Wallabies, at a local pub. We meet up with our bus gang of Miriam, Ann Marie, Melvyn and Tash and we get pretty drunk and cheer on the team. It’s an All Blacks win so we celebrate by drinking until 1am (like we needed an excuse!) It’s actually our first night out in NZ and Wellington has a buzz about its bars and pubs…shame we have to leave at 7am the next day.
We time our first hangover very well, as Napier is the next destination and unless you have a thing for 1930’s architecture (Art Deco apparently!) then there’s not much else to do. We feel sorry for ourselves and watch back to back
films in our room!
So we’re back in Auckland on Saturday, almost a month since we arrived and I can safely say that New Zealand will take a lot to be beaten in terms of unforgettable experiences.
Since we’ve been travelling we’ve been bashed over the head with various tick lists of ‘must do activities’ that cost a small fortune, but the brilliance of this country is all the sights and scenery you can experience for free. From snow peaked mountains, to steaming sulpher pools, it’s like a different world! Coupled with the friendliness of the locals and the pride in their heritage, it’s a winning formula. Having said that, the money we spent on jumping out of that plane in Queenstown was worth every penny :-)
Fiji is up next…not sure what the internet is like over there so it might be a few weeks before we stick another blog up…keep the messages coming though and keep us up to date with UK happenings
Ali and Clio x
Ps. Since I wrote this blog, we’ve actually done a few more things that I would staple onto the end, rather than try to crowbar it
into the blog.
We went for a walk round the thermal park (steamy and smelly), relaxed in the Polynesian spa (relaxing and smelly), walked up Mount Manganui to watch the sunset (but had to cut it short because it was getting dark) and arrived back in Auckland to find it exactly how we left it….drizzly!
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Andrew
non-member comment
New Zealand
Wow, Sounds like your having such an amazing time out there guys, have to say im extremely jealous, but really glad your having such a good experience! There is a couple from New Zealand who live and work in Crail, who are frequent drinkers in the pub that i work in, however i made the big mistake of telling them that my brother is travelling in their homeland! They have since not stopped talking to me about the place, and the woman actually felt the need to show me some weird type of greeting that they do over there! This consisted of her grabbin my head as if she was going to either headbutt or kiss me then rubbing her nose on mine!! ( i was sober and quite scared)... Have you come across this ? x Just yesterday during another