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Published: November 7th 2008
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So Cold
On the beach at the park with the German Girls, Sarah and Kat Slack Blogger
Okay, so however far behind I've been with these blogs in the past this is the furthest away I've been for sure. The last time I published a blog was 83 days ago which is pretty shocking really so firstly a sorry to anyone who has been checking the page to find nothing new. Anyway, what I'm gonna cover today, in attempt to catch up with my travels is to race through the two months I spent in New Zealand over July and August. Seeing as we are now somehow in November I'm gonna be racking my brains but regardless, here goes!
So after spending the best part of 6months In glorious equitorial, tropical climates I arrived on July 9th into Auckland to a lovely temperature of 6 degrees. I have never been that cold in my entire life. I'm serious. I didnt have anything thicker to wear than a pretty thin hoody and had genuinely forgotton what it was like to be cold. It took me 5 nights in Auckland before I got myself together and accimatised to what was going on. AUckland is by far the largest, and pretty much the only, city in New
Zealand (The whole country has a population slightly over 4 million, 1.5 million of which live in Auckland) but dispite this there was nothing too amazing about the place that I could see. I spent one of my first days there with a couple german girls who I had met on the plane over from Fiji. They'd been living in Auckland for 11 months already and had a car so drove me out to this regional park they knew about. It was really cold and the whole place was really bleak and desolate in a beautiful kind of way and so so so different from anything I'd seen in the previous 6 months it wqas really bizarre to be there, even though its not really dissimilar to places in England. Other than that it was generally just strange to be back in the western world again with everyone speaking english and eating McDonalds etc.
Anyway, after those initial 5 days of getting my head round where I was I booked myself onto a coach tour of teh country with a company called the Kiwi Experience. This would be the way I would travel pretty much the next month and
it was great. The first part of my journey took me up north of Auckland (which its self is in the north of the North Island) to stay in a small town called Paihia from where I did a day trip to Cape Reinga, the most northern point of New Zealand and the place where two oceans meet. This was pretty cool but after a couple of days there it was time the starte heading southwards.
The Kiwi bus i was traveling on is basically set up for backpackers like me to let them see the best bits of New Zealand whilst traveling with about 30 other people all doing the same thing which is great as you instaltly meet loads of other people and have a lot of fun on the way. Over the next week I stopped in several places over the North Island; seeing so fantastci scenary and doing some really nice walks; jumping 15,000 feet from a plane over the beautiful Lake Taupo; as well as learning lots about the old maori Traditions at a couple of different centres; walking down into a massive underground cave network; seeing the natural, hot, geothermal springs in Rotorua
(one of only two places where where this happens, the other being Iceland) and drinking quite a lot of Tui (a New Zealand lager) It did rain quite a lot there as we were in the middle of winter and some things we wanted to do were cancelled, but on the whole it was loads of fun. The north Island trip finished in Wellington, the Kiwi capital where the weather was so horrific all we managed was a trip to the national museam (which was really good), a trip to see the new batman film (which was even better) and a great night out in the bar in our hostel!
After 2 days in Wellington we headed onto the ferry which would take us down to the south Island for the adventures to contine. I had intended to cover all that in this blog too but is spent a lot of time there and did loads of stuff so I think it would be better for me to leave it a few days and cover that with another entry (which I promise wont take as long as last time) - Plus I have to get off the internet now
90 Mile Beach
Far North of New Zealand and I'd rather publish what I've written already!
Anyway, so at least I'm back writing this again, but and just for those of you who don't know I'm currently in Sydney where I have been for a couple of months. I'm having a really great time here working as a bartender and living by the beach, but ill cover all that next time. As before and as it has been all year (10 months away now!) Thanks for reading and stay in touch.
See you soon,
Andy
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