Around the North Island on the big green bus.

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So I was finally able to take me and my diseased leg out of Auckland and I couldn’t wait. Auckland wasn’t my kind of place, I don't if this was due to having to stay there against my will due to the doctors in Auckland saying so (they have too much power) but it was all in all just a city with nothing major happening to make it a good city. So it was Monday, start of a new week and I'm off to see New Zealand. Today was my first early start in a long time, 7am - for a while there, that was the time I was getting home so this morning was a challenge. When traveling solo and leaving people you have met for new adventures, when going on a bus or even to a new hostel, you have the backpacker fear that the new place you are going to wont be as good as the last, the people wont be as great, this is never the case but even so that fear will be there every time, I know its stupid but its true but just as usual the first person I met waiting for the bus was Judy and after knowing her for 2 minutes I knew I was going to have a great time. So we boarded our big green bus and after what seemed like hours driving around Auckland city centre, we headed off, first stop was Mount Eden where you can get the best views of Auckland, so of course had to be a photo stop before making our way south down the North Island. Our bus is full to the brim, which makes it hard to get to know people but as ive only been on the bus for about 2 hours, that will proberly change. Next Stop was Hot Water Beach, I don’t know if you can tell y the name but if you dig in a certain place in the beach, the water is hot so you can have your own personal spa. so off we went with our shovels to build our own spa, I got bored so in the end just sat in the remnants of somebody’s abandoned one, the water is boiling, you can burn yourself if you don’t put any sea water in but once you get it to the right temperature its beautiful if a bit strange to see, as the beach is long but everybody huddles around this one area, we jumped back on the bus to go to our next beach destination, Cathedral Cove- a beautiful beach which takes a 40 minute walk from the car park meaning that we were the only ones on it, we swam (the water was the coldest ever), jumped off rocks, ran around in caves, played every ball sport known to man and chilled before we had to head to our destination for the night, - Whitianga in Mercury Bay, after we all checked in we decided to head out for a couple of beers because we have to be social able right, this place is a ghost town, nobody is around, there are no cars on the roads and for the first 15 minutes that we were in the bar, no bar staff - its a strange but beautiful place, the beach air seemed to take it out of us however so it was a early night for most, as tomorrow was a early start.

The next day we headed off, destination - Rotoura. On the way we stopped at the Karangakahake scenic reserve, for a wander and lunch beside the stream. The Reserve has many old no longer used train tunnels which are now pitch black caves, which we had to walk through, you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face so when 50 people are trying to stumble your way through, you can just imagine, we managed to survive however and were then faced with a dilemma, which way to go, right or left. I decided left, we should of went right but in my defence guys we saw a lot of pretty things that we wouldn’t of seen otherwise and the assumption that I was leading you to your death was unfounded and in my opinion, slightly melodramatic, so after we were saved from walking further the wrong way we made our way across the swing bridges, all 50 of us only to notice at the end that it should of only been a 10 person limit at any one time, of course being the slim beautiful people we are, we made it without it breaking. After lunch, we made our way to Rotoura only to make the much needed stop at Hobbiton, home of the Hobbits, basically its just fields and where Peter Jackson did all his filming of the Shire but all we wanted was a picture of the sign and then we were off to do our afternoons activities, which in my case was Luging. All did not go to plan as about 20 minutes away from our final stop, the bus broke down and we had to sit on the side of the road for a hour while the other tour companies drove passed beeped their horns and laughed, but after we all sacrificed our beloved water from the water bottles, we were finally off. Luging in basically sitting in plastic cars and going full speed down hills hoping that you don’t die, at first we had to do the scenic one which I admit was in my case a complete and utter failure, my bag fell off so I fully braked to get it but I did so in the worse place and then couldn’t get the momentum going at all, at least 40 went past me, I was fully ashamed especially as I was the only girl doing it and all the guys were waiting at the bottom but at the advanced course I ruled the roost, no one passed me I passed, this was mainly to the guys going a bit too gung ho and crashing into each other but it was great fun and I was airborne quite a few times, we had such a great laugh and would of stayed there all day if we weren’t booked that night to go to our Maori Concert. We were picked up at 7 where one of the bus had to be elected chief, only boys could apply and they had to play rugby (I don’t believe this was a nessicity back in the day, but mainly to our drivers preference), when we got there we were treated to a welcoming ceremony where we were to see if the tribe would accept our chief into their village meaning if we were accepted of course we were as we had paid. We then were told of Maori traditions and dances before we sat down to our Hangi, like in Fiji, our dinner cooked below the ground. The food was so good, that I once again over indulged but a backpacker has to get food where and when they can and buffets don’t stand a chance, when it was all over we went back to the hostel and had a few drinks which turned into a lot of drinks which was when we decided that we should do a tour of Rotoura, so off we went to see the geothermal pools, they are after all what makes Rotoura famous and also makes the whole place smell like eggs 24 hours a day, we then were transfixed by burning in the distance, thinking for some reason that it was a tourist attraction we made our way towards it, when we got there it was what looked like a burning cross and there was another one further on down so we went to look at that one thinking it must be some protest and we get there and see another one, by the time we get to this one however we realize that they are bins that have been set alight, delighted that we worked out the riddle we decide to sit down on the bench beside and congratulate us on our intelligence while Kelly has a cigarette so as soon as she finds the lighter from her bag, a police car drives through the park and asks us what is going on, from where the policeman was standing, we weren’t in a good position, we were standing beside the burnt out bin, slightly intoxicated while one of us has a lighter in her hand, at first he told us to stay where we were while he spoke to his partner. This was it we were thinking, we were going to be arrested for Arson, but I think he realized that if it was us we weren’t stupid enough to then sit beside the burning material waiting for the police to turn up, he did mention getting the police dog down to rule us out but had to explain that we had walked past every burning bin as in our stupidity believed it to be a tourist attraction, after looking at us strangely he told us to get back to our hostel which we did. (Though saying that, looking back I do believe prison might have been preferable over our hostel which was an absolute dump). The next day we decided to do the tour by day which was a scary thing as we realized how close we were to this boiling hot pools the night before carrying on with drunken camera people, it was good thing, if not a miracle that not one of us died, Rotoura is a lovely place, even with it smelling like eggs and I was glad I decided to spend an extra day here, not only to sample the beautiful scenery but it meant we get a new bus tomorrow with new people. The last bus was good but just way too busy so everyone had there only little groups so we had our fingers crossed for a quieter bus tomorrow, well quiet as in less people but not quiet as in party people.

We did good, we were up early, settled into our new bus and it was great, less people, so you could actually talk, the majority of the bus went to a thermal park as they only spent one night in Rotoura so didn’t get to see the pools but the 5 of us decided to go for a walk in the Redwood forest where I seemed to be constantly attacked by twigs falling on me, it was good to actually get out and walk about as I seem to walk to the bus and to the bar and that about it. We then met the rest of the group back at the thermal park where the girls got to learn the poi and the boys did the Haka, I was even made the poi leader which I think the leader later regretted as I experience some problems with my poi but the bus agreed I was a great leader as I made them look good which is what a good leader does, right!
We got back on the bus to head to Waitomo, we were going to get there early so Matty, our bus driver said he would do a group barbecue for us so after stopping to buy a lot of food and even more beer, we arrived at Waitomo after stopping to see the angora rabbits, these were the biggest rabbits I have ever seen, they were bigger than my dog, unfortunately we just missed the shearing so we left to go back to the hostel where we ate, drank and were extremely merry. It was a great way to get to know everybody on the bus and everyone had a good night, made even the better when we went to the local bar and I became the ultimate pool champion. It was a late night but worth it, whether we would feel like that tomorrow when having to get up for Black water rafting at the ridiculous hour of 6am

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