Kiwi Experience -Part 4-North Island NZ-Wellington, Taupo, Rotoura, Waitomo & Auckland!!!!!!!!

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Right so yer finally made it up to the North Island spent a bit more than half my time in the South Island as have heard its nicer and more to do plus also i had more places to stop there on the kiwi exp.

We took the ferry across from Picton to Wellington on Friday 9th November 1pm which was great fun!!!! the ferry was so much like a p&o ferry, so much fun we fell asleep!!!!! we checked into base in Wellington and got one night for free as we have stayed 6 nights in base hostels so 7th is free yay!!!!!!! At the moment im now travelling with two english girls stella and cara, cara is from kent!!!!! we checked in and decided that as it is friday night we would go for dinner at a moroccan restuarant right near the hostel that caught our eyes, poor travellers but have to splash out sometimes!!!! then we went for a few drinks, got free champagne at base, wine with dinner and then few nice drinks in a bar with some cheesey music very nice friday night!!!!!

Saturday in Wellignton i got up fairly earlyish, read, showered and went on the internet, then when we were all ready we went to look for the Te Papa museum in Wellington, the museum was very very good lots of cool things could have spent longer there but we all got tired so went to supermarket and got some bits for dinner, cara and stella went to the cinema but as im not so into films and very short for money i didnt i stayed at the hostel and went on the internet again as i know how to get onto it for free!!!!! yer man free internet!!!!!! would really have liked to see more of wellington but cos 3 of us we weren't all ready and didnt get out doing stuff til later so didnt get to see so much would have gone to the cable car and botanical gardens if had time, oh yer also while the girls went to the cinema i went for a run/walk up to mount victoria lookout which had cool views of wellington then had salad and fruit for dinner wahooooo!!!!! So wellington is okay bit of a better city but not that amazing for a capital city but all cool!!!

Okay so my time in the North Island is going very quickly!!!!!! I only had 10 days here and it is not long enough!!!!! there's never enough time in these places its annoying you need so much longer!!!!!

We travelled from Wellington up to Lake Taupo on Sunday 11th Nov, on the way on the coach we watched a typical Maori film called Once Were Warriors, im not normally into watching films as cant concentrate and get into them but on the coach was cool, the film was bloody horrible and violent and intense, showed all sides of the different culture which was pretty mad, had loads of violence and rape scenes was pretty bad.

We arrived in lake Taupo and it was an amazingly nice sunny day, stella wanted to do her sky dive at taupo!!!!! It is the cheapest place in NZ to do it and the views of the lake looked pretty cool but the company isn't the best in my opinion so the dvd and the photos arent that great but okay, so me and cara watched and waited while stella did her sky dive here and we caught some rays!!!!! Then we got a lift into town and checked into the Hostel Urban Retreat which was pretty cool, had a big bar right in the middle of the hostel so stella bought us a glass of wine each to celebrate her sky dive!!!!!! We checked into our rooms then sat outside in the sun and had a few glasses of wine and the bbq that the hostel do which was lovely, so these two are a bad influence on my spending money on drink and food lol!!!!! but was a very nice afternoon. Turned out that stella and cara decided they may stay longer in Taupo but i wasn't sure if i wanted to as there is no bus behind us so you'd have to stay there 3 nights instead of just one and i wanted to do lots of activities in Rotorua. So i didnt get to see that much of Taupo except for the lake and the hostel which were both cool but due to lack of time didnt see anything else!!! so i had to make a decison to move on or not, i decided to part from the girls and miss seeing nadia and james and go on up to Rotorua where there are lots of activities i want to do, this was really annoying as didnt want to leave the girls or miss seeing the others but at the end of the day i am travelling by myself and would have to part from the girls eventually so decided to do it now and go and do all the activities that i want to do!!!!! So yer that stressed me out lol but it happens you meet people but at the end of the day most people are by themselves and end up travelling on or alone by themselfs so you just have to do what you want to do!!!!!

So Monday 12th November i travelled from Taupo up to Rotorua it was the shortest drive yet only one hour and on the way we stopped for a free sample of typical maori culture at some show place where they sell you tickets to the maori culture/dinner show!!!!!

Realised today when i was out looking around Rotorua how lucky we are at home, how advanced and developed England is!!!! In New Zealand there are only 4 million people and only 20 million in aus and they seem to be so much more spacky and behind us lol!!!! sorry no offence to anyone!!!! so yer walking about Rotorua and Christchurch etc ive noticed that a lot of the people are pretty weird lol!!!! Also the australians have the aboriginals descendants that still live in aus and here they have the Maori descendants who still have people in the country, don't think we have much like this at home. So yer today realised a bit of a histroy/geography realisiation lesson which was cool!!!!!!

Also realised how much more i want to travel and see even more different cultures, i have to go to africa and india to see how they live there and probably how underdeveloped and poor they are. Really noticing big differences between different cultures, continents/people around the world!!!! So cool learning lol!!!!!! Def want to see more of asia, africa and india and want to see more aborignals in the outback etc/ learn more about them!!!

So Rotorua is a small town, basically it has lots of maroi villages/people in/around it and it absoloutely stinks as there are loads of natural sulphur pools around the place steaming and letting off a smell!!!! These pool are called "geyser" pools here!!!! so thats wierd. Had a look around the town today, did the walking tour out of the Lonely Planet which was pretty cool started at the government gardens where there were some of the sulphur pools, then walked down and around the lake rotorua where there were lots of black swans!!!! how cool and different!!!! also realised then how cool animals and wildlife are lol!!!! well anyway was thinking how much wildlife there is and especially in the sea i love sealife!!!!!!! Then from the lake you passed though a maori village and then into kauri park where there are lots of the sulphur pools stinking the place out but very cool and very different shows how mad the earth and the universe is!!!!!! New Zealand is formed over one of the earths plates well wellington is over it so they are prone to getting volcanoes.....hmmmm im learning some stuff travelling!!!!! So the walk was cool.

Tonight i am going to a Maori cultural/dinner show!!! should be fun, educational again!!!! Learn some stuff and see some of there culture and then have some of there cooked food for dinner yum yum!!!! Looking forward to it should be an enjoyable evening!!!! Then i have some more fun booked....tomorrow im going Black Water Rafting for the day through the Waitimo caves!!!! Wednesday i'm going to go Zorbing and if the weather is good i might even treat myself to another sky dive!!!!

Ive learnt a fair bit about the different sky diving companies in New Zealand!!!! This is the biggest place for it i think and one of the first places to do it commercially along with the bungy!!! Sky diving is pretty mental when you think what you are doing, going up in a plane and jumping out and falling but it is also very very cool and fun, think it is pretty addictive and i def want to do it again, maybe one here in the north island and then one in Australia onto the beach prob mission beach!!!! So here there are lots of places that do it.......Taupo is the cheapest, Frans Josef had amazing views and i think my dvd is wicked, lake wanaka did good dvds that rewind you falling out the plane which is very cool and NZone which is my fave compmany look so cool and classy, the pics and dvd package they do is awesome and they can make the pics into postcards how cool!!!! So i like NZone as they look so classy seen people's pics who jumped with them so i want to do my 15,000ft jump with them in the north island but we'll see on weather and funds!!!!!! You can jump at 9,000, 12,000 and 15,000 ft, they say 12,000ft good for first one as you don't know whats going on anyway so cant appreciate the extra 3,000ft anyway, so 15,000ft good for your second but maybe good if you're only going to do one!!!!

AJ Hackett Bungy was also invented here and made big and commercial by AJ Hackett and some other guy, the first one in Queenstown at the bridge and now they got more, bungy is mental as well but cool addictive activites that us humans do!!!!!

There are so many different activites that you can do here in New Zealand its unbelieveable you could spend so much on them, im trying to just do new stuff that i haven't doen before as can't afford to do everything. Include horse trekking, jet boating, quad biking, sky diving, bungy, canyon swing, white water rafting, black water rafting, river board surfing, heli rides, glacier hikes, boat rides everywhere more plane rides etc!!!!!!

Okay so Maori show was very good, entertaining and educational and lots of good free yummy food!!!! Went with 3 irish guys, mark, mark & phil and a english girl called Becky, was a good evening ate 5 helping of food get amongst it lol!!!!!

So Tuesday 13th November i got up at 6.30am to go Black Water Rafting but the weather in Rotorua was so amazingly clear and good it was calling me to do my second sky dive with NZone my fave funky company, so i changed my days about to go Black Water Rafting on Wed and sky dive on tues, booked for 10.30am but it turned out to be too windy at 10.30am :-( had to sit and wait until 1pm when finally we got the good to go message!!!! So 1pm Tues went off to do my sky dive see the entry on this bad boy!!!!

After sky diving i rushed to the Agrodome in Rotorua to go Zorbing, ive always wanted to do this since i first saw it. Zorbing is where you get inside a massive blow up rubbery ball thing and roll down hills!!!! You can do it alone or in groups of 3 and here they do it wet or dry, zig zag or straight. Rotorua invented the zorb so good place to first do it!!!!! I got there and didn't have a change of clothes and the moody cow at the reception was going to charge me to borrow some clothes ( i had to do the wet one as it was windy so couldn't do the dry one apparently), so some nice guy working there said behind her back he'd lend me some shorts and he ended up doing it with me as i thought it would be more fun with someone else in the ball than alone!!!! So yer we did the hydro ball and got wet and rolled straight down, its pretty funny and cool, be good with friends, it lasts about one minute if that so really you need to do it twice and maybe on a hot sunny day!!!! Would be pretty cool if you had one in your garden to play with and roll each other round in!!!!! Also i was gonna have to get the public bus home and pay, and some nice canadian guy offered me a lift back to the town, he had just zorbed as well so that was cool....sweet as!!!!! fun fun!!!!!! would do that again with friends!!!!!

Tues night i was on a high from my sky dive and zorb, a load of us sat round and watched my sky dive dvds and becky's bungy dvd so that was fun!!!!! Went to lava bar for a drink as well then bed ready fro Black Water Rafting!!!!!!

Wednesday 14th November got picked up by a shuttle bus to go Black Water Rfating at 7.20am was pretty knackered so spent most of the way to Waitomo, Wai meaning water and tomo meaning hole in the ground!!!!! This is a small village, population of about 50 people, lots of greenery and trees and the amazing waitomo caves!!!! well i didnt realy know what to expect for this, i saw Black Water Rafting was one of the activities here and as ive done white water rafting i thought it would be cool to do this!!!! Didnt really know or think much about what it is tho!!!! So we got to the company shop where we were going to do it, got all wet suitied, booted and hatted up, was cold and heavy gear and then drove to where the caves are!!!!! I had chosen to do the Abyss which is like the full monty experience 5 hour trip!!!!! You start by absailing 35m down under the ground into the caves, we got briefed on how to absail which is pretty easy and then got shown the hole!!!!! you could see about 5m easily and then it got very narrow and just looked like a big black hole!!!!! So when it was my turn i was pretty bloody scared when i got through the hole and into the pitch black caves, dangling on a rope 30m up not being able to see much apart from wet cold caves was pretty scarey!!!! Got down safely tho, turned out in my group was me and 7 men!!!!! So they weren't really scared at all, i got down safely and then we did a little bit of walking in the dark through the caves. I couldn't belive how cool it was, the caves are made of limestone and thousands of years ago would have been the ocean floor!!!! how cool!!!!! There were lots of stallicktites (down) and stallikmites (up) (not sure how you spell them tho!!!!), and cave coral on the walls it was very very cool!!!! We got to a point then where we had to be harnessed to a zip wire and zip wire down over the water to the other side of the cave in pitch black (as we all turned our head torches off), so that was cool and fun. Then we stopped for a tea and biscuit break and photo!!!! Then the actual rafting began, here is where it is very different to white water rafting as it is more tubing on a rubber ring rather than in a big boat raft!!!!! So we got given our tubes and we had to then jump into the freezing cold dark black water from about 5m!!!! well i was too scared it was too high to jump holding the ring round our bums and you're supposed to have landed on it!!! so i climbed down instead lol!!!! we set off rafting through the caves, it was sooooo cool, dark, wet and cold and they kept talking about eels being in the water, i thought they were joking until half way thru the day when we saw one in the shallow water about 50cm long!!!!! yuckkkkkkkkkkkk!!!! glad i didnt feel any on me tho!!!!! so lots of tubing, we did a bit where we al linked up and floated through really dark low caves which had millions of glow worms in!!!!! The glow worms aren't actually the womrs glowing it's actually their sperm glowing and loads of stringy stuff dangles down as well but anyway these glow worms were pretty neat looked and felt like we were in space when we all had our torches turned offf and was just floating along in the dark was awesome!!!!! So we did loads down in the caves and becuase there were 7 men and me we travelled pretty fast and did lots so we got to do some extra stuff!!!! we did some bits where we jumped into a waterfall hole about 2m's down and then to get back up we had to walk behind the waterfall and then climb up through it which was pretty hard but i managed it first time even when some of the blokes didn't!!!! Then we got to climb up through a few massive proper scarey, dark, tunnels and actual big waterfalls which was mad, the guides literally had to tell us where to put each of our feet on each step it was pretty scarey and cool, then once we had climbed up through the last waterfall we came out into the day light and up out of the caves was so cool cant belive that 25km worth of these caves are just hidden under the trees and fields soo cool!!!! was a wicked day out prob one of the best ive had on my trip, we got to have soup and a bagel when we got back and then drove 2 hours back to Rotorua.

That evening i pretty much chilled out and chatted to epople in the hostel and showed them sky diviing dvds and zorbign and black water rafting pics which was cool then got to bed ready to get on the kiwi bus in the morn for the last time!!!!

Thursday 15th November i got on the kiwi bus for the last time from Rotorua up to Auckland!!!!! Yayyyy last time on the bus moving, have well enjoyed it but feel glad to be reaching my last destination in NZ where i am staying for 4 nights so a while and dont have to think about moving again until i fly on Monday!!!!!

Arrived in Auckland and belled up Elise who came and met me and picked me up!!!!! How cool haven seen her for about 15 months now since she moved over here, we been arranging to meet up ever since i booked this trip and here she was!!!! she picked me up from outside ACB Base hostel in the city centre on Queens Street, she picked me up in her brum brum KA ford car, she lives the other side of the Auckland Harbour Bridge in the North Shore so we headed over there!!!! we went for a bottle of wine at the funky bar where she works- the copper room in takapuna whichis a nice funiky area, lush wine and some gorgeous wedges to catch up over very nice!!!!! one of her friends jess came down and met us and i met lots of the popel she works with all very nice, then we headed to her house which is in Browns Bay near the sea and the coast kind of, the most built up area ive seen in NZ really loads of houses!!!! Ahhhh her house is so nice very lovely, her and her bro have like their own part of the house, so cool to see how settled and well she's doign over here with uni, job, firneds, car and house etc so all good she looks very well and happy which is cool!!!

We got ready for a night out, was nice to be in a house for a bit not a hostel!!! we went to one of her friends houses first to drink there and then went to a place called Albany where a new strip of bars has opened, we went to a cool bar called reservoir but it was absoloutely packed and took like an hour to get a drink!!!! so we decided to get a taxi back over the bridge to the city and go to a club there called pony club, ive been being such a pig in auckland as i have run out of supermarket food have been eating out everyhwere and getting fast food every minute lol!!!! so had chips about 5 times in 2 days!!!! we had chips before we went in the club and after!!! i was soooo tired and hungary and cold i even fell asleep in the club!!!! in the end we got a taxi back to elise's friends house and pretty much passed out!!!!

Friday we got up and showered etc and then elise dropped me back over to the city and to ACB base hostel where i checked in, then we went for a look about and booked our bungys for saturday!!! also had lunch at the sky tower cafe which was very loevely we had healthy stuff to cancel out all the chip!!!! Fri night i was so knackered i was supposed to go for drinks with various people that ive met who are staying in the hostel but i fell asleep and woke up at 12.30am!!!!! i went down to an irish bar tho to meet a few of the peeps and say bye to stella!!!!

Saturday morning got up and got ready to go bungying!!!! Elise came and picked me up and we went to the harbour bridge where the bungy is!!!! Was a really really nice sunny day...see the good weather is still following me...better follow me to fiji!!!!! We arrived at the AJ Hackett office and checked in etc and got harnessed up then we had to walk about 10 mins to get over the bridge!!!! So the whole time ive been here ive been sayign i couldnt do a bungy and seeing people do it i thought i couldnt but as Elise wanted to i thought i may be able to do it with her!!!!! idiot!!!! so as we got over to the pod where the bungy is from i was bricking it already jus looking down and seeing how far down it is!!!!! I pretty much knew i couldnt do it and didn't want to do it lol!!!! but nayway thought id try, watched people do it and then it was my turn lol!!!! i got all harnessed up and then had to walk out to the platform to do it......well fuck that!!!! ha ha was so bloody horrible and scarey i dont know how anyone can jump, so first attempt my legs were trembling just standing at the edge and then second attempt just really didnt want to do it lol!!!! so Elise managed to do it perfectly first time...clever girl!!!!! was a cool experience going up there and watching everyone else and giving it a go at least i know i dotn think i can do it or want to do it lol!!!!!

So that was fun, then Elise dropped me back and said bye which was weird shame i wont see her again fro quite a while but maybe at Eleanores wedding in SriLanka!!!!!! So sat afternnon i saw peeps in the hostel, went up the sky tower which was cool, had my photos put onto dvd all 1700 of the NZ ones!!!! then had a 2 hour kip, got up and showered again and went and met cara for a drink to say bye to her with mark one of the irsih guys who i like all 3 of them nice guys!!!!

So my time in NZ is nearly up!!!! 4 weeks gone again!!!! madness!!!!!! So quick yet again!!!! Not quite long enough to see this awesome country with all the wicked activites and mad and wonderful views/sights/landscape!!!!

Can't tell ya how much im looking forward to fiji tho!!!!! Ahhhh sunshine, beach, water and drinking awahoooooo!!!!!!

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