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Published: November 3rd 2008
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Auckland
View of Auckland and the Sky City from our hostel. After a 13 hour flight from Santiago we arrived in Auckland. Due to the fact that we crossed the international date line we managed to lose a day. Luckily it was only a Sunday!
So we arrived at 4am. Not much happening at that time of the morning on a Monday in New Zealand so we had to wait around for things to wake up. We took the few hours we had to wait to get online and look for accommodation. Luckily New Zealand is very geared up for tourism. There is a very helpful section of the airport dedicated to tourism, we picked up about a million brochures and flyers with discounts galore. The tourist office booked our first couple of nights for us at a lovely hostel in Auckland, right in the trendy part and also booked our private taxi to get us there.
- This is the difference between South America and normal places! ... and you can flush the toilet paper! We were overwhelmed with Auckland. After spending four months in Spanish speaking countries and eating nothing but steak for most of it, it was a huge relief to try something different. Many times
Pimp my ride
Our home for the next six weeks myself and Kelly kept saying ‘hola’ and ‘gracias’ when going into and leaving shops, it was getting silly. The food selection in Auckland was fantastic though. First of all both myself and Kelly were craving Asian food and luckily nearly every corner had either, Sushi, Korean or Thai food on offer. We got stuck right into that. We also headed out to the cinema to watch a few films - finally a film without subtitles (Steven Segal) or badly dubbed that doesn’t break halfway though.
We had a few days to kill before picking up our camper van we’d hired for the majority of our trip in NZ. We took in the sights of Auckland and got back in to the western ways of things. It was nice.
We got our camper van.... at first a little shocked as it was quite rubbish. OK it looked cool, but it was very basic inside. This I’d imagined but after seeing other campers around town we felt a little ripped off. Still, it was all booked now so we had to give it a go.
First we headed north of Auckland up to the most northerly tip of New Zealand, Cape Reinga
Ninety Mile Beach
But in fact only 55 miles long, I want my money back! and 90 - mile beach (actually only 55 miles long). We stopped up on the way at a few scenic spots. The Bay of Islands and a few fishing villages. The weather was quite at this point nice so it was quite easy.
It is a true fact that New Zealand is full of sheep, you cannot drive for more than 5 minutes without seeing a field full of them. Lots of cute little lambs as well this time of year.
The first extreme thing on our list was to visit the Glow Worm caves in Waitomo. I thought that this would probably involve sitting on a small boat looking up at the pretty glow worms on the walls of the cave, but Steve obviously had other things in mind...
...so after much discussion we booked onto the Honking Holes caving adventure. Before the adventure could start, we had to get dressed up in a wet suit, helmet (with head lamp), harness and wellington boots - see picture, still smiling at this point. Then we had a quick abseiling lesson before heading down a great big black hole. There were 3 abseils involved, the first one 30 metres down
Waitomo caves
Haggas Honking Holes, this was one of the underground waterfalls we had to absail down. a tunnel, then 2 over waterfalls. These were followed by climbing through small rabbit warren type holes and chutes most of the time on our hands and knees through the water then rock climbing out. I freaked out a bit after the 2nd waterfall abseil, but there was nothing to be done about it but carry on as we were 80 metres underground in a cave. Steve on the otherhand had a whale of a time and though that he was in The Goonies! Still, made it out alive and in one piece and I know I don’t want to do it again! Hey you guys!
The next day for a bit of relaxation we went to one of the natural thermal springs. You start but sitting and covering yourselves in mud for 20 minutes, then moving onto one of the natural thermal pools. It was great, although these natural pools contain sulphur and you end up stinking of sulphur for days afterwards. Having said that the whole of Rotorua and the surrounding area stinks of sulphur - Nice.
Back in the van and Steve’s birthday was coming up so we headed down to one to the ski fields
Mount Ruapehu
The mountain was mostly closed due to high winds, so I couldn't ride on my birthday.... boo hoo. The day after it was perfect though :-) to do bit of snowboarding. For Steve’s birthday we went snowboarding in Mordor, with Mount Doom (real name Mount Ngauruhoe) as our back drop. The mountain we boarded on was actually called Mount Ruapehu and we had a brilliant sunny day with wicked boards (I managed to rent my actual board and Steve got his hands on his coveted Ride Timeless) and a 2 for 1 lift pass. Unfortunately this all happened the day after his birthday because the mountain got shut down because of the weather on his actual birthday. We also took some time out of the camper and stayed in a really nice hotel called The Powderhorn which had a massive bath tub, power shower and heated indoor swimming pool, plus a bar round the corner with free wireless internet - the only place so far we have found in New Zealand. Normally you pay 5 bucks for half an hour and a dodgy connection while they limit your downloads. Rubbish.
After spending a few days in luxury, we headed off to the southern wine region of the north island called Hawkes Bay. We stopped off at a few vinyards and tasted a few glasses and
Wellington
Also known as Wellywood as Peter Jackson is from here. bought the odd bottle. The great thing about New Zealand compared to South America is that nearly all tastings are free - plus they are very generous and quite pleasant. The weather turned on us and we made our way out going through the middle of the country down to Wellington the home of Peter Jackson (who made Lords of the Rings) in case you didn’t realise. But rushing down there we didn’t realise that we’d passed about four major sites from the film, and Kelly was very keen to see them. Becuase we’d booked a ferry crossing over to the south island we only had time to check our Helms Deep - as it happens, just a quarry these days and doesn't resemble the film at all! Most sets we computer enhanced.
Didn’t have time to head back up so we spend a couple of days hanging around Wellington seeing the sights and taking in the free Te Papa museum.
We also had the coldest night ever in Wellington before we headed off on the ferry across the Cook Straights to Picton on the south island.
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Caz
non-member comment
Caves!
Oh my god I can't believe you got Kel in caves and she's smiling about it! Travelling has changed her! x