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Published: October 18th 2006
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Bay of Islands
Daphne watching the sunset I bet that title caught your attention! Well it is easily explained .... but first, I have to tell you that when we got to NZ, Lynny was asked at customs if she had any mud on her shoes. As she checked, she lost her balance and fell A over T with her rucksack on. To help you picture it - think of a struggling turtle that has been turned upsidedown! ;-)
Anyway ..... We hired a camper van from a company that individually graffitis their vans. It was the cheapest winter price deal ever and we thought that it would be a bit of fun even though we knew we might get a bit of a heap. We turned up at the company depot and saw 'Daphne' outside and both said "I hope we dont get that one". Well it was inevitable once we said that! At first we pleaded for a different one but it was not going to happen so we decided that we would adopt our hippie names 'Sky' and 'Toke' and pretend to all we met that we were indeed 'just married'. Apparently the last people to have her were 2 French guys! haha I
Sky Tower
Aucklands famous landmark. You can jump off this if you are craaaazy enough!! bet they had fun.
(Turns out Gray cant lie, when asked if we were on our honeymoon, he turns a sheepish red and says no! - Lynny) If any of you are thinking of becoming farmers (doubtful) - DONT do it New Zealand, THEY HAVE ENOUGH!! We have never seen so many sheep. We are talking about a country that advertises (cow) milking gloves on primetime TV!! I also want to mention that this is also the country that advertises medication for premature edjaculation on national radio! We also noticed a newspaper article stating (Aidan, you will like this) that 1 in 2 people here suffer from some kind of mental dissorder in their lifetime ..... 1 in 2!!! We think it is noticeable too ;-)
You will notice there is not too many scenic pictures here. We spent 2 weeks doing a circuit of the North Island and we think we have been very spoilt in South America. We have not been as impressed with NZ as we thought we would be. It does have some nice spots which, when the weather has been good, we have enjoyed spending time in (Bay of Islands). Except for the
Fish Face
Us in a completely overrated aquarium (Kelly Tarltons) volcanic/thermal areas, a lot of the north island looks very much like the British countryside - although the towns in NZ make you feel a bit like you are in a time warp.
Auckland is a City that you can not wait to get out of. Wellington is much nicer and we liked it there. We caught up with Rob and Lexxie and had a great weekend. Although we did devalue Lexxie's parents beautiful house for a couple of days by parking and sleeping in Daphne right outside! It was fun seeing familiar faces again and soon felt like we hadnt not seen them for so long (once they got over the shock of thinking we had got married). We went to the huge Te Papa museum with Rob and played around in there like a bunch of kids. Typically, they had an inflatable sheep with a sheering simulator - I had to have a go. I was rubbish! According to the computer I cut the poor thing in several places. It was quite gory. Im not sure kids should be playing with it! Rob then decided to have a go on a water skiing simulator only instead of
Rafting
Us coming down the 7m waterfall. choosing the 'beginner' setting he chose 'top dog' hahaha he was thrown around like nobodies business. We left soon after ;-)
It was Rob and Lexxie who told us about the legendary town called 'Bulls' - the cheesiest, most corny town in history. We had to see it with our own eyes. Oh and you will notice we copied your 'Welcome to Bulls' photo Rob ;-)
One thing NZ does have in abundance (other than sheep) is various ways to kill yourself and scare yourself stupid. We plan on trying a few of these during our visit.
Gray x
We took a fishing trip in the Bay of Islands which is a very beautiful place. In the first 5 secs I caught my 1st fish ever and named him Sweep after his make. Obviously Gray had to go one better and catch a blimin' baracuda!! For those of you (if any) that dont know what a baracuda looks like, its a monster! I had to go hide in the cabin! Much to Grays delight I have caught the fishing bug.
White water rafting...... Wasnt as scary as what we'd imagined although it was still
Survivors
At the bottom the raft went completely under the water before popping back up again with us still in it. Thankfully! good fun. The highlight was plunging over a 7m waterfall. The rapids were supposed to be grade 5 but other than the waterfall I reckon that they were probably only 3 or 4, but then what do I know!? We may give it another go in Queenstown so watch this space ....
Black water rafting..... Before we entered the caves I made the mistake of saying "I hope this is scarier than white water rafting". Famous last words .... I came out a jibbering mess. I have never been so scared in all my life! It kind of took the edge off the main attraction "looking at glow-worms close up". I was too petrified to look anywhere, especially having horrid eels swimming around underneath me and my rubber ring. I didn't quite get what black water rafting was until they made us turn off our head lamps 65 metres underground.
(What sits in a rubber ring, and can be found wimpering in a glow worm cave when the lights go out?? hahaha- Gray) Lynny x
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Amy
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Wow!
even though you said north nz wasn't that exciting it looks really, really cool. i can't believe you just flew halfway around the world! did you fly over london? Lynny, I went up to the top of the Palms hotel in vegas and they have a glass bottom at the ghost bar- i was scared senseless. i couldn't stand on it and the bouncer picked me up and put me on it, as i screamed not to! scared the shit out of me- about 40 floors up!!! miss you two, glad you're having fun xxxxx