Blogs from North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 1185

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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Rotorua October 11th 2005

On arriving at Spa lodge, Rotorua, we immediately booked into a whitewater rafting trip down the Wairoa river - reputed to be one of the most challenging commercially rafted rivers in NZ with multiple grade 5 rapids - as this was only available on Sundays due to dam release schedules. The following morning our guides picked us up and drove us about an hour to the river. With only me, Toni and our guide in our raft we really had to work hard to keep the raft moving in the right direction. Somehow we made it down without flipping the raft which was more than the other raft managed! Afterwards we had some food and our first introduction to NZ sandflies - I'm not looking forward to meeting them again on the West coast of South ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington October 11th 2005

I emailed my music final to my prof last night. It went pretty well. I also turned in my Listening Diary, which is worth 80% of the grade, last week, and I wrote a choice essay on Jimi Hendrix. I will email it home soon. Today Paul, Toss, and I are gonna decide where we wanna go on the road trip. Also, I'm working on putting some better speakers into the van. Nothing special or expensive. Jon, from telecom, has some old speakers he will give me and Hamish knows how to install car audio stuff, so it should work out well. I am also working on a second edition beer pong table. Im using heaps of empty beer cans to hold up the table, should work better this time around. ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland October 11th 2005

Map Flew out of Hong Kong at Chap Le Kok international airport, (you know, the one where they bulldozed an island to reclaim some land), and arrived at Melbourne for a couple of hours before re-boarding and sitting next to a lovely looking petite girl. We slowly starting talking and getting on really well. Kim's from Aus, 24, listens to Def Leopard, and is on a 2 day business trip working for Kraft, (the cheese people!). Anyway, we were getting on so well we arranged to meet later on that night, for a meal and drinks. After getting through the ridiculously strict 'Bioscan' at Auckland airport, and having the non-existant mud on my boots examined, we headed off in a taxi. I checked into my hostel and tried to get a quick hours kips, when I ... read more
SkyTower
All hope of ever having children gets squashed out of me by the harness!
Kim in THE outfit of the summer!

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Taupo October 11th 2005

We get up, get ready and our motel owner takes us to the transport center to catch our bus to Taupo. On the way to Taupo we drive along a huge river that is obviously much higher than usual. The bus driver shows us the hydro-electric dam and other thermal powered electric plants. This river, the Waikato (Way-cat-o), provides 65% of all the power for the North Island and is the longest river in NZ. As we pull into Taupo we notice some big, beautiful homes on a hilltop. It is interesting since most of NZ is architecturally challenged. We go out to check out the town and realize that it is much larger than we expected. We look for an internet café that will allow us to use our laptop, but don’t find one. On ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington October 10th 2005

I'm into my last week here in Wellington. It's been a great stay, and I'm actually going to miss it. Come Sunday morning Clint and I are jumping on the Interislander ferry which will take us over the Cook Strait to the South Island. Our tentative plans are to go St. Arnaud in the Nelson Lakes Nat'l Park. Latest reports from the park say they have been getting snow down to 900 metres, which is where the campgrounds and any hike we do will start. We're hoping that all that moves out and the snow melts. After we have seen everything there is see there we will take a shuttle to Greymouth, on the west coast of the South Island. We will probably spend a day and night there getting rested. Then we will take the ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands October 10th 2005

Whew, time to catch up! Here's a bit about what I did a while back. To see more pictures (there's some good ones I promise), go to my clubphoto album. Leah and I left Auckland on Friday afternoon for Bay of Island and Northland, the north tip of the North Island. We’d rented a tiny Toyota Starlet from a place called “Alternative Rentals” (one of the few places that rents to under-21s) and, after a few wrong turns, were on our way out of town. It was my first experience driving on the left side of the road on a major highway (I had a little practice the weekend before), but somehow convinced Leah that she was in good hands. We made our way up the east coast of the northern tip of the North Island. ... read more
don't feed the fish
Whangerei Falls
Bay of Islands

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington October 10th 2005

Hello Everyone! Well I have now officially had my first publicity photo taken!! Yesterday night I attended the NZ premiere of the film "In her shoes" with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. It was a fundraising event for WIFT ( Women In Film and Television) Pam White coordinated the entire event and invited me to come. I took my friend John and I had a great time. We saw the film which was pretty good and then after there was a prize giveaway, some promotional giftbags, wine and nibbles and a woman walking around taking pictures for WIFT promotion. She stopped by John and I and took our picture then asked for our names and wrote them down. It was very exciting. I got to meet Pam and she is extremely nice, we have arranged to ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Rotorua October 10th 2005

Planned to go to the Wai-O-Tapu thermal area but got up and it was raining pretty hard so we decided that we didn’t want to go that bad. We saw some thermal areas while walking yesterday and they are very similar to Yellowstone National Park, but smaller. Instead, we walked downtown and while Michael spent time at the internet café, I did some laundry at the coin Laundromat. After lunch, Michael wanted to browse around town some more and I went back to our room to work on getting my journal caught up. Dee picked us up around 6:30 pm but Vince didn’t come since he is on pain pills from some torn ligaments in his foot. He is also on crutches for the first time and isn’t handling the whole thing very well. Dee took ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington October 10th 2005

Hello Everyone! Well I have now officially had my first publicity photo taken!! Yesterday night I attended the NZ premiere of the film "In her shoes" with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. It was a fundraising event for WIFT ( Women In Film and Television) Pam White coordinated the entire event and invited me to come. I took my friend John and I had a great time. We saw the film which was pretty good and then after there was a prize giveaway, some promotional giftbags, wine and nibbles and a woman walking around taking pictures for WIFT promotion. She stopped by John and I and took our picture then asked for our names and wrote them down. It was very exciting. I got to meet Pam and she is extremely nice, we have arranged to ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland October 10th 2005

Back in Auckland now! I made the 3 day journey from Sydney to Perth two weekends ago on the Indian Pacific train. It was quite remarkable to see the various landscapes across the southern portion of Australia. We stopped in Broken Hill (ghost town - previously busy mining town), Adelaide (charming city - great parks and botanical gardens - I went for a run and skirted around a number of lovely outdoor weddings, one of which had the bride and groom leaving on motorcycles!), and Kalgoorlie (once famous for the Australian gold rush). We passed through the Nullarbor Plain, which was quaint, but perhaps similar to driving through Kansas over and over again. Upon my arrival in Perth, I stayed at Cottesloe Beach for two nights and had a great view of the Indian Ocean! Unfortunately, ... read more
Scenes from the journey
More landscape
Can you tell the train was moving?




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