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Published: January 9th 2009
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Mauri Ora! - "the breath of life". This is the traditional greeting giving by the Maori, the native peoples of New Zealand. Foreheads and noses are touched as the words are spoken. Seen at a bus stop we felt priviledged to see family members wish each other well with this very intimate gesture. Our first feel of Kiwi culture.
We were very excited to get to New Zealand as we have heard how beautiful it is. We arrived to Auckland and booked our bus tickets south for the following day. Five hours on the bus helped us determine that we do not want to lose days upon days to the nightmare that is Intercity travel so we promptly hired a rental car for our 4 weeks on the South Island. And funnily enough it was cheaper than 2 bus tickets. It should also give us the chance to get back to basics and see how we cope with sleeping in the car (sounds good cause it's free but we will see how things go).
We arrived in Taupo, home to NZ's biggest lake, and its beautiful surrounds. I think the snow capped mountains just above the waters may have
On my bike
in Paraparaumu wooed me into thinking that NZ is the most beautiful country we have seen so far! Checked into our last hostel for awhile and met up with Mark and Kim who we are stalking around the world. We met these guys on the plane from the London to Nairobi and have since seen them in Dar Es Salaam, Hanoi and now in Taupo. Nice to see you guys again!
After a day of constant rain we hopped on our last Intercity bus (hopefully ever!) to Paraparaumu to visit some old friends and housemates of Ev's. After a couple days rest, a Happy New Year without fireworks (not so happy for Alicia who has been waiting for fireworks since the 4th July!) and the purchase of our new tent we got at a bargain (gotta love those after Christmas sales!) we caught our train for Wellington.
"Windy" Wellington is well named I assure you. We arrived and struggled to the Te Papa Museum, the national museum of New Zealand. The museum is very well done and free. We spent the entire day there learning about the natural, Maori, and colonial history of New Zealand. After a quick dinner at
the local Irish pub (the only thing open and with a 15% service charge because it was a holiday- since when is 2nd January a holiday!) we took our ginger tablets and boarded our 9pm ferry bound for the South Island.
We survived the ferry and only barely survived the 25 turned 35 bed dorm room when we arrived at the port of Picton. Got our rental car the next day and were finally free!!!! We headed south embracing the fact that we are now the rulers of every kilometre, the decision makers for every stop. No longer will we suffer over lunches of greasy burgers and foul tasting pies forced upon us by bus stop lunch breaks! But more importantly we can now stop at every viewpoint and take all those amazing photos that you are expecting of us!
From Picton we headed for Kaikoura, known for its whale watching. Sadly they were all booked up but our beach front campsite made up for it. Besides the fact that our tent blew away in the first hour! Went for a lovely walk along the clifftop for spectacular views of the surrounding mountains capped with snow and the
seal colonies below. Walked down the cliff for a closer look and got with 10 feet of the sleeping seals and then nearly walked into one until it growled at me - scary! Rounded out the walk with getting attacked by nesting seagulls- they were swooping at my head and screaming at me- before scrambling over the rocks trying to beat the tide back to the car.
Made it back knackered and happy to be continuing our journey further South.
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