The Kiwi Experience

Oceania » New Zealand
January 25th 2007

Published: February 12th 2007

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sean4375

Skydiving 1

I decided to forego the Mexico City leg of the journey and instead opted to spend three weeks on a bus in New Zealand with a bunch of people most of whom were young enough to be my nieces and nephews. Yes, the Kiwi Experience hop-on/hop-off bus tour around the North and South Islands idea had to be a winner. No organisation or planning required; everything is arranged for you and basically it's a bit like a school trip. This is the route we took: - Route

My starting point was Auckland - the city of sails - and a pretty nondescript place it is too. I spent a day there before getting up early the next morning for my first day on the big green coach. The destination was north to Paihia, the Bay of Islands, home to 144 individual islands and allegedly dolphins, whales and possibly sharks. I say allegedly because during my four hour dolphin watching tour I saw not so much as a fin. Due to a cock-up with the bus return times I missed out on the trip to Cape Reinga, so had to make do with a round of golf instead. I did get

Blackwater rafting 1

Looking distinctly nervous prior to the blackwater rafting

to tee off at the 16th, which is right next to the Waitangi Treaty House, famous in New Zealand but not of sufficient interest to distract me from a wayward three wood. I also managed to fit in some quad biking whilst waiting around. This first couple of days was also my introduction to the Kiwi language; an unusual mixture of mispronounced vowels and ridiculous phrases such as "sweet as bro" and "primo". Every sentence ends with an "ay" or a "bro" and you get used to it after a while.

The accomodation was in hostels of varying quality, but I was short on time to complete the full tour, so generally I only stopped for one night at most of the destinations and I can put up with pretty much anywhere for one night (other than the Discovery Lodge, Queenstown which is a disgrace).

I spent a couple of days in Paihia before heading back through Auckland to the north east coast and Mercury Bay, which is home to the rather picturesque Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach. This as it's name suggests has a natural boiling hot spring just under the beach surface and makes a

Hole in the rock

nice cost-free spa. Or it might have done had we stopped for longer than fifteen minutes.

I had got to know quite a few of my fellow travellers by this time and I was lucky to have landed a decent bunch of people. At one stage there were one or two older than me on the bus! I was expecting the guys on the bus to be partying non-stop, such was the reputation, but most were in bed by 10 o clock during the North Island run.

Next up was the town of Rotorua, where boiling mud pools and steaming geysers can be found. The place stinks of sulphur, but the locals reckon you get used to it in time. We experienced a traditional display of Maori culture during our evening there, which was a enjoyable night, particularly as it involved an all-you-can-eat buffet. Suffice to say that it was the first decent feed for some time for the majority of the bus. Pot noodles and Nutella on bread was the staple for the travellers.

From Rotorua the bus took us to Waitomo, which is a tiny town famous only for it's limestone caves. The caves are

Cathedral Cove

formed from dead fish from 40 million years ago and nowadays it hosts glow-worms and the blackwater rafting expedition, which I eagerly signed up for despite my poor swimming ability. I had heard from various sources that it was great fun, but I wasn't told that it involved jumping backwards in the dark down small waterfalls into very deep ice cold water with just a wetsuit for protection. It proved to be really good fun though, although I was a bit nervous about the pitch black eight metre deep water section and it wouldn't be ideal for claustrophobics!

After another quiet night, we travelled next to Taupo. Lake Taupo at 616 square kms is the largest in Australasia and right next door there's a pub called Mulligan's where I won the pool competition despite hindrance from local Kiwi rules. The $50 bar tab first prize didn't last long though; a few jagerbombs and it was done. Sadly they had the desired effect and I got lost on my way back to the YHA and crawled in at 4 am. This did not please the rest of the dorm who were getting up at 5 am to walk the Tongariro

At the hole in the rock

Crossing, which apparently is one of the top ten one day walks in the world. I didn't get to find out of course and neither did I see Mt Doom from fantasy freakshow movie Lord of the Rings. I did however complete the considerably shorter 45 minute walk through Tongariro National Park and was able to see where they filmed Gollum's Pool - also from the movie which I've never seen. A high percentage of the bus did their skydives here, but I thought I'd wait for the better views at Franz Josef Glacier for mine. Either that or I bottled it. One of the two.

After spending a day and a night in River Valley, where I did very little other than indulge in a spa and massage (everyone else went white water rafting) for a shoulder strain picked up playing cricket in Waitomo, we left for the capital Wellington. The tight schedule didn't allow me to spend more than one night in Wellington sadly, but I did have the opportunity to book a scenic flight over to the South Island. I was the only one out of the entire busload of 40 to opt for the flying

Bay of Islands

option; everyone else took the three hour ferry. Of course I was subjected to the usual taunts of "champagne backpacker" etc for this, but for me it was a no-brainer. I got to spend two extra hours in bed and experienced great views for only $15 more money. And I arrived in Picton before the rest of the bus. Admittedly the 20 minute flight was in a tiny plane, which was a tad turbulent, but it was much the better option.

The plan was to spend two days in Nelson in order to see Abel Tasman National Park, but the weather put paid to that as it hammered it down for our stay there. So instead a day was wasted in little Nelson performing chores before heading off towards the north west coast of the South Island and a one horse town called Westport. There's nothing to say about Westport other than the scenery is incredible down the coast into and out of the area. The town itself is awful and it rained heavily the whole day and night. Ben and I braved the local pub briefly, but we were the only ones in there apart from Carmen Miranda

Cathedral Cove 2

behind the bar.

State Highway 6 stretches along the Tasman shoreline and has some amazing views. Good thing really as the bus had been taken over by Jimmy Orange, his ipod and consequently some terrible cock-rock music. Bon Jovi and Guns & Roses combined with Elton John and Fleetwood Mac. Awful rubbish but he enjoyed it nevertheless. Coincidentally, the bus passengers changed at this point and more of a drinking crowd had arrived.

The first heavy night out soon arrived when we headed south down the Tasman shoreline to Lake Mahinapua and The Poo Pub, owned by an eccentric octogenarian called Les. The bus fancy dress party was that night and as we had only one hour and a maximum budget of $10 each for a costume, the choice was limited. I found a pair of overalls in The Salvation Army shop for $2 and combined them with some plastic tools (also $2) and some black face paint borrowed from John Rambo and went as Eastender Phil Mitchell. It was a great night and some of the costumes were very good for $10. Of course, I was called Phil or Mitchell for the rest of the tour, but

Hot Water Beach

I guess it could have been worse.

In a moment of bravery I had signed up for the skydiving in Franz Josef and today was the day. I couldn't figure out whether I was scared or just not bothered about doing the skydive, so I presumed the former and put my name down on the 6 pm slot to avoid cowardice. It was a very full day, as I had the eight hour glacier hike in the morning/afternoon and that was a lot of fun and took my mind off the jump. When the time came for the skydive I was suprisingly calm and the fact that I was jumping into thickish cloud probably helped. I'd assumed that there would be a few of us in the plane, but it was tiny and full with just the pilot, myself, Kieran (my fellow diver) and the two instructors inside. It was all over after 45 seconds of freefall from 12,000 feet and a couple of minutes parachuting down. The views of Mount Cook were fantastic and it all seemed a bit surreal. I'm glad I did it, but not sure if I'd want to jump again, I didn't find it

A traditional Maori welcome

that exciting strangely. Predictably enough, our group of Ben, Jimmy, Rambo, Kieran, Andy and I headed to the bar to celebrate our survival and sunk a fair few jars of Monteith's - the local NZ brew.

After an uneventful day in Lake Wanaka, a picturesque little place with some great scenery, it was time for my penultimate Kiwi Experience journey, to the adventure capital of the world - Queenstown. There's something for everyone in Queenstown. You can throw yourself off things, drown yourself, fly things, drive things, all very expensive and I didn't bother booking anything on the first day. Instead our entire bus went out and accidentally got hammered in the plentiful bars and clubs that the town has to offer. I crawled into my hostel bed at 6 am and immediately decided the following morning to check into a hotel for the remaining two nights. I shall name and shame the Discovery Lodge room 216 for being the most rancid hostel room in NZ. It stunk and was full of foul teens drinking goon (cheap wine out of a box) with all of their shit all over the room. The bungy jump did not tempt me in

Maori concert 1

the slightest and I had to admire the bravery of the guys that did the 134 metre high Nevis bungy. Hats off to them but there's no way I could do that. Know your limits, that's my motto!

As I mentioned, Queenstown is party central and I had a few farewell sambuca's with the friends I'd made on the Kiwi Experience bus on my last night. I was fortunate to have had a great crowd on my two or three different buses and sadly hardly any of them travelled to Christchurch on the same day as me for my final journey. I had booked a very nice hotel in Christchurch for my last couple of nights in NZ and I was so glad to experience luxury when I peeled myself out of my coach seat after the ten hour ride from Queenstown. I spent a relaxing couple of days in the company of a Dutch lady who I met right at the start of the trip in Paihia before heading to the airport for an internal flight to Auckland and onto Los Angeles.

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