New Zealand

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So we arrived into Christchurch and spent two nights here, the city itself is a bit blah, seemed very quiet and dull....we didn't even go out, actually went to the cinema to see Batman, the Dark Knight! Also here we picked up Dervla my friend/housemate from college who again made us a foursome! We walked around the city one of the days and saw the cathedral and looked in the shops...terrible sightseeing i know!! We hopped on a short flight then to Queenstown where we were met by Amy, my cousin, who put us all up for a week in the most picturesque, adrenaline junkie, party town/cool snowboarder haven in the world! Here we passed the days skiing and sampling the nightlife a bit and of course we had a Fergburger....a queenstown experience in itself! We also had a bake-off one of the days when the mountain was closed due to bad visibility but i dont like to think too much about that since my cheesecake was sabotaged by some very dodgy jelly ....that damn kiwi jelly....it was like a radioactive lump of goo! Embarrassing to say the least!! After celebrating my birthday with a big night on the town (actually was the last night by new zealand law that anyone can serve drink past 4am....so now! some people felt that was worth making use of and stayed out til 6am!) we picked up our new car "Harvey Dent".....(a story ill explain....you see on the first day we had the car we parked it in queenstown to go add extra drivers onto it, when we came back it had been crashed into by a Brazilian woman...it was all sorted out but since we'd been to see Batman and the character there was Harvey Dent and since we had a new dent in the car we thought it a fitting name......anyway...) we hit the road to Te Anau where we overnighted in our hungover state so we were in fit form the following day for the Milford Sound cruise, which was very good, such beautiful area, it was a gorgeous scenic (if not challenging) drive to it and then we cruised out into the fjord for nearly two hours admiring it all and we got to see some seals which were cute too! After that it was back into Harvey for a scenic drive to Wanaka, a pretty little village where we spent the night and some hours the following day. That afternoon we headed to Franf Josef where we spent a few nights and hiked the Glacier which was amazing, just the size of it...breathtaking! ....pretty breath-taking as well when you've to pass yourself sideways through a crevice in the ice or crawl thro an ice cave!!! Excellent!! We even brought a little lunch for a picnic! I think it was the coolest place ive sat and eaten hang sangitches!! The following morning we hit the road bright and early to get Dervla to an early flight home and then headed on north-wards, now a threesome again. We headed to Picton which is basically the ferry town, gateway to the north island. It was quiet here so we just chilled out for a couple of days and then bade farewell to Harvey Dent and became pedestrians again for the boat journey. It was the worst boat trip.....very very choppy with massive swells and poor old ladies and little children puking! We nearly puked too but it was because we bought tickets for the cinema showing which was the god-awful rubbish "Mamma-mia"!!! Once arrived in Wellington a nice man from the car hire picked us up and introduced us to our new vehicle who later became named "Pumpialeoliaocht" (something to do with the fact that since we got him we became adrenaline junkies (read on) and also because our irish has been improving significantly on this trip with any words we dont know being extended to english word + eoliaocht = new irish word!. From there we got to grips with the city driving of Wellington and ensonced ourselves in a hostel for the weekend. We toured around the city a bit that day and hit the town that night which was good fun, we even tried to convince a Maori bouncer to do the HAKA in exchange for us doing Riverdance, we even did a few steps to tempt him but he was having none of it!! The following day was more touring, eh hmmm i might add at this point that touring = shopping.....So the last day before we left we visited the main museum and spent a few hours wandering around there learning about the earthquakes and volcanoes that have shaped NZ and some stuff about Maori culture (but not enough!!). On the road again then to Taupo where we planned on doing our skydive! Unfortunately the weather wasn't kind to us, we woke up to the rain bucketing down on top of us and so we had to postpone and so instead of wasting time we headed onto Rotarua where we hoped to do it instead. When we arrived the weather had improved a bit so we decided to do a few activites! Off we headed to do Zorbing......i dont think ive ever giggled so much continuously in my life....its basically a big plastic ball inside another big plastic ball, so big that you can get inside with 2other people, then they fill the inside ball with some water so the 3 of us were sitting in a nice cosy bath, then they close it all up and push you down a massive hill so you roll down at immense speed, bumping all over the place and getting sloshed around in the water and laughing like crazy women!!! It was the best fun ever!! We enjoyed it so much that we went a second time....the nice guy bringing us up the hill in the 4X4 snuck us in for a free second go! sweet! So after that we were so pumped (see where pumpaileoliacht came from!) we decided to head over to the bungee place....me and jacinta had regretted not doing the bungy in Cairns and had come back to the topic several times since, mostly under the influence of a few drinks where we would vow that we were brave enough and so would do it the next day....then the next day we would both pretend the conversation hadn't happened!! So anyway we said we'd bite the bullet and as long as there was no queue and so we wouldn't have the dreaded wait, then we'd go for it! Sure enough there was no queue and so we gulped and handed over the money before being led out onto the platform. Here we were kitted out and then raised up in a crane and then bungeeed off....it was soo soo scary, the first few seconds when you see the ground rushing towards you and think you're going to die and then the relief and adrenaline rush when you bounce back up. It was brilliant and we were so glad we did it! So after all that excitement we headed back to the hostel where we got ready for our Maori cultural dinner. This was a brilliant experience from beginning to end, from when we got picked up by our hilarious Maori bus driver Ngata who remembered everyones names on the big bus and proceeded to introduce everyone to everyone at every stop, at the place we had a traditional greeting and then enjoyed wandering around a typical village learning about their tools and way of life back then and then we had a show where they did some dancing/singing....and of course the Haka! it was cool! After that was a massive feast of a dinner cooked in a hangi which is basically the same as an old irish Fulach Fia....amazing how two cultures can be so far apart and have done things the exact same way. After all that it was back onto the bus for our trip home with Ngata which involved a lot of singing...mostly on his part...and one song that even invloved going around and around the roundabout for ages....hilarious! The following morning we headed off to do our skydive and we were lucky with the weather...we all got to jump from 15,000ft and i have to say that it is without a doubt the best thing ive done travelling.....i just wanted to hop straight back into the plane and go up again!! Commercial planes go up to about 38,000ft and so we jumped from just under half that, punching holes in clouds on our way down.....Amazing!! I wasn't a bit scared, just thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience! Pure adrenaline junkies we had turned into in the last few days we thought so it was time for a bit of R&R and where better to relax than at thermal spas....! Rotarua has very thin earth crust so it has lots of thermal pools and geysers etc...it also smells like rotten eggs from the sulphur...the whole town!! so anyway off we went to the pools for a while and then got massages and back to our hostel for the evening. The next morning we headed north to Auckland where we spent a couple of days doing what we do best in a city.....shopping and going out! Its a lovely city actually and we had a great night out, we met a group who worked as managers in the tallest building in NZ (which is in the city) so we got to go up at 3am and see the city by night for miles and miles including the sky tower! it was such a cool experience! So after all that excitement it was off to the airport to say goodbye to Pumpaileoliacht and hop on the plane to Fiji!!!!!.............

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