Blogs from New Zealand, Oceania - page 2513

We left Hawai'i at 23:50 on Monday January 17th, we were flying for 9 hours and landed at Auckland International Airport at 08:00 on Wednesday January 19th, wtf happened? We were 10 hours behind you in the UK and are now 13 hours ahead of you, the time difference between Hawai'i and New Zealand in only 1 hour but we crossed the internation date line so lose a day. It's all good though, we're in Auckland and safe and well in our Hostel, well we will be at 2pm, we're currenty in an internet cafe opposite. We've got some photo's to add at a later date but I don't know how we'll get on in New Zealand for internet time as we're moving about a lot, I will do my best to keep you all updated. ... read more

Following our beach odyssey across the South Pacific, we were greeted with wind and rain when we arrived in Auckland. New Zealand's largest city, where a quarter of her population live isnt quite the bustling metropolis of Sydney, but it is lively enough, has a stylish renovated waterfront bustling with cafes and restaurants, and its landmark Skytower (highest building in the Southern hemisphere)dominates the skyline and gives great views of the huge harbour area, and the several extinct volcanoes that are dotted around it's suburbs. Auckland is also very cosmopolitan - Koreans, Chinese and Japanese in particular ran all the touristy tat shops, internet cafes and restaurants - thus providing ample supplies of quality sushi. The "City of Sails" has more yachts per head of population than any other place of earth, though how someone would ... read more

After a night in the flat doing washing and re-packing our bag we were up early on Hogmanay to catch the bus to the Bay of Islands. We had been up there in September, not thinking we’d be spending New Year in the same place, but that was where we found a holiday house (in a place called Opua, outside of Paihia, the main town in the Bay) and it’s a lovely place to visit. Joining us at the house were David and Lindsey, Cat and Rob (whose house we had Christmas at), Alex and Sara (friends of Lindsey’s from the UK, who are here on holiday) and Kenny. Unfortunately Luke had too much work to do to join us (he’s doing a long distance degree as well as working full time), and we missed him ... read more

We’ve recently returned from the first half of our Christmas holiday - four days in Rotorua, the thermal capital of NZ. We’ve had a full-on few days - here’s a sample! We left Auckland at the crack of noon on Boxing Day, heading first for the airport to collect our hire car. We were pleasantly surprised that the cheap car we had booked was actually pretty new and shiny - bonus! Graeme took the wheel and we headed south for Rotorua. We arrived at about tea time, and after checking into our hostel (we were meant to be camping, but after lots of rain the previous week, decided to opt for the comfort of a roof and a bed) quickly found a nice pub in which to eat dinner. We had a relatively quiet evening - ... read more

4 days, of amazing views. 5 nights Freezing cold crampt tents with Mike me and Clarke all sharing a 2 man tent hmmmmm i am still not over your farts Clarke they are disgusting but i admit they did keep us warm so i thankyou. I made a vital error whilst in Queenstown preparing for this trek. I did'nt buy any boots and had to make do with a pair of old sneakers. Not a good idea, but i made it! the sneakers did'nt. You feel like you've hiked to the top of the world on some parts of this track, its truely beautiful, also surreal to be walking along the side of a mountain to look down and see clouds beneath you and planes flying beneath you. Gorgeous part of the world so clean & ... read more