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Published: September 27th 2007
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Auckland (Waitomo) - Pahia
We arrived in New Zealand and stayed at the Fat Camel, the best thing about staying here is we got a free dinner everynight. Our first day we spent adjusting to the time difference, 17 hours in front of South America. Auckland is NewZealand's biggest city containing most of New Zealand's population. It is a very beautiful city with sky scrapers lining the ocean front. Whilst in Auckland we took a stray city tour where we visited Mount Eden, Harbour bridge and the Skytower. Sam J answered a question correctly on a quiz and got to jump free from the skytower, 196 feet above the ground. That evening we went back to the skytower to watch the sunset and see the city alight. We also walked along the ocean front to Kelly Tartons Antartic World, here we see pequins (finally) and stingrays which were huge. We went to Rongitito island where we walked to the summit and lava caves. From Auckland we visited Waitomo caves to see the glow worms. We missed our bus by 2 minutes and had to take a taxi to meet the bus. As we found out NewZealand's timekkeping is a lot
better than South America. When we arrived we were told that the caves with the glow worms were flooded so the only way to see them was to do black water rafting. We had no swimsuits and no towel so we had no choice but to put a wetsuit over our underwear! The water was freezing!! The rafting wasn't very good you sat on a rubber ring and had to push yourself along. It was dark and eerie and the walls were slimy, when you pushed yourself off of them. The only good thing is when there were no lights you could see thousands of glow worms. From Auckland we took a bus to Pahia.
Pahia - Keri Keri - Kaitia
We stayed in a great hostel in Pahia with lots of free food! Pahia is part of the bay of islands so we took a stroll along the front and walked to the Waitangi Treaty grounds. From Pahia we went to Keri Keri where we visited Fairy Pools. From Keri Keri we went to Kaitia where we booked on harrisons coach tour to Cape Regina. The weather was awful on the day of the tour, but thankfully
it brightened up whilst we were at the lighthouse. At this point we were able to see the pacific ocean and the tasman sea meet up. We went sandboarding on a sledge, great fun and drove along 90 mile beach which is actually 64 miles. We also see the famous hole in the rock. We caught a bus the next morning to Thames via Auckland.
Kaitia - Thames - Rotorua
From Thames we rented a car. We drove to Cathedral cove and hot water becah. We walked to cathedral cove which was very pretty, the cove is named so because it is shaped liked a cathedral. At hot water beach we tried to dig a hole with our hands but the tide kept coming in. Certain areas of the beach were thermal areas and were boling hot. As you dug the water was like a hot spa. From Thames we caught a bus to Rotorua. First thing we noticed was it smelt like eggs. This was because Rotorua is built on a thermal area. The eggy smell is the sulphur. As we walked around the town there was steam coming out of the ground even out of peoples
gardens. We visited Kurai Park which has a crater lake and pools of boiling mud. We visited a maori church, meeting house and walked through the government gardens. One day in Rotoura we rented a car and went to Wai o Tapu to see lady knox geyser and more thermal pools. We then drove to Kereson's creek a secluded spot where we were the only ones around and swam in the hot river. From there we visited Whakarewarewa thermal villiage where our guide was a very old maori lady. She talked about the maori culture and her believes in mother earth. She told us how she predicted the hurricane and earthquarke that had recently happened via the thermal pools. We watched a show where we see maouri people dancing, sing and perform a war dance where they stick out there tongue and bulge their eyes to scare away the enemy. Finally we took a walk through the redwoods forest. We left Rotoura for Taupo.
Rotorua - Taupo - Wellington
In Taupo we walked to Huka falls and Lake Taupo where we see the mountains from lord of the rings. We left Taupo for Wellington. Here we took a
tram to the top where we had a great view of the city. We walked back down through the botanic gardens and went to the musuem of New Zealand. The musuem was free and told us a lot about New Zealand's culture, land and agriculture. It had a room that was a model earthquake and shook to give you the experience of being in an earthquake. The next day we caught the interislander ferry to the south island.
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Mum J
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Stunning!!
It looks stunning there, a really clean country. How lucky are you two! But please Sam - no more jumping from Skytowers! Love to you both, take care. Mum J XX