Advertisement
Published: November 3rd 2008
Spot the difference
Ok, so the dollar is a bit bigger and has a more recent picture but still...I've travelled half way around the world yet the good old english cold has still managed to find me. It's almost gone now, but it's still annoying...
We arrived in Auckland only to discover that we had in fact landed back in manchester... ok, not really, but Auckland is incredibly similar; not only that but the currency is similar to home too! The dollar has the queen on it, why? i dunno but its a bit disconcerting when the whether is like a good british summer, as in cloudy but warm. Needless to say we didn't stay there very long, before moving on to Rotorua.
Now thats more like it! much more like the new zealand I was imagining. Getting off the bus, we were greeted with the lovely welcoming smell of rotten eggs. Rotorua is a geothermal hotspot and has loads of sulphurous springs. Day one we went on a wander to a nearby park which had some mud pools...don't fancy falling into one of them, what with it being so hot that the mud is boiling :S. Luckily they're fenced off for clumsy people like me. That night we went to the Maori village of the Mitai
Fancy a swim??
I didnt think so. tribe. It included hangi, food cooked in the ground. It was delicious! I didn't take a picture though...too busy eating it I'm afraid.
The night began in the forest, where we saw them coming down a creek that looked far too small for their canoe. The water is so clear it only looks shallow but was over a meter deep...ok so thats not so deep but compared to what it looked it really was. The show they put on was fantastic...great fun and they told us some stories and what the meanings of the tattoos were. All in all a good night. But it didn't stop there. We opted to do the optional extra tour of rainbow springs, to see the Kiwi. They are nocturnal so the night was the best time to go and see them. On the way to the reserve, a short walk through the forest, we stopped and turned off all the torches so we could see the glow worms. To be honest, they weren't that impressive, but there wasn't many of them. In numbers I expect they look quite spectacular.
Having spent money yesterday, we tried to spend as little as possible today.
So we went to the lake and walking until the path ran out before turning round again. Tomorrow we move on again to Taupo. Hopefully my cold will be gone by then otherwise i will have to wait until Queenstown to go skydiving... Or at least i think so. I wouldn't want to do it feeling ill anyway really...but if i have the chance in Taupo, I'm taking it....sorry mum. I'll write a blog once I've done it. 😄
Advertisement
Tot: 0.124s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0542s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Imogen Ayres
non-member comment
HI!
hello you crazy people :D it sounds amazing! i can't believe your on the other side of the world doing all these random things! keep us posted... i'm so jealous! hope your ok, Immi xxxxxx p.s. annie -- john has put a little sink in the kitchen next to the desserts freezer! yay! :D I'm revising a lot ... :( and yesterday it was really cold! it was colder outside... than the fridge! (2'C outside, 5'C in the fridge.) yeah.... so! bye!