North Island

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We arrived in Auckland airport feeling somewhat confused (more than normal that is), after a 14 hour flight, 16 hour time difference and having lost a day. But it is so easy! The immigration staff are nice and polite - don't make you (or me at least) feel guilty without even having done anything, there is information on everything you could possibly need information on, and they speak English! Well, kind of.

Having already come to the conclusion that we needed wheels, we spent the first few days in Auckland buying a car. As a result we are now the proud owners of a 13 year old station wagon, which is in better condition than Scott's Saab I am pleased to say (sorry Fiona!). Not being particularly 'purist' campers, we hot footed it to buy more bed mats, pillows, chairs, another stove, pans, chilly bin etc. etc. and have since been enjoying the weather and camping out in relative comfort pretty much every night.

After a few days in Northland, we headed to Rotorua to meet up with Nichola and Tom. After managing to co-ordinate a meeting place from opposite sides of the globe, we were foiled at the last hurdle by the bouncers not letting Scott in on account of, what sounded like, 'his janglies'. It turned out that it was his flip flops that were the problem - though as you can imagine, it caused a moments panic as to what was on show. Anyway, it was fantastic to see them and spend some time with friends without doing the small talk bit. We missed out on food due to the janglies incident, but took the doctors' slightly questionable advice of "beer's a meal".... We all spent the following day wandering around incredibly smelly sulphur lakes and mud pools, swimming in another (non sulphur) lake, and zorbing! Which is basically where you get into a big ball with some water and get rolled down a hill. Pretty good, though a bit too vomit inducing for me.

From there we headed up to the Coromandel for more general beach stuff. We hired surf boards and after a couple of hours and no improvement I left my board behind for a swim, and nearly drowned. Maybe a slight overstatement, but I did get stuck in the currents and was doing the swimming equivalent of running on a treadmill. I was waving at Scott on the beach trying to get his attention, and he was waving back at me. Great. In the end I was rescued by a very nice young surfer - something that Scott still suspects was by design....

We met up with Paula and Jane on the Coromandel, who were inexplicably covered in tar. It appeared Paula managed to stand in some wet tar, and within the space of an hour had managed to transfer it all over their car, on Jane's t-shirt, and it even made it into our chilly bin... Despite the tar, it was great to see them, and we travelled south with them for the next few days. All pretty action packed - we went tubing in some glow worm caves and walked the Tongariro crossing (fantastic views of volcanic craters and steaming sulphur lakes etc).

Anyway, life in New Zealand is pretty darn good. Our plans of loads more trekking kind of went out of the window when we saw how beautiful the coaastline was and how hot the weather is! But it is all easy - we feel like we are on holiday, none of your gritty south american backpacking anymore... Still having fun - though our return home is now starting to seem a bit close...

Love T&S

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Comments

[Simon]

So it was you...
Hey guys, Just got back from 2 weeks in the North Island myself. Thought I saw some splashing going on just off the Hot Water Beach! Did you do the Tamaki Vikllage stuf with the Mauris? Bungy at Lake Taupo? Hope you're having fun. Simon

[Paula]

What did you have to pick that rubbish picture for?!