Advertisement
Published: December 31st 2009
Edit Blog Post
So, no luck with doing Tongariro a second time due to (once again) 'unfavourable' weather. Instead we spent Sunday in the Taupo area - including a beautiful hike along the georgeous, clear, turquoise river. We even passed the place where they do some bungy jumping and so stuck around to watch people test their boundaries for a little while. On Monday morning we made our way west to Hamilton, where we enjoyed roaming around the downtown and seeing their giant Christmas Tree.
Finally, after looking forward to it for more than a month, Tuesday came. This meant that we could make our way to Raglan where we had a bach booked for four days (but not before making a full-on grocery run in Hamilton!) So, over to the west coat we went and made ourselves comfortable in our cottage... how nice it was to be able to spread out a bit and not worry about the rain, bugs, hard ground etc. On Wednesday we headed to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves where we had a blackwater rafting tour booked. This was a very fascinating way to spend a day - we donned full-body wetsuits, grabbed an inner-tube and followed our guide
underground into a dark, cold, and wet cave (yes, this is something that we actually paid to do). It was a great time - we made our way along underground, following the current of the underground river in our tubes and looking up to see the thousands of tiny glowworms that line the roof of the cave. Though we had headlamps on for most of the trip, it was the times that we turned them off and looked up that were truly magical - it was almost like looking up at the starry night sky, but in actuality we were underground!
Christmas Eve was a beautiful day and so we took advantage of it and headed to the beach to do some surfing and swimming. We had a great day enjoying the beach before heading home to cook supper, have a few drinks, and head to bed to wait for Santa! Christmas morning we awoke, once again, to beautiful sunshine. We cooked ourselves a delicious bacon and eggs breakfast and opened a couple of presents before heading to the beach again. It seems that going to the beach is the thing to do on Christmas because the whole town
was out - Christmas here seems to be treated a lot more like we would treat the first of July or Labour Day back home (picnics and bar-be-ques). Brett and I both missed the magic that the snowy weather seems to bring to Christmas back home - sorry, but it's true. Home from the beach for our long awaited steak bar-be-que and that sums up my Christmas in New Zealand.
We had to be out of the bach by noon on Saturday, so the morning was spent mostly cleaning up and packing the car. From Raglan we headed south to New Plymouth for the night. Lucky for us, Boxing Day was the start of their Festival of Lights, so we were able to head into the Public Gardens to see what it was all about. A live concert, lights everywhere, and lots of people - a great way to spend the night!
The drive from New Plymouth to Wellington was rainy and long and so we decided to treat ourselves to a hotel for the last two nights on the North Island. We set up at a place in downtown Wellington and took the next day to explore
the city - including the age-old Cable Car that still runs there, the Boxing Day sales, and the famous-in-New-Zealand Te Papa Museum. I really enjoyed this city and would have loved to have been able to spend more time there. However, we had the Inter-Islander Ferry booked for bright and early on the 29th. So, after managing to pack up most of our accumulated 'crap' we boarded the ferry and said good-bye to the North Island.
The ferry ride was quite uneventful, and unfortunately it was another gray and cloudy day so the views weren't all that great. It got us from A to B though, and after picking up our new rental car on the South side, we were ready to head out - trying to make it to Queenstown for New Years Eve/Day. Our first day on the South Island was spend covering a lot of area - all the way down past Christchurch. The drive was beautiful though, and so it passed rather quickly. The landscape was very mountainous, giving way to the beautiful blue ocean. We even took the time to visit a few seal colonies that lined the beaches along the side of the
highway.
Day two on the South Island we made our way down to Dunedin, taking a few stops along the way. One to see the Moeraki boulders - as the name states, it's basically a bunch of rocks, but they were actually incredible! They were all perfectly round and, from the ones that had broked open, you could see that there was some type of crytalized mineral that had formed on the inside. Nobody quite knows where they came from, or what caused them - but I will definitely be taking the time to do some research on them at some point. We also stopped at another site where we could watch for yellow-eyed penguins - and we were lucky enough to see two come up onto shore from the water ... very cute! We stayed just outside of Dunedin on the Otago Peninsula - a place that I wanted to visit because of the Albatross colony that lives there (the only one in the world that nests on mainland). Despite the very cold weather (no joke, it was 5*C) we stood outside in the wind to watch as the giant birds flew in and out of their nesting
sites. We even got to see a teenage one following its parent around as it practiced flying.
We are now in Queenstown, having spent New Years Eve here, and I am spending the day trying to psych myself up to jump off a 43m bridge - what better way to start 2010? (Don't worry, there will be a bungy cord attached to my feet!)
And just to remind people of what a small world it is ... as I was sitting here in the bungy jumping centre updating my blog in walks the Prentice family from Bedford (John, Barb, Chris, Colin and his girlfriend Kourtney)! How nice it was to see some familiar faces 😊 Unfortunately, they were headed out of town and so we were just able to have a quick hello and catch-up, but it was still very nice to see them.
Oh, and as I was sitting here editing, another familiar voice spoke up 'Leigh-Ann Bishop?' I couldn't believe that there would possibly be a second person in New Zealand that knew me (afterall, I barely know even ten people in Halifax), but in ran Kate Campbell - a girl I used to play
provincial volleyball with back in the day.
A small world, a small world...
Happy New Year!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0652s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Tania
non-member comment
Happy New Year! It sounds like you rang it in in style! Those 'glow-worm' caves sound otherwordly: I'll add them to my list of things to see on our family's still-fictitious trip to New Zealand, dark and cold or not. Take care and keep the interesting stories coming!We'll raise a glass for you during our New Year's toast tonight.