My last months of travelling!

I have to say being on the road again is great but I’m certainly missing Queenstown. It’s hard not to miss somewhere that you called home for a year. Nevertheless we have seen some fantastic places the last couple of weeks. We did our skydive in Lake Taupo! For someone with a horrific fear off heights I’ll take a fair few pats on the back for that. It’s got to be one of the best things I've done,  I’ll upload the pictures when I've posted this. We spent a few days around Lake Taupo to do the Tongariro Crossing, this is a 20km walk, supposedly one of the best one day hikes in NZ. Unfortunately we embarked on this journey totally unprepared and fooled by a promising weather forecast. Both dressed in shorts and t-shirts, only to discover and as we approached the second summit that it was horrific wind and rain and a bone chilling -4c!! I don't think i have ever been so cold. The muscles in my legs seized up and jack was practically carrying me up the last bit.The wind was terrible, people were slipping and falling over, taking cover behind rocks waiting for the wind to stop and some turned back! In hindsight perhaps we should have too! but never mind!certainly and experience. Just a shame that we could not see the supposed spectacular views lets alone the person in front of you! next we headed up to Rotorua said to be the ‘geothermal wonderland’ of the north. There are still active volcanoes and geysers here. We went to Wai-o-tapu thermal reserve, there are bubbling mud pools here and pools in every color imaginable including florescent green! Though the pictures just do not do it justice. From here we went into Hamilton, a large city towards Auckland, this was just a lay over, we rented a card here and headed west to a small town called Raglan, apparently the best left hand break for surfers in NZ so Jack was keen to visit here. Just a shame that the surf was rubbish when we were there the waves were only a ft or so high, however we did manage to drive out to Ruapuke Beach about an hour further down the coast by recommendation and jack managed to find some good surf for a few hours so that was good. We caught up with some old friends from Queenstown here that we haven’t seen for a good 6 months so it was fab to be able to catch up with them. From here we went to Waitomo.. Home of the legendary black water rafting! You get suited and booted here in wetsuits and huge rubber shoes and caving helmets and head into Aranui cave (64m below the ground) its pitch black to you climb/float your way through using the torch on your helmet. Obviously we had a guide for this. Its great fun, some bits you walk and others you float in a black inner tube they give you through the tunnel, glow worms light up the ceiling which was cool to see. We had a great day, an activity well worth doing.  We only had one day here and then caught a bus to Mount Maunganui, pretty much a smaller version of Queenstown and right on a beach that goes for miles. We were able to see another friend we used to live with here which was nice, and spent 3 nights there so lots of time to see and do things. We spent some time on the beach, climbed mount maunganui to see the sunset and I’ve had a surfing lesson from jack! Which resulted in some grazed knees and a very sunburnt boyfriend. He is the worst Australian ever! We are now in a small town further north called Hahei in the coromandel peninsula. We took a  visit to Cathderal Cove on our first day and made it out to Hot water beach Yesterday. You take a spade a dig a hole to sit in as the water under the sand is very hot! You can only go at certain time intervals during the day when the tide is out. But it sounds pretty cool. Next stop Paihia in the Bay of Islands… Ill post about our last days once were back in Auckland waiting out flight to Pheonix!

Looking forward to the next adventure and a new country !!