New Zealand,
where do you start? NZ is the most amazing (apologises for using this word far
too often, I need a new one) country. We’ve now travelled pretty much from one
end to the other and everywhere you go there’s breathtakingly beautiful scenery
and lots of outdoor and adrenaline fuelled activities to do. As you can
probably tell from my pictures there are mountains, trees and some from of
water everywhere, you can’t escape it. Yet still, it’s all different and
everywhere offers you something new; from deep gorges and rapids to vast open
lakes, roads that bend at ridiculous angles round huge mountain ranges to
straight roads that go for miles over flat plains, lush forest to the barren
desert road, and sun in the north to cold and snow in the south.
We landed in Auckland
and after a brief trip up to the Bay
of Islands in the north headed down
the spine of the north island, and then down the western side of the south
island. We didn’t stay long in Auckland.
It doesn’t really compare as a city to San Fran and NZ is all about the
outdoors after all so headed north after only one night. Paihia is the main
town in the Bay of Islands,
and like most places here “is a lot livelier in the summer”. Coming in the
winter has its advantages in that we don’t have to book hostels in advance as
nowhere is ever full and the prices are generally cheaper than the busy summer
months. The downside is that there is no nightlife and everywhere is fairly
empty but the silver lining of this is that we’ve saved money that we would
have spent on getting drunk! In Paihia we went for a bike ride part way round
the bay, tried to use the pool but it was freezing so opted for the much better
option of the hot-tub, and went kayaking round the bay.
Next we headed south to Rotorua, slap bang in the middle of
the north island and in the heart of the volcanic region, and boy did the place
stink! Rotorua is famous for its natural hot springs and geysers and with this
comes sulphur (you could see the stuff coming out of the ground all over the place)
which basically just makes the whole town smell like rotten eggs. The first
thing we did here was the skyswing and luge, which are on top of a mountain
over looking the town. I’m so glad that I didn’t see anybody do the skyswing
before we did or I don’t think I could have done it. It involved being strapped
into a seat alongside Rich and pulled back and upwards about 150ft, at which
point Rich had to pull a cord that released us and my god! We rocketed forward
over the side of the mountain at a ridiculous speed (my stomach followed a
couple of seconds behind) and then swung back and forth for a while. It was
however great fun after I got over the shock and I’m glad I did it. I was a complete
wimp on the luge at first and went at snails pace down the beginners track (in
my defence it was a steep track). I was holding on so tightly that the handle
bars made huge indents in my hands. I did however pull myself together and made
it down the intermediate track on my other runs at a decent speed and enjoyed myself.
As Rotorua is supposed to be the best place in NZ to go
white water rafting, that’s what we did. I was so scared at first because I
don’t like going under water and there was a chance that the raft would flip
going over the main waterfall. After our first waterfall I began to relax and
it was so much fun. I was a bit of a wimp and couldn’t paddle as fast as the
boys but it was all good. The main waterfall that we went down was 7m high
(highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world or something) and it was
the longest 3-4 seconds of my life. Thankfully the raft didn’t turn over but as
we were in the very front of the raft the force pushed us under water, and
though it was only for a second or two, it felt like forever.
About an hour south of Rotorua is Taupo, the skydiving
capital or something. At least it claims to be the cheapest in the world or
something. I’m afraid I did not skydive. I decided I didn’t want to do it on
this trip but I would definitely do it if the opportunity arose again and I
could spare the money; watching everybody else do it made it a lot less scary.
Rich did skydive however and he said it was amazing. We went out on the town on
the Saturday night which consisted of 2 bars and not much else. We did however
see Vegas Brown. He sings and plays guitar and he was so good. He didn’t play
the usual crap that pub performers come out with - anyone who can do rage
against the machine acoustic is well worth seeing! Anyone going to NZ should
really look him up.
We stayed in Wellington
for a couple of days before our ferry ride over to the south island. Being a
capital city there’s slightly more going on in Wellington, but we tried to go
out on the Monday night and there was only one bar open and there were about 15
people in there, all backpackers. The Te Papa museum was really good and we got
the cable car up the hill and walked back through the botanical gardens (all
nice and free (cable car was $1) activities). When we were in the Te Papa Rich
was trying to read something and someone walked in front of him so he looked up
to say something to him and it was his friend Craig from Uni. Totally random!
Rich didn’t even know Craig was travelling. We met up with Craig and his
friends for our very quiet Monday night out.
Next we headed to the south island….
