After easing into the trip it has been an exciting 48 hours. Firstly I have managed to stay up beyond the normal baby sleeping time and I managed to go to bed around 9.30 over the last two nights. Not since I was allowed to sty up and watch the A-team have I been up so late.
Yesterday was action packed started by a trip to the gym - yes not a typo I actually went. Was quite funny as I had to pull Helen out of bed to join me, talk about not very happy. After stating on that high we went over to some some glowworm caves in Waitomo, which apparently in 1953 the Queen visited so I was expecting big things. I was not disappointed. We have seen some glowworms in Oz so I was not expecting a great deal, however this was awesome. We got pulled along in some boat in the dark with tons of glow worms on the celling, bit better than going through some manufactured cave in Queensland. More exciting for me though was the motel that we passed on the way back which was made out of an old war plane (sad I know) and the passing of the Big Apple, the first Big thing in Nz that I have seen.
On from that we went up to a zoo where I saw my first Kiwi, was an odd little thing, but at the same time was cool to see. All it seemed to so all day was to eat, shoving its long beak into the dirt, not a bad life I thought. Managed to fire off a couple of cheeky illegal shots (flash off of course) so I will post some on here once I find the cable to tranfer the pics.
From there we travelled over to Whakatane to setlle down for the night where we would catch a trip the next day to White Island. Whilst there we thought we would venture into town and check out a few local taverns. Well interesting to say the least. The first one was fine and we continued to sample more Nz ales, fav being the Mac's Gold, however the second bar was full of yolkles, my favorite one being Charlie, who had clearly spent too long on the shop and looked like barnicals have been growing on him. After quickly downing our drinks we survived.
At 7am the next day we was awaken by a loud siren sounding all across the town. thinking of recent events I was thinking "frigging hell this might be a Tsunami", rushing out of the campervan I was looking around and there was not a great deal of movement. For a moment feeling comfortable that we was safe I started to think to myself that out of the 5 vans that were in the site I spoke to three of them last night, all German, so how the hell will they know. I rushed back and then turned on the radio thinking that if anything was happening then surely there would be some warning coming up - nothing was on there. Anyway after what seemed like a half hour (in which time we would have been gone) but actualy only 30 seconds I decided to go for a shower (go down clean at least) when I bumped into an Aussie who said G'day and promptly said "don't worry about that, there would be people running around all over the place if it was serious", reassured I was!
Anyway after my morning mind games, we ventured down to pick up the ferry to White Island, which for those who can't be bothered to google is a volcanic island about 49km from the main land, named by Captin Cook (alhtough before Alex points out he was only a leutenant at the time!). It was pretty good and a worthwhile experience, not only for the spectaculr scenory but the couple days of sulphur gags it has given me, especially if one lets go in the confined space of the campervan.
Now trucked to Rotorua (or Rotrunda as I keep calling it), which is equally as smelly and is a bit lively with backpackers. The place is full of spa's and thermal pools so ladies you need to get over here! Anyway here for a couple of nights so looking to relax for a bit, get a massage and cover myself in mud.
Right that's me for now, some old people have latched onto Helen and she needs saving.
Observation of the day:
There are a lot of old people that drive in NZ
