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We arrived in Auckland late at night and woke up the following morning to yet more rain (we forgot to mention that during our Great Ocean Road trip it rained almost the entire time). For our few days in Auckland if it wasn't pouring with rain, it was humid with a constant drizzle. Still, we braved the weather to do a few things whilst in the city.
We took a long walk to 'the Mound' which is an area containing a large park, some 'winter' gardens, and the Auckland Museum. We didn't go in the museum as it was quite expensive but we did take our time wandering the gardens looking at the different flowers and ponds and relaxing on the grass.
We spent time wandering the streets to look at the shops before splitting up for an afternoon so we could buy each other some small gifts for Christmas and have it be a surprise. Upon returning to the hostel Nikki excitedly told Andy she'd bought herself the mini cheese grater she'd been looking for, this was followed by Andy pulling out of his bag a nicely gift wrapped mini cheese grater he had just bought her! The lesson here - DON'T buy yourself one of the few things you have mentioned you would like for Christmas a week before Christmas!
We went to the top of the Auckland tower which is the tallest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Before going up however, Andy was pounced upon by a group of people taking part in a competition. They were armed with rolls of wrapping paper and needed to wrap someone up as a present whilst filming it. Never one to shy away, Andy had no problem with being turned into a human Christmas present in the middle of Auckland, made all the more funny when they said thank you and ran off leaving him waddling like a penguin whilst still wrapped up! Very funny and a very strange moment, another plus is we kept all the Xmas stuff to wrap our own presents! Once all the craziness was out of the way we headed into the tower. There was a swift ascent to the viewing areas in a lift complete with a section of glass floor so you could see how high & how quickly we were travelling! We stepped out into the circular area that allowed us 360 degree views of Auckland & it's surrounds. Along with panels detailing what we were looking at below, there were also small notes showing the direction of certain cities as the crow flies. This told us that when facing a certain direction, London was 18,331 km away. Unfortunately it wasn't perfect weather but we still managed to get some nice views and photos when the rain let up a little. There were also large glass panels dotted around in the floor allowing you to stand whilst looking down at the tiny people on the ground very far below. Andy enjoyed this especially when jumping up and down on it to make sure it was stable, Nikki however wasn't such a fan!
New Zealand Road Trip - North Island.
Day 1 - We picked up the car and drove from Auckland to Wangerei (pronounced Fangeri) through the rain and fog! We stopped at the information centre, went into town and did a big food shop before heading back to the information centre where we could sleep in the car park for free. After FINALLY getting the gas stove to work we had dinner quite late before converting the seats into our bed for the first time. We slept with the noise of the rain on the roof almost all night!
Day 2 - Drove to Paihia, the gateway to the Bay of Islands. Unfortunately the weather ruined our day as it rained almost non-stop. We took a ferry over to Russell (NZ's 1st capital) where we saw NZ's oldest church. This was also where the Maori chief who met British officials to sign the treaty is buried and he had a huge grave. We then headed to the town of Tutukaka in the hope that their dive shop would still be open so that we could book ourselves on a dive to Poor Knights Island for the following morning. Luckily they were open so we handed over a fair few pennies in order to dive one of Jacques Cousteau's top 10 dives in the world and one of the top rated sub-tropical dives in the world.
Day 3 - We were up fairly early to check in and board the boat for the 45 minute journey out to the Poor Knights. This was to be our very first dive in cold water so there was a lot more gear to be worn. We were covered from the top of our heads (where we wore hoods) to the tip of our toes (where we wore booties) with the only things exposed being our hands and our faces. It made things a lot more cumbersome and claustrophobic but we were pleased that short of wearing a dry suit, they had provided us with enough protection to keep us as warm as possible.
The first dive was at 'Middle Arch' which as suggested is a large archway protected from the rough sea by a small bay where we anchored. We jumped in expecting the cold water to take our breath away but fortunately it wasn't as cold as we were expecting largely thanks to the thick wetsuits we were wearing which really didn't let much water in at all. The scenery under the surface was very different to anything we had seen before with lots of kelp and sea grass making up the bottom composition rather than the coral or sand we are used to. We swam into the large archway and had a good look around before heading for an underwater cave that had a large air bubble at the top of it. This meant that when we got to the top we could take out our regulators, breathe and talk to each other! Pretty cool considering our dive computer was telling us we were 9m underwater! After coming out of the cave we swam back into the archway and we're glad we did as we bumped into a large short tailed stingray and managed to swim quite close to it for a minute. Nikki also spotted an enormous scorpion fish which is commendable as they are ridiculously well camouflaged. After getting back on the boat we had a couple of hot chocolates and some soup to warm us up as the boat took us to dive site number 2. On the way there the entire boat (which was quite large) took us into an enormous sea cave (we think it was called Rikoriko), the largest in the world! Our second dive was at Blue Mao Mao arch. This was another archway slightly smaller than the first, and the dive site in particular that Jacques Cousteau acclaimed as one of his top 10. We really enjoyed swimming through the arch and were enjoying a relaxing dive when out of nowhere a huge short tailed stingray, easily 2m across headed in our direction. As it gracefully swam past Andy had positioned himself so that it swam only centimetres away from his face - awesome! We swam with it for a few seconds before realizing that he wasn't alone, there were 3 or 4 more! They weren't as big as the first we'd seen but were all still large in their own right. We hovered where we were and watched them all swim past and on their way. Those few minutes made a good dive great and meant we felt our money had at least paid for one wow moment.
Day 4 - We headed to Thames, the start of the Coromandel. Unfortunately we couldn't find anywhere to stay for free so we had to pay to stay at a holiday park for the night. The chap who owned it clearly saw us coming and pretty much ripped us off charging us £17 for a patch of grass to park on. Having no choice we reluctantly parted with our cash, and what made it worse is that there were mosquitoes everywhere leaving us covered in bites, not good!
Day 5 - Drove from Thames to Hot Water Beach. There is a section of the beach where the water just underneath the sand is boiling hot heated by hot springs deep underground. The section wasn't hard to find as there were hundreds of people all with buckets and spades competing for space to dig their own pools of hot water. We found an abandoned pool so stood in it before quickly getting out again - we had expected hot water but it was literally like water straight from a kettle! It was amazing to think it was completely natural. After we'd finished burning our feet we drove the short distance to Cathedral Cove. After parking the car we embarked on the 45minute walk down from the cliff top to the beach/cove. Although it was tiring it was well worth what we found. An absolutely beautiful piece of coastline with large archways carved into the cliff face, a small waterfall you could shower under, huge rocks sticking out of the sea and of course the beach itself. It was a naturally stunning place where we just sat and relaxed for a little while. Unfortunately halfway through the walk to the beach we realised we had forgotten the camera so sadly we have no photos! Once we were back at the car we realised there were no signs in the car park prohibiting overnight stays so along with several others this is where we slept.
Day 6 - Once we'd woken up we ate our cereal whilst sat atop a cliff looking out to sea, it wasn't the worst way to start the day! We had quite a long drive so when factoring in stops at supermarkets and info points we didn't do much else. One of our stops was at Kiwi 360, a touristy attraction all about the Kiwi fruit. It was late in the day so we didn't do a tour but we did manage to see one of the orchards and some kiwis growing up close which was interesting. We then drove through a town with an unappealing name of Te Puke, considered the home of the Kiwi fruit. A short drive later we arrived at a beach side campsite between Tauranga & Whakatane. We started our day looking at the sea from a cliff and ended it with a brief walk along the beach.
Day 7 - We drove the short journey into Whakatane which was home to the first settlement of the Maori's many years ago. We went and had lunch and relaxed on Ohope Beach for an hour or so but having found we couldn't stay there for free, we decided to drive to Roturua. The drive took a couple of hours but we arrived in time to stroll through the town whilst the sun was still out. This spelt the end of a successful first week on the road with several more to come!
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