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The flight was okay, bit cramped as usual but i got fed way more food than i needed which is always nice :) And i watched juno again :P But on the way to New Zealand from sydney i did get to watch National Treasure 2! (only bekki will know how much that would mean to me :P)
I arrived in Auckland on sunday, i think it was the 6 April?
6/4 - I arrived about 4ish and went to my hostel. The room was very basic but when you pay about 8 pounds a night what do you expect! I stayed in a four man dorm which was barely big enough to fit four people in at a time, but was good enough for a place to sleep. On my first night I went down to the harbour for a walk around and just explored the city before crashing for the night!
7/4 - Was a bit jet lagged so stayed in bed til the afternoon, then in the afternoon i had another wander around to see the city in the daytime :P I spent the rest of the day doing e-maily things and sorting other things out, like groceries :( Its so weird to have to cook for myself :( iv pretty much had pasta for every meal :P
8/4 - today i walked all the way to the museum, which was a bit of a trek and i dint really know where it was :P I eventually found the right way which took me up this really nice street full of shops and restaurants where this women gave me a free kiwifruit when i bought some apples :) it also turned out that the kiwiexperience office was on this street so i could book my bus. The museum was actually really big and in this amazing building with lots of parks around it and a view over the city! There was lots of interesting stuff in there about the maori's, wildlife and lots about new Zealands part in the first and second world war, it was all really interesting. It was also a really nice and sunny day so it was a really nice walk back.
9/4 - Today i went to the zoo, it was really sunny and hot so was a great day to go! It was quite a good zoo, although a few things were closed for renovation and the lemurs werent as energetic as the ones in hong kong :P after a good few hours of walking around the zoo i went out to this park that was just next to the zoo which had a big lake in the middle, it lloked so nice in the sunshine! So i decided to find a nice place to sit and have a picnic on the grass, which was easier said than done as the place was swarming with swans, geese and ducks :P
10/4 - Today was probably the suniest and hottest day so far!! luckily this swedish guy gave me his sun tan lotion as apparently its really easy to burn in New Zealand cos its right next to the hole in the ozone layer :P Anyway, i decided to head down to the harbour to see if i could a ferry to one of the islands off of Auckland and hopefully find a beach. So when i got to the harbour i got on the cheapest ferry :P which went to this place called Devonport. It was this really nice seaside town which did have some small beaches and had a really good view of the Auckland skyline. I walked around the town for a bit, went up to the peak of the island, where there was really good views of all the Islands surrounding the Auckland harbour, it was really nice :) I had some chips on the seafront for lunch, was just like being back home :P
11/4 - I left early this mornin to wander down queens street to get on my kiwi experience bus for the first time! was a bit nerve wracking meeting that many new people again, but everyone was really nice and we all got on well. The bus left Auckland (with me on it) to head for the coromandel, which i must admit i still dont know much about :P We stopped at mount eden on the way, which is this big volcano just outsied Auckland which was really cool. And our driver told us that one time on april fools day some students went to the volcano really early, filled it with tyres and then set fire to them, so that when everyone woke up and looked over to the volcano there was a big tower of smoke billowing out of it, started a bit of a panic, which i thought was hilarious! anyway, we then went on to a place called mercury bay, where i did some kayaking!! It was so beautiful, we kayaked to this place called cathedral cove, which was this stunning beach, was really secluded and our guide made us some tea and we just sat on the beach for a while, was so relaxing! We then went on to this really nice little hostel where we had a nice dinner cooked for us (we had to pay for it) and a few drinks and a game of pool.
12/4 - We left quite early the next morning to head for Rotorua, also known as roto"vegas" apparently :P Its a town that is probly quite easy to find as you can just follow the smell of rotten eggs! seriously, the smell is so strong! The town is on a hotbed of geothermal activity, so there is lots of geysers and mudpools and such releasing sulphur dioxide into the air, lovely :p but you do get used to it :) On our first day in Rotorua we went luging, which is kind of like go-karting, but downhill and without an engine, it was a lot of fun and the views from the top of the slope were pretty good. That night we went to a maori culture show, which was good. Some maori's performed some songs and dances, and showed off some weapons and traditional maori games and stuff, they were all really talented actually, and they showed us the Haka! There was a lot of tongue poking and eye popping, was very intimidating! After the show we had a huge buffet feast, apparently cooked in the traditional maori way, which is digging a hole, filling it with fire, putting rocks on top, then the food on top of that, then covering it with soil and leaving it for like four hours. I think its called a Hangi? The food was amazing and was all you can eat, so I had about 3 plates full, and then two helpings of dessert :P Then on the bus on the way back they got us to sing some songs, which was fun :)
13/4 - Today I "hopped off" my original bus, which just means staying longer in a place than the bus does. During the day I went Zorbing! which, is quite simply, rolling down a hill in a big ball :P It was so much fun :) they put some water in the ball, then tell you to start walking down the hill and then sit down when the ball gets moving. I did the Zig-Zag course which was a lot better than going straight down the hill! You end up rolling and flipping about in the ball so much that you actually have no idea where you are, you just find yourself giggling like a schoolgirl all the way down (well i did anyway)!By the time i got back it was the eve and i cooked myself some dinner (pasta again) then went to the bar again for a few drinks with some of my new roomates.
14/4 - I was meant to leave on a new bus today, but felt like staying put for a few more days, i felt there was more to do. but this meant i had to stay two more days instead of one cos there was no bus on tues (like you wanted to know that). I did some boring stuff in the morn, sending postcards and stuff, washing clothes and food shoppping. Then in the afternoon i went in the pool! It was actually raining (not cold tho) but the pool is heated, possibly naturally by the geothermal activity, so it was actually the temp a hot tub would be, so it was really nice in the rain!! Then after that i did a bit of shopping with one of my roomates before we had dinner and headed to the bar again :P tonite me and my roomate (miriam) got a free drink from the bartender, not sure why, he just said he would "shout" us a drink, which means buy in New Zealand then he made us a free cocktail, so was all good :)
15/4 - pretty much did nothing again today (still raining), did some shopping in the morning getting really drenched! but I had to go and find this place that makes the best cookies I have ever tasted, it was worth it!! Then I went in the pool again in the afternoon, there were quite a few of us in the pool today cos its really nice when its raining! So we had a really good game of water polo, so much fun :) It was really wierd cos it was so warm and comfortable in the pool even tho at one point we were actually in a bit of a thunder storm! That night we went to the lava bar (again) and got another free drink :)
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