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Hello to you all!! I am now at the end of my New Zealand experience, however, I have one evening to kill so I am going to try and give a brief account of each of my days!! My photos are up on Facebook, I am definately not giong to have time to add anymore onto here before then!! Ok here goes.......
Friday 2nd May........Kiwi Experience Southbound!! Auckland --------->Mercury Bay
Up early and pile onto the bus,its quite full when we leave the hostel, and every seat is taken by the time we leave Auckland!! I get chatting to three lads, definate lookers, and find out they are from Croydon, Bromley and Beckenham!! Crazy Crazy!! Our first stop is a walk to Cathedral Cove, a beautiful tucked away bay! Its pretty warm, I can wear my vest top! I get chatting to two girls, Jenny and Sarah from Sheffield who are lovely!! There's a great atmosphere already!! Buzz our driver is a Maori so I think we're pretty lucky to have a Maori driver as we'll learn lots from him!! We arrive at Turtle Cove and spend the evening chatting and playing pool! Everyone is really nice, I chat to nearly everyone on the bus!! Jenny and Sarah seem most on my wavelength! Its hard with Nicole, she is lovely, but doesn'tget our humour so it was hard to involve her in the conversation!!!
Saturday 3rd May.................Mercury Bay -----> Rotorua
We leave early, and head to our next stop, everyone is chatting away like they have known each other for ages, we hop off and explore the old mining caves, it was totally pitch black and Jenny and Sarah looked rather sexy in their head torches as they led our way!! I initially planned to stop for two nights in Rotorua but now decide I want to stay on the bus with everyone!! However there was only one seat on the bus that Buzz booked me on! I felt a little bad as it meant Nicole had to stay in Rotorua on her own but it was becoming that she wanted to do everything with me, and I wanted to be with the others!! Ryan one of the Croydon oys said I set her up!! lol but I think it worked out for the best! We reach Rotorua and to be honest it smells like Poo!! Due to the geothermal pools and activity!! In the evening we go to a Maori Culture Evening, it was so good, but so bloody cold! I seriously needed to buy some warm supplies!! We see the traditional Huka dance as well as some others, and then have a huge buffet feast!! Sarah, Jenny and I defiantely make use of this going up for seconds as well as seconds for pudding, meringue pie! ahh!!!
Sunday 4th May........Rotorua -----------> Waitomo
Up early again, we head to Waitomo! Still sat with Jason we continue to chat like our first journey!! We stop at Warehouse, a massive store and load up with warm clothes, the whole bus is kitted out in warm boots, hats and gloves!! We arrive at the hostel quite early and Jenny, Sarah and I manage to blag a chalet, its so nice, the others are very jealous as we didn't have to pay any extra!! In the afternoon, I take up my first activity, Caving, or Black Water Rafting!! And OMG it was amazing, me, the three Croydon boys, Jason, Ryan and Nik, Jack who is a legend and two others off the bus!! We get kitted up and head for the caves!! Feeling like one of the lads again!! We start with a 40m abseil then a flying fox (shooting down a zip water and they turn the lights out so your in pitch black!!). We are then given tea and a flapjack!! Perfection!! Next we are given a tube and have to jump off the rock into the flowing underground river, 10m jump, and OMG the water was cold! Next we learn about the glow worms and paint each others faces, Nik drawing a willy on mine...ah the banter for being the only girl!! It went down here from there!! Haha!! Next we floated in teh pitch black down the river in a mass chain, I knew something was going to happen and it did, there was a flare explosion and I nearly pooed my pants!! We continued deeper into the caves, climbing and swimming in the river!! It was the best thing, with our head torches and booties we looked awesome! Next challenge was the squeeze, literally squeezing 10m through a cave tunnel, not for the claustrophobic!! It was great, a little scary but being small I didn't have too much trouble!! The final challenge was climbing up our of the cave, the water levels were so high!! And seriously gushing and we had to climb up the waterfalls, with no backup ropes!! If we slipped we'd take out the person under us and it would be pretty much game over!! It was great fun, seriously worht the money for 4hours fun underground!! Back at the hostel, after a warm shower, we all played pool and chatted, lots were drunk so it was funny to watch them! And everyone became more aquainted!! Mike and Darryl I got chatting to and Mike is so funny, he is so funny and was ripping one girl who looked like she should be on the runway not on a backpacking kiwi bus!! It was hilarious as Jen and I had been saying the exact same thing!! Time flew past before I knew it it was 3am.......bed time!!
Monday 5th May...............Waitomo -----------> Taupo
We are up early, and sadly for those that wanted to cave that day, the water levels were too high, so lucky I got to go!! It rained all day to Taupo, it is seriously like English weather, no Australia!! We arrive only to find that to our horror, the 'runway girls' aka Duck, were in our room!! But to be fair, we chatted to them, and they were actually really nice, just not so welcoming!! We spend the evening chatting to Ryan, who seemed really shy at first, updating our journals and watched a film, well Jen and I fell asleep snuggled up under the duvet!! I feel pretty bad, think I am getting a cold that Matt (on the bus) has spread to everyone!! GREAT :(
Tuesday 6th May.................SKY DIVE OVER LAKE TAUPO
OMG wake up excited as were are up for our sky dive, thankfully it has stopped raining and the weather was perfect so we were all good to go! We grab some brekky and then leave for the runway!! We see Mike and Darryl land as we arrive, buzzing the atmosphere is electric everyone is on a total high! I am persuaded to spend the extra 100pound on the DVD and pictures, and then we wait in line, Jenny, Sarah and I all going up together!! Seeing everyone else go up and land made my just want to go! I was bouncing around all over the place! We get suited into our red bolier suits and we are strapped into our harness!! Then we're off, we arrive at the plane and pile in!! We climb, 1000ft.....6000ft........12000ft!! OMG we were high! My diver, Rhys clipped me to him winding me up as he did so then the door slid open! My camera lady dropped, Rhys pulled my head back and then bang........we were falling!! 7000ft in 45seconds!! It was the most exciting, scary, unreal experience ever, we were falling so fast, my tummy was still in the plane, the wind whipping in my face was ice cold and I couldn't even let out a scream!! I entertained the camera, swimming and dancing and probably swearing (sorry grandparents) and then the parachute came out!! Wow that was insane! I wanted to go up again!! The parachute down felt really slow, and over looked the beautiful lake it was lovely! I touched down first, followed by Jenny and then Sarah! We all hugged and jumped around...for the next 5 hours!! We watched our DVDs and they were great, definately worth the money! Then we wished the lads luck and headed back!!
I felt a little ill so slept in the afternoon, and then woke up to my fajitas cooked by the boys, very nice they were! we then got on the wine, and started to get ready!! We played some drinking games and then headed to the bar to meet everyone else!! The whole bus were out and still on an adrenaline night! We chatted and drank more and then hit the dancefloor as soon as Whitney...I Wanna Dance With Somebody came one! Too cool!! For the last song we all formed a mass circle and sung our hearts out! I am so glad I have done the Kiwi Bus, its been 3days and already everyone is so friendly!! Much better social wise than the Oz Experience, it can't get any better!!
Wednesday 7th May..............Taupo --------------> River Valley
Buzz was ot in a happy mood when we saw him this morning, Ryan put it down to his flash bus being taken from him and we were now piling into an old banger of a Kiwi Bus! We headed to Tongariro National Park, the largest in New Zealand where much of the Lord of the Rings was filmed! We took on the two hour trek, with my new booties, so my feet were very warm!! The weather was beautiful, really crisp and the sun was shining, no need for hoodies!! We took lots of photos and I chatted all the way with Ryan, Sarah and Watson!! The waterfall halfway was beautiful! However, we were half an hour over the given time, and Buzz was not happy, he shook his head and gave us a major lecture on the way to the next stop!! All of us were giggling like being told off at school!! We arrived at River Lodge, and Buzz was swearing us due to the mess on the bus, Jenny and I made a quick exit!! The lodge was beautiful, a crackling fire in the centre and all made of wood!! Our dorm was wicked, a massive bunkbed with all the beds together!! We found out it was in fact called the ORGY room! Ha!! We all relaxed in the evening, and I know I talk about food a lot but bare with me! I experienced the best meal I have had throughout all of my travels!! Roast Beef!! OMG it was heaven, and when they served up cauliflour cheese I could have died!! Ryan had asked me on our walk what I missed most about home and I said my brother, my bed and my mum's caulifour cheese!! And then like fate, I was served it up (but don't worry mum it didn't touch yours!!) And the carrots, ah they were divine, caramelised, and potatoes, peas and sweetcorn and gravy!! It was sooooooooooooooooooo good! In the evening we played lots of silly games and challenges like trying to pick up a matchbox using our teeth from the floor, and not leaving the chair, leaning games and others! I felt bad so went to bed earlier! But still had a great night!
Thursday 8th May..............White Water Rafting............River Valley ---> Wellington
I was up early and dosed up on paracetamol and strepsils and headed for the White water rafting! Kitting ourselves up took ages, and it was sooooooooooo cold changing into bikinis outside!! Not fun!! We had a 20min drive to the top of the river and then had a short briefing, back paddle, front paddle, hold on, dive down and dive left or right........GOT IT!! We hit the water and drifted to start, practising our new moves, eager beavers, Mary and I sat at the front and had to stay in co-ordination as well as lead the boat!! So fun!! The first wave we hit was ice cold and went straight down my top! But we always came up laughing!! It was damn hard work and my hands were numb!! We hit some major rapids, we had to dive down and dive across each other to stop the boat tipping!! A girl had died on some rapids in Queenstown 2 weeks previously so we did not want to end up like that!! However, I did dive the wrong way on one occassion and the next thing Alicia was off and it seemed like ages, esopecially when you see the look of panic in the instructors eyes!! however, she popped up and everyone blamed me!! We finished with a 5m jump off the rock into the river, OMG it was cold when we took the plunge but a great laugh!!
We warmed up when we were back and I had the hugest piece of quiche possible!! We then headed to Wellington with a very moody Buzz, who banned us from eating food on the bus, we were all happy to get off! We checked into base at Wellington and explored the city, stopping for a Chinese and getting wrecked at the Sports Bar, ah the fun of being young!!
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