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24/2/2011
Today we left Australia and headed for New Zealand. As there was a huge earthquake in Christchurch we were alittle unsure what Auckland was going to be like in terms of the people and how they were reacting to it. However once we landed and met our friend Lucy we quickly realised that the country although it was dealing with this tragedy it was coping well. After meeting Lucy she took us straight to the bar that she works in and we met some of her colleges and her friends. It was a great night made better by the owner of the bar giving us an unlimited tab for the night. So we couldn't buy a drink no matter how hard we tried.
25/2/2011
We spent the day exploring the part of town we were staying in and walking around the local shopping centre. The weather was great so it was really nice just to chill out during the day. At night we again when to the bar that Lucy worked in, because the night before we had been invited out by her friends to celebrate their birthdays. Again the banter was flowing and everybody was having a great time.
26/2/2001
Lucy took us round some of Aucklands sights today which included Mount Eden, and Eden Park the home of the Auckland Blue's rugby team. She also took us down to the waterfront pointing out all the cool sights down there and told us about the huge regeneration programme that was going on. That night Lucy went to work and we went and met another friend who stays in Auckland, Nola. We went for some dinner and a good chat / catch up session. It was really nice to she her as we hadn't seen her since Los Angeles, so there was a lot to catch up on as you can imagine.
27/2/2011
Today we started our Kiwi Experience bus tour. This is a bus that is going to take us round the whole of the North and South islands of New Zealand. The first part of the trip we travel from Auckland to Mercury Bay with the highlights being a natural hot water beach. If you dig down into the sand there is a natural hot water spring under it and it makes for a lovely relaxing spa. Unfortunately when we were at the beach the tide was in and had completely covered the parts of the beach where this occurs. It was still a nice beach to relax on though.
28/2/2011
This part of the trip was from Mercury Bay to Rotorua. The town of Rotorua is built around a geo-thermal area where there are a lot of hot springs so it is very cool to walk round the park and see all the hot springs steaming and bubbling. We visited Te Puia which is the sight of New Zealands largest Geyser and some mud pools. We got a guided tour round the facility from a Maori lady and she told us many stories about the site and the culture. The stories were very interesting and she showed us the carving and weaving schools. This was very interesting as only direct descendents of Maori Tribes were allowed to attend the schools, and the work they were producing was brilliant. After the two schools we were taken to the geyser called Pohutu. It was a fantastic sight to see the geyser go off and watch the power of the boiling water spewing out of the rock. Once it had stopped we went and looked at the mud pools. This was an experience as they smelt so bad because of all the sulphur. Although it was interesting to watch them bubble and boil. Then we got to see a Kiwi bird which was very special as the Kiwi is almost extinct in New Zealand now. The Kiwi is a flightless bird and kind of looks like a much smaller version of an Emu but with a very long beak. We then watched as a lot of the guests took part in a small ceremony to invite them into the Mori (a maori place of worship). It was very intimidating to watch the Maori men do their dance and offer a symbol of peace to all the visitors. Once the symbol had been picked up by the visitors "chief" they were all allowed to enter.
1/3/2011
Today we continued our travels on to from Rotorua to Waitomo. We stopped at various locations to take photo's and look at different sights of cultural importance which were good. However they were nothing in comparison to the Black Water Rafting caves that Kirsty and I were just about to enter. We arrived and got kitted out in full wet suits, wet suit socks, boots and a hard hat. We were quite a funny sight. After the initial training it was time to absail down 50m into the darkness of the caves, this was very cool. After a short briefing about the caves and the story about the glow worms it was time to zip slide into the dark further and deeper into the cave. It was so much fun and our tour guides were trying their best to make people nervous by banging loudly and making comments to freak us out. After the zip slide it was time to jump off a ledge down ten feet into freezing cold water with only a rubber ring to break your fall. It was quite a shock to the system when we hit the water as it was soooo cold and it completely took ur breath away. We then trecked through the caves in the water until we reached a point were we had to jump over and slide down a small water fall, it was fun. At this point the guides thought our group was a bit more "hardcore" than other groups so they had the idea to take us off the normal route and take us on their own route. This involved us going through a section of the cave called the "squeeze". and a squeeze it was. Whilst going through the squeeze we basically had to be lying face down, army crawling through the smallest places both Kirsty and I have ever been. It was so tight at some points that I had to breathe in just to get through the gap. The only light we had was the small torch on top of our hard hats so we could only see about two feet in front of us! It was so amazing but scary at the same time. There was one moment of drama when a girl further up stopped dead in her tracks because a small crayfish was infront of her. As the cave was so small nobody could get past her to help and she was refusing to move any further down the cave, and going back was not an option. So after much hilarity and screaming, the hilarity on our part and the screaming on hers we finally got moving further into the cave. After the squeeze we took a short break getting some hot juice and chocolate on board before we tackled the final part of the journey, climbing up two waterfalls. It was brilliant to get a chance to climb up them but a liitle worrying when we had no harness or safety equipment. However both Kirsty and I managed to scale the two without any incidents and make it out at the top. It was an absolutely fantastic experience and one that we will remember for a very long time but we were both so tired after it we just fell stright into bed and passed out.
2/3/2011
We got back on the tour bus and departed for Taupo today. The journey down was very pretty and Kirsty and I were both very excited to get to Taupo as we had both decided we were going to sky dive in Taupo. As we couldn't sky dive until the following day we took a walk up to a natural hot spring river at the edge of Taupo. It was totally crazy to be sitting in a river but the water was hotter than a normal bath at some points. We spent a bit of time relaxing in the warm water since we had spent a fair bit of time travelling on the bus in the last few days. That night we just chilled out and we watched a dvd.
3/3/2011
Kirsty and I both woke up very excited to see the weather as it had to be sunny for us to get to jump and it was! woohoo!. So after breakfast we got picked up by the sky diving company and taken out to the air strip. After watching some promotional videos and getting the safety briefing it was time to meet our instructor and get suited up. After a very short safety briefing we were in the plane heading up to our 15000 foot altitude. On the way up our instructors told us some more things to remember when we jumped and they also took some photo's, but KIrsty and I were just thinking about getting out of the plane so we didn't really notice. After a couple of other people jumped out at 12000 feet we were heading up to the maximum 15000 feet. They gave us oxygen masks because we were so high in the air!!! Once we got up there the door was rolled back and it was time to jump. I was first to go so I edged myself forward to the edge of the plane and before I knew it I was out of the plane and tumbling towards the ground. I was an amazing feeling but so unusual at the same time. As we were getting videoed there was another guy infront of me filming the whole thing. I was so excited I was basically shouting and screaming the whole way during the free fall. It was completely out of this world and would love to do it again. Kirsty was the last to jump out of the plane. This was a bit freaky as she got to see evryone drop out of the plane before her and she saw how fast they were all falling!! But there was no chance to turn back as she were strapped to her dive master and he was edging towards the side of the plane and before I knew it we were out of the plane and falling at over 200kph!! FANTASTIC FUN!
That night was our last night with all the people from this Kiwi Experience bus, so we thought it was right to go out and have a wee drink with them all to say goodbye. We had a great night chatting and playing some silly games.
4/3/2011
It was an early start today to catch the 'East As' Kiwi Experience bus. The East As section of the tour is all about Maori life and their culture, so Kirsty and I were looking forward to finding out some information. Our first day on this part of the trip was mainly spent on the bus as we had a lot of ground to cover. We did stop at a number of locations to view some nice Maori towns and cultural sights along the way. That afternoon when we arrived in Gisbone we spent some time on the beach catching some rays and playing some football. At night we had a very tasty BBQ followed by a wine tasting. There was A LOT of wine and some really nice cheese, chocolate, fruit and dried strawberries! yummy! The guy who took the wine tasting was very very good and he knew a lot about the various wines we were trying. Well he should have since all the wines were from his vineyard. However it was an excellent night and Kirsty and I picked up a few tips on how to taste wine properly.
5/3/2011
Today we left for a place called Rangitukia. This place offered horse riding which KIrsty and I both really wanted to try and were very excited about. On the journey there we stopped at the longest pier in the southern hemisphere and a small white church that featured in the Guns and Roses video November Rain. They were both pretty cool but they were what we expected; a long pier and a little white church!! Although the Maori carvings inside the church were pretty impressive. We arrived at our rural hostel and after a quick change it was time to get on the horses. Kirsty's horse was called "slim shady" yes the real slim shady! My horse was called Wai and the guy later told us that Slim Shady was Wai's mum which was pretty interesting as Kirsty and I were riding them both. The guy who owned the hostel and the horses was called Reg and he was an interesting man, not only because he was Maori, but he had a hook for a hand because he lost his arm when he was attcked by a shark. Once we got our basic horse riding training it was time to set off. My horse was very very slow to begin with and Kirsty just kept laughing because my horse just didn't want to go any faster than a walk.After a while and once Reg gave me the magic stick she kicked into life and I was cantering along at a reasonable speed. Kirsty was very happy with her horse and she kept a constant pace the whole way along. We both had a great time on the horses and as it was our first time although we did have some sore bums after it. That night we had a traditional Maori Hungi dinner. A Hungi is when the food is cooked underground using hot stones to cook the food. It was nice and after that we chilled out sitting round the camp fire, but unfortunately it started to rain so we had to retreat indoors.
6/3/2011
Today we embarked on our journey to Te Kaha. On route we stopped off at a beautifully carved church, and a nice light house, but since the weather was pretty poor we didn't get to walk right up to the light house. We then drove onto our hostel for the night. We were all very excited as this hostel boasts to have an amazing hot tub that over looks the ocean where we could watch the sunset. In reality the hot tub was broken, as there had been a massive storm a few weeks previously so we didn't get the chance to get in it, but if we could it would have been awesome as the views were spectacular. We had a pretty chilled out night watching movies and playing some cards.
7/3/2011
This was our last day on the East As tour and we headed back to Taupo. We stopped in a couple of small villages to look at some Maori Woka's. A woka is a Maori warrier boat and they are all stunningly carved. We then said goodbye to a few people from the trip who were getting off earlier than the rest of us. Then it was time for us to depart. There was a couple of us met up later in the bar to have some more chat before we all go our seperate ways to continue our journeys. The East As tour was very good and we really enjoyed learning about Maori culture and traditions.
8/3/2011
Today we got back on the main Kiwi Experience bus to continue the trip through the north Island down towards the south island. After getting some great views of "Mount Doom", the huge mountain in the Lord of The Rings films we took a short walk into the bush to a lovely waterfall for lunch. However most of the day was spent on the bus travelling to River Valley.
9/3/2011
Kirsty got up early this morning to attend a Yoga session in the hostel and she said it was a lot of fun. We then spent the rest of the morning relaxing in the sun and going over the river on a pully. We spent a little longer than we were ment to in River Valley becuase one of the girls who was white water rafting had a suspected broken finger. It turned out just to be a sore finger lol. We then had a very rushed trip to Wellington due to the delay. That night we met up with some of the people from the bus to say goodbye to them and get to know the people we would be travelling with for the next few weeks. However it wasn't a late night because we were getting up early the next day to catch the ferry to the south island.
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