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Kia Ora! (as in the Maori greeting not the drink!)
We have just arrived in the South Island having been around the North Island since our last update.
We started in Auckland for a couple of days and caught up on our washing as we had a washer dryer in the apartment! The harbour is a nice area but the city is mostly just like many in Britain.
We then travelled north to Pahia in the Bay of Islands, aptly named as it is literally full of tiny islands - very picturesque. This is the area where the treaty was signed that handed control of New Zealand from the Maoris over to the English. We went over the bay to visit Russel which was the first capital of New Zealand and also has the first licensed pub in the country - The Duke of Marlborough, which is up for sale (yours for only $6.75million)! It is a very pretty small town with many original colonial style buildings and a great views across the bay.
On the way to Whitianga, on the Coromandel Peninsular, we stopped for the night in Whangarei where we visited the most photographed waterfalls in New Zealand - so the guide book tells us (photos will be posted soon!) It was a very long drive (6 hours) to Whitianga but well worth it. The landscape is amazing but often makes for slow driving, particularly in our small Hyundai Getz which doesn't like going uphill along the windy and sometimes steep mountain and coastal roads.
Whilst in Whitianga we had great fun sea kayaking. We paddled around the beautiful coastline and to bays which are only otherwise accessible by walking tracks. We went into a cave, around an island in the bay, through a tunnel and through narrow passages inbetween rocks. We were lucky because it was a very calm day and the guide took us to a few places he would not normally be able to take people. After that we drove to Hot Beach where you can dig in the sand to make a hot water pool but unfortunately we didn't get there at the right time as you can only do this at low tide.
This led us nicely to our next stop, Rotorua, the geothermal heartland of New Zealand. Although a bit smelly due to the sulphur, we had a great time in Te Puia walking around the geysers and mudpools. We saw the biggest geyser in the southern hemisphere erupting and some very amusing mudpools, one which was called the Frog Pool because of the jumping and 'plopping' mud! This is also a Maori cultural site and we saw reconstructed buildings and a cultural show which included the Haka - not as scary as when the rugby boys do it!
On our way south we visited Napier. It is a very stylish town with a great many Art Deco buildings which were constructed after the town was detroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s.
After another long drive we ended up in Wellington, our final stop on the North Island before catching the ferry across the Cook Strait to the South Island, and here we are now in Nelson!
That's it for now!
Kate & Damian X
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