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Rockin' all over the world
After a fun-filled couple of months in Oz, we headed to New Zealand expecting peace & tranquility, taking morning walks through the countryside & visiting quaint little towns out in the wilderness. Don't get me wrong, there was a fair share of those things but as most of you will have seen in our photos there was also just a touch of the extreme!!
We flew into Christchurch on a chilly morning at the beginning of May & spent our first couple of days walking around the city, having lunch in front of the beautiful Cathedral, shopping for something other than shorts and vest tops & being repeatedly stopped by visiting American Christian Youth Leaders and offered prayer - after the last 2 months we must have looked brimming with sin! We rented a car & headed north up the east coast to Hanmer Springs, we had our first true glimpse of the country's beautiful landscape & relaxed for the rest of the day in the natural hot pools in the pouring rain. Next morning we headed on to Kaikoura, via the 'scenic route', aka the long, winding way & arrived by midday to do our dolphin swim. Unfortunately the weather meant the trip was called off so we rescheduled & headed down to Seal Rock to check out those little critters instead, then settled for an early night watching movies & eating free cream cakes (we love New Zealand already!), temporarily interupted by some old guy setting the fire alarm off by trying to start a fire in a fake fireplace! Next morning, with fingers crossed we headed back to the Dolphin Encounter office & luckily the weather had cleared enough for us to head out. After kitting ourselves out in head to toe wetsuits (including neoprene balaclava, gloves & socks) we all shuffled into the boat & headed out to find a pod of dusky dolphins, after about 45 minutes cruising out to sea, spotting Albatross & admiring the mountains over Kaikoura, we found them. It was such a site, the 300 dolphins had spotted us too & were jumping & chasing the boat, we all grabbed our fins & snorkles & lined up on the back of the boat, legs hanging in the freezing ocean, waiting for the cue to jump in. When it came we all slid in and as advised began swimming in circles, diving down & singing and making noises. It was indescribable. With our faces well & truly in the water, all you could see from every angle were these hundreds of dolphins, swimming at you, brushing against you & circling you. They were playing with us & would come so close to your face, look you in the eye & then swim off, challenging you to chase them. After about 15 minutes in the water, we couldn't catch up anymore so we all jumped back on the stern of the boat & followed them again. The boat dropped us ahead of them and we all jumped in again, screaming & singing & whistling to get their atention & soon enough they saw us & came swimming toward us again, flipping out of the water & jumping so high, we played around again & again & after about 45 mins in the water in total, and a short while watching them from the boat we finally let them go. It was just the most magical experience & with a cup of hot chocolate, we all just sat there in absolute stunned awe. When we got back to shore we got showered & headed back to the hostel to cook a big plate of pasta to warm us up then jumped back in the car & headed back along the coastal road.
After spending one last night in Christchurch taking advantage of the $3 doubles, trying to win free stuff playing rock, paper, scissors & bearing witness to what I can only assume were the local 'Fame' kids crash the dancefloor in legwarmers, waistcoats & back to front caps, we took a flight up to Auckland. Arriving mid afternoon, we checked into Base and received a voucher to use the hostel hot tub, which turned out to be on a segregated area of the roof, we went up at the only available slot of 10pm and sat in the rain looking at the city lights, despite the amazing view, we decided that it was far too bizarre and weirdly romantic & cut it short. Delighted to find that the $3 doubles continued in the North Island, we spent the rest of the night checking out the local bands.
Our reason for flying up to Auckland was arriving today, Nicola (& Kim) were coming to New Zealand. We moved up to Auckland Central Backpackers & avoided doing anything too productive, so we just window shopped and checked out our options for the next week. They arrived late evening where me & Jem were waiting in reception, slghtly worse for wear, to suprise them. We spent the next day doing a free city tour & catching up, we checked out Mount Eden for an awesome view of the city, got some HokeyPokey icecream & booked our Stray tour for the next few days. An early start saw us head up to the very northern tip of the country, stopping at a bird rescue en route we stroked and fed a one-legged kiwi bird & arrived into Pahia in the afternoon. We hit the local bottle shop, huddled up into our dorm and made our way through a litre of vodka, we then spilled out into the local bars, played a few regretable drinking games & eventually decided to call it a night when the karaoke got too much to bear. Not before a late night underwear dip in the hot tub of course!
Feeling rather hazy the next morning, we headed to the skydive centre with Nic & Kim for them to throw themselves out of a perfectly good aeroplane, after a short scenic flight around the bay, Kim came crashing through a rain cloud & landed back in the field considerably wet & rain whipped. Followed by Nic who fell through clear sky with a slightly larger smile on her face!
Next day we headed up to Cape Reinga, the most northerly point, and drove up 90 mile beach to go sandboarding, the dunes were huge & unlike some guys who were literally surfing them like waves, we simlpy trekked to the top and surfed down on our bellies on boogie boards. Very scary but an awesome rush. We then headed out to the Cape Lighthouse & took in the awesome view of two oceans meeting, there is a visible line as the Tasman Sea crahes into the Pacific Ocean. We enjoyed a picnic lunch in a small bay tucked between the mountains and then started on the long journey back, only stopping for an amazing Fish'N'Chip tea before pulling back into Pahia. As stressed by our driver the only way to spend time in the Bay of Islands is to get out in the water, so on our final day we headed out on a combined bay tour & dolphin swim. After much deliberation we decided that we loved it so much the first time we would pay again for another chance to swim this time with bottlenose dolphins. After about an hour weaving in and out the islands in the bay we finally spotted a small pod of about 20 dolphins jumping near the shore, unfortunately the pod had babies with them so we couldn't swim as it can harm them, but we trailed them for about 30 mins, they were so huge compared to the duskys we had swam with and they were swimming right at the bow of the boat on their sides looking directly at us, we were all whistling and just like before they jumped and showed off. Slightly dissapointed at not swimming we started heading back to shore when a radio message came through from a local fisherman - he had spotted a family of orcas. We raced to the area of the sighting and just as we were approaching 3 killer whales, a mummy, daddy and baby surfaced in the water. They slapped their tales on the water and swam right beside the boat, at one point, one of the adults turned on its back and swam right under the boat, coming up less than a metre from where we were stood. It was unreal. The tour guide had only ever seen orcas twice before in 10 years of working in the bay and she said they are normally very unsociable and dissapear as soon as anyone arrives, but they put on such a show for us. It has always been Jem's biggest dream to see them in the wild & it was absolutely incredible! Eventually the other boats caught up with us & so we had to leave so we wouldn't overcrowd them but just as we were pulling away they took a deep breath and dived down, by the time we got back to shore an hour later they still hadn't resurfaced so we were so lucky!
We headed back to Auckland, had a final meal out & left Kim the next day, she headed home & we started our Kiwi Experience southbound with Nicola. We stopped at Cathedral Cove and wandered down the coastal track and found a beautiful little beach, Manta Ray Bay, after jumping back on the bus, we arrived at our final destination of Mercury Bay, we cooked ourselves an amazing meal, drank vodka, played Jenga & headed into town to one of the bars and contributed to the local pub quiz (completely uninvited). The next day, despite the rain, we stopped off at a beautiful waterfall and walked around the stunning Karangahake gorge, which included a 1km walk through old goldmine railway tunnels in the pitch black. After a brief orientation tour when arriving into Rotorua and an introduction to the towns 'unique' smell (aka eggs) due to the geothermal activity we stopped by the Tamake maori centre, won me a necklace - oww, and ate some chutney - good stuff! We all gathered back together for the Maori culture show in the evening, which was awesome. Great music and dancing & even better food! Spent the next day shopping and exploring in town & lazing in the natural hot baths at the hostel with some awesome Austrians & a few bottles of Passion Pop then headed out in the evening with a few people we'd met around. Had an awesome yet messy night, probably best if I don't go into details.
Despite a raging hangover the next day, we decided we needed to do something extreme so caught the bus to the agrodome, and decided to do a swoop, similar to the minjin swing in Australia but more extreme. When we first arrived it was not running due to a fault but a new part arrived just in time, so after watching a grown man chicken out of doing a bungee we got into our little sleeping bags hoisted up above the concrete & given the green light to pull the cord. What felt like an hour later (but was in reality about a minute and a half) I was still yanking on the cord, then as i let go of it to signal that it wasn't working, the cord released and we were sent hurtling towards the ground, the rope reached its full length about a metre above the ground and thank god we started swinging - great fun. It was either that their thirst for extremity hadn't quite been quenched or they were enjoying my hangover discomfort too much, but Jem & Nic decided that we should go zorbing too. So after geting kitted out in fetching wet gear we launched ourselves into a giant inflatable ball filled with suprsingly warm water and tumbled down a hill, practically drowning each other and hysterically laughing and spluttering until we managed to contain ourselves long enough to slide back out at the bottom - awesome! I spent the remainder of the day in bed recovering!
We all hopped back on the Kiwi bus the next day down to Waitomo, firstly stopping at Te Puia thermal park and checking out the bubbling mud pools and geisers. We then checked into our very nice hostel with twin rooms before heading back out to see NZ's third largest waterfall, the Marakopa Falls, the Natural Bridge and then watched Friends on the bus with Eamon our driver, while some other crazy fools went on a long walk in the rain. Had a great, cheap tea cooked for us, then watched movies with hot choclate & marshmallows!
Early start the next day to check out Waitomo's main attraction the glow worm caves, and to see them in the best way - Black Water Rafting. After a rather difficult half an hour trying to squeeze into wet wetsuits in the freezing cold, we drove out to the cave entrance, hopped into athe inner tube of a tyre and made our way into the darkness with our headtorches. We climbed down to the water then leaped off a ledge with our bums poking therough the tubes, scary but fun! We then floated through the darkness with our lights off, led back and stared up at the glow worms, it looked just like a starry sky. Very romantic until you find out that it is actually the worms poo that glows, at which point floating through freezing water staring at a cr*p covered ceiling becomes significantly less impressive! After warming up with a shower & some soup, we headed back on the road toward Taupo, stopping at the very impressive (can't remember the name) falls, where the river path gets so narrow that 3 swimming pools worth of water rush through per second.
Checked into our hostel & headed down town for drinkies - to a rather smutty backpacker hangout which offers free drinks in exchange for weighing bare breasts (oh and photographing the process of course - evidence of previous participants adourns the walls)! After many drinking games & boob weight offers later we headed upstairs & danced on the tables til closing followed by a 'cuddle club' meeting in our dorm with a few nightmare scousers (nicola!)!
Nic left the next morning to head back to Auckland for her flight & me & Jem joined the absolutely awesome East As tour....
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