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4am up showered and packed for our train from Central Station to Sydney's Kingsford Smith International Airport for our 7am flight to Auckland, New Zealand yay :) First things first, check in our bags and munch down a McD's breakie and most importantly a cuppa before boarding the flight. The views as we lifted up from Sydney were awesome after that well we didn't see much as we snoozed through our 2 and half hour flight. We arrived in Auckland went through security and immigration and all that boring and time consuming stuff picked up a heap of leaflets while waiting for our lift to our camper with Jucy which arrived within 5 mins of us calling to say we had arrived happy days :) We signed for camper got a quick shown around picked up more leaflets and maps and headed out with our lovely green and purple cabana camper. Round the corner was a big Countdown (Woolworths to the Aussie's) and did a shop to stock up and we then set off out into New Zealand. From Auckland we were driving down to Wellington, 666km south, we decided to stop around halfway which was Lake Taupo, has the largest freshwater lake in the world ooooooooh!!! The journey down was awesome so much agriculture land, trees and hell of a lot of sheep and cows and very very very cute (probably tasty) lambs. We went through a town which looked very Lord of the Ringy's called Matamata which was pretty cool and also along the desert road up in the mountains passing by the snowy mountains. The weather was quite cold but dry and New Zealand felt very homely much like the UK, very very beautiful landscapes though and very well looked after land everywhere. We arrived at Lake Taupo around 7pm ish (3 hour difference from Sydney) around 3 and half to 4 hours of driving stopping via Taihape for loo stop and a gorgeous hot choc with marshallows yum. W e stopped in Lake Taupo at a campsite called Spa Motel however, hugely run down place they allowed us to park on bit of green free of charge so we were happy campers and meant I could finally try out my shewee. We made a quick sarnie for tea as both pretty shattered, we made up our bed inside the camper and got cosy looking at leaflets we had of Lake Taupo and planning tomorrow before falling asleep.
We awoke with the sound of heavy rain on the Thursday morning and such grey skies we knew the weather was set for the day. We ventured out the camper around 8am both dying for a wee before getting dressed to drive to the lake and main area. The lake was gorgeous great views although all very grey and quite foggy with the miserable weather. We parked by the lake and made our morning cuppa and cornflake breakie under our boot and decided to drive onto Wellington. The route took us along the lake which was great meant we got to see a far amount of it and enjoy the views from the camper know named Gabby as reg began GAB. We didn't stop much on the way just a quick loo break before arriving in Wellington. The weather had picked up by late afternoon and we planned to drive straight up Mount Victoria in Wellington as probably would have a look out over the city well the weather was nice and maybe free parking for the night. As we hoped we were able to set up camp up the mountain for the night so after we had a walk around and took photos of the stunning views of Wellington we started on our pasta dinner sitting out looking onto the view before crawling into bed for an early night. Wellington is the southern most end of the North Island and has a huge harbour which consists of the only ferries to the South Island. It is the capital of New Zealand and described as a small but cool city and it is exactly that.
With not showering since we left Sydney we thought it would be best to stay in a camp site the following day, the Friday. I was hesitant as we have to pay $40-50 for a powered site which we didn't need as our Gabby had no power needs but we found one right in the middle of the city on the waterfront so I thought $25 each for a shower and an actually toilet seat and in city parking actually was not that bad so first thing that day we got dressed and drove down to the waterfront. Finally showered and got dressed and walked over along the harbour front to the information centre to pick up maps and leaflets of Wellington. We headed back to the caravan site for some breakie before setting out for the day yummy cornflakes and a cuppa :) The weather was better, very windy and pretty cold but dry at least for the beginning of the day. We walked into the small city centre and went up the cable car to the Botanic Gardens, walked around, enjoyed the views over the city and looked around the little cable car museum up in the gardens before getting cable car back down to the city. Next stop was the Te Papa museum, a free museum on the waterfront which we thought was worth a visit and my god it was definitely worth a visit. This building was 6 floors full of information, exhibits and interactive fun stuff. It was great way of learning about New Zealand history and Maori culture, but our favourite floor was the fire, earth and water all about the earth, the environment, animals and natural disasters it was such a great place. They had a Giant squid preserved which is the only displayed one in the world and they had a x-ray room which was bone structures of around 30 different marine animals it was so good, very informative and good fun at the same time. After a couple of hours in there we still had some time in the day, we had a leaflet about a place called Weta cave which were the special effect guys for various films such as Lord of the Rings so we drove around Wellington 10 minutes up the road to Weta, again a free attraction and it was great. Only a small building with awesome memorabilia of Lord of the Rings, King Kong, District 9 and Avatar to name a view. We also got to watch a half an hour film of behind the scenes which was really cool and learnt that Weta is actually the second biggest special effects company in the world following Pixar! They also had some collector items for huge fans including a real gold replica of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings for about $500!! We chilled back at the caravan site for a little while having a nap in our Gabby as the weather worsened and began stormy outside. Later we got hungry got dressed and treated ourselves to a meal out in the city, lovely pub like place called Featherstons, very very good food. Being cheap and cosy in our Gabby we opted for bottle of wine and lots of games of rummy, me winning kicking Gary's ass woop woop.
Saturday was a total road trip day, we got up showered, dressed, packed had breakie and out caravan site by 10am and started our journey back to Auckland. We stopped at a New World shopping centre for a few bits and bobs and also on the desert road were we ate our packed lunch and swapped over the driving. With not really knowing Auckland and arriving quite late at night we thought it best to stay in a camp site nearby the city in Northcote slightly North of the city passing over the harbour bridge. We checked in drove to the nearby shops picked up some grub and enjoyed a take-away in Gabby and an early night. The camp site was only $20 each and it was only 4km or so out of the city and again supplied us with a hot shower which we had to pay an extra $1 for and limited to 9 minutes but it was still worthwhile.
Sunday morning up nice and early ready to make most of the day we drove to Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium, in Sydney we bought an annual attractions card and this aquarium was actually one of the free admissions. There was an Antarctica experience inside with King and Gentoo penguins which was pretty damn cool and the place itself was really good we thoroughly enjoyed our time. Looking at maps last night we wanted to drove up Mount Eden to see views of Auckland and also to see if we could camp out there a night or two so we went up, the views again were absolutely amazing and sure enough free parking yay. I think with the small population of 2.2 million people in New Zealand they aren't as harsh on city parking as we are, while I am mentioning population I should say that there is also 40 million sheep throughout New Zealand, and so sheep actually outweigh humans hehe, true story! Anyway, we parked up and walked our way to the nearest train station which was Grafton, big sign no trains this weekend due to work on the tracks, damn it. Waited for a bus but we didn't really understand the timetable and looking at my map and figured it actually wasn't a far walk into the city and we wandered through a park so we went for that option inside. Only a 30 minute or so walk, which was lovely, although I dropped our little camera down a hill and nastily marked it all :( we headed to the SkyTower, which is apparently the tallest building in the Southern hemisphere. We had seen in one of our leaflets about a jump from this tower called the SkyJump, a 192 metre fall to the ground and we were curious. We walked in looked at a live cam and within 5 minutes we were booked up for 3.30pm jump. With 40 minutes to spare we headed to SkyCity which is underneath the SkyTower and consists of casino, hotel, restaurants and bars, a pretty funky happening place, we headed straight for the sports bar for an alcoholic bevy. The time quickly came to 3.20pm we were headed back to SkyTower counter to get geared up for our jump. We got sexy all in one bright yellow outfits and some cool army converse style shoes and then a harness to complete our fashionable look, worse bit was we had to get weighed huh and they wrote our weight on our hand to show the jump controller person up the tower, that was not such a nice few moments haha. Showed us our unhealthy travelling, fast food habits naughty naughty us. We headed in the lift up the tower and into the area where the jump occurs, I chose Gary to jump first as I knew I couldn't enjoy my jump without knowing he was okay and enjoyed it, plus if something did go wrong I could cut my cord and go with him haha. Eee my god it was so hard watching him just step off so high up and I couldn't even see him when he landed but the girls working were very friendly and assured me he had landed safe so my turn. I was feeling good, excited and especially after Gary had gone that seemed the hardest part until I was holding on each side of the tower on the edge of a platform leaning out into the city and my body nearly parallel to the ground 192metres down and the girl holding onto me says "right ready here she comes"..........panic............WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!!The initial stepping off the platform is crazy scary but the aftermath is totally awesome. We were stopped at 10 metres for a photo and then plummeted to the ground at 85km/hr. It was so much fun, its hard to describe as its not a bungee or skydive but something inbetween, maybe like a vertical zip wire? I was really excited when I landed and said oooh I want to do it again to Gary, the girl working went away spoke on her walkie talkie and returned to say would yous like to do it again for free?? We couldn't get up the lift any faster, the second time we didn't have to stop 10 metres from the top so we just went all the way down and it was even better so so so cool. Feeling pumped up like we were on happy pills we went back to the sports bar that we were in earlier for drinks and $5 roast diner we saw advertised, I know $5 right?? crazy cheap and it was good too, quite small but hey for $5 it was awesome. Not wanting to go back to camper yet we wondered down to the waterfront in search for Freddy's Ice Bar as I had found $5 off entry voucher. We ended up only paying $22 each instead of $30 with our backpacker cards, even better bargain and that included unlimited entry to the bar for the night, free cocktail and warm gear. We were dressed for a tropical island with shorts and flip flops so our legs were little nippy but it was amazing. The whole bar was pure ice, there was an ice hockey table to play on completely made out of ice, ice statues of ice age characters Scrat, Manny and Diego. There was an ice sheep statue to sit on and other really cool sculptures. I had a Penguin Pash while Gary had a Kiwi Breeze and then afterwards we enjoyed a shot each out of an ice made mermaid on the bar haha. We stayed in for a good 40 mins or even longer but the cold was pretty cold and the drinks were canny expensive so we moved on. We walked along the harbour and found a winter wonderland ice rink like what we have at the Life Centre at Christmas it was really big, free for 45 minutes but very busy so we skipped out and jumped on bus home eventually to Gabby on Mount Eden.
We set an alarm early the Monday morning to go on a day trip to a volcanic island but when the alarm went off and we saw the weather for the day we decided to leave it until tomorrow hoping the weather would be better. We moved our camper as last night we ended up on a nearby street to the mountain as it was quite slopey to sleep but we needed to move the car before 8am the next morning. So we parked back in the mountain car park (found somewhere least slopey) and napped for couple more hours. The weather did actually improve slightly, it stopped raining by lunch time so we went to Auckland Zoo for the afternoon, cooking a pasta lunch in the carpark beforehand. The zoo was awesome, really big and great spacious enclosures. They had a New Zealand wildlife section which was funky and good mix of all the usual animals in zoos a lot of which had small ones and some great conservation projects alongside. From the zoo we drove North over the harbour bridge to Devonport, drove up Mount Victoria to check out the views, awesome at night before crashing out after wine and more card playing of which again I won hehe. Tonight was our last night in Gabby :( we had packed up best we could, passed on our unused foods and stuff to another Jucy camper in front.
Tuesday we managed to get on our day trip and we got a lovely day, we made our breakfast and pack lunches and set of up the road to the Devonport ferry port for our 9.30am ferry to Ragitoto Island. This island is the largest and newest volcanic island in New Zealand. It erupted 600 years ago and the island is under conservation care for 50 years. The ferry journey was 30 minutes long and we got great views back onto the city and also of the other 91 islands in the Hauraki Gulf. We walked up to the summit of the volcanic mountain of which you could see the lava formed rock along the way as if the volcano erupted just last month. The crater at the top was insane 16m drop down and 200m across and covered now in trees was amazing to see, we walked the rim of the crater and also thoroughly enjoyed the views from the top, we got a lovely hot, clear day so the views were really stunning.. There was also lava caves formed which was really cool, very dark and sometimes a tight squeeze to walk through. The island also joins onto another island a more agriculture and more green island named Motutapu Island we did walk along to the island but did not venture to far, enjoyed our pack lunches by the very calm sea. The ferry at 3.30pm returned us to Devonport by 4pm where we reunited with Gabby and a parking ticket :( and headed towards the airport. We fuelled up Gabby for her return and checked into our Formule 1 hotel now changed to Ibis Budget and dropped our bags before handing the camper keys back over to Jucy and waving goodbye to Gabs, very very sad. We so wanted to keep her and ship her home to England. Our room in the hotel was lovely, we were able to do all the jobs we needed like washing and drying clothes, having hot showers and relaxing on a bed. Charging all our cameras, phones and things as the camper had no power or sockets so we were very limited and our phones didn't work. We could go online, sent emails and check out facebook and after a trip to McD's down the road I had a great chat with back home for a couple of hours. We ended up not going to sleep until late as we got caught up in looking and sorting out all of our New Zealand photos until after midnight and we were to be up at 4am for our flight back to Sydney at 7am urrrrgh.
We loved New Zealand and Gabby definitely would love to go back, very friendly place, pretty cheap and just absolutely gorgeous, beautiful and stunning to be there even for just a short week.
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