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Our 12 hour flight to New Zealand was quite easy as it was a night flight and we were able to sleep most of the way (Jo more so than me). We were so excited to see Bec and Carys at Auckland airport, but their two hour delay meant that we had to wait that little bit longer. Our first day in Auckland was spent lunching and catching up with the girls (it felt like we had never been away) and visiting the famous Auckland skytower which is 328 metres high making it the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and gives superb 360 degree views of the city. It's also possible to jump or abseil from the tower- if only I had the chnace I would have done it.
The next day we set off on our Kiwi experience bus to Mercury Bay. The Kiwi bus has been really handy as they organise accommodation for you and offer lots of different trips and activities which means you don't have to go off and waste time planning things for yourself. Along the way we stopped at Mount Eden which is one of the many dormant volcanoes in Auckland. Feel like we have visited so many volcanoes now. In the afternoon we went sea kayaking with Bec and Carys in a place called Cathedral Cove. It was so beautiful, the sea was so calm and the cove was stunning with lovely white sand. Our instructor Tom was lovely too, he made his own little coffee shop on the beach, where we could have any hot drink we wanted with marshmallows and cookies.-yum!! The hostel we stayed at here was really cute- family ran and we all had spaghetti bol for dinner. We could have easily stayed here for longer given more time.
The next day we headed off to Rotorua. We stopped on route for a nice scenic route in a nature reserve. Was so funny, our leader Pam liked to do everything so quickly, so us four ended up running most of the way having to take photos of the signs to be able to read them later on as there was no time for stopping. What made this even more tricky was that the bridges could only hold 10 people at a time, so we had to wait to cross and then sprint to catch up with the rest of the group. When we arrived in Rotorua we were taken for a traditional Maori welcoming. This sounded quite exciting but it was only 15 minutes long and we didn't really learn anything. That evening we took ourselves to one of the Polynesian spa's which Rotorua is famous for (Rotorua is a geothermal and cultural centre in New Zealand). It was very nice and looked out over the lake but the smells were so bad from the sulphur and started to make Jo feel quite sick. We left the thermal pool and went for a nice Indian.
The next day we went to visit Te Puia, a large geothermal reserve centre which is home to the world's only constantly exploding geyser. We also got to see a live Kiwi bird here! We also saw lots of bubbling mud pools and hot water springs which fascinated Carys. It felt as if we were on a different planet or in a Doctor Who episode. The next morning all four of us went on a caving trip in Waitomo. This began by trying to squeeze ourselves, on a freezing cold morning, into wet wet suits- we were so unimpressed and Jo really thought she was going to loose some of her toes. We then had to abseil into a 30 metre cave through a gap that looked impossible to get through. It ended up not being so bad and we made it through. Things from then only got more scary and Jo was traumatised after being swang back and forth in the dark on a flying fox through a glow worm cave- the man thought it would be so funny to make her scream that little bit longer!! Inside the cave we floated around on rubber rings in the dark admiring the glow worms for a bit- this was probably the only relaxing part of the trip giving us time to calm down after all the trauma. Getting out of the caves was an adventure in itself, and we ended up climbing up through a narrow entrance that had a gushing waterfall coming down beside us.
On the same day in the afternoon, Carys and me did the Taupo bungy jump which was a 47 metre jump over lake Raupo (I couldn't have chosen a more beautiful setting). I was so excited to jump but I think Carys might have been regretting agreeing to do it with me at one point. The hardest part was actually jumping of the edge and they had to tell us twice to jump. As scary as it was it was amazing and was so much fun- we bought the DVD so I can show you all when we get home. That evening we went for a yummy dinner and just chilled out after our adventurous day.
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