Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We arrived in Auckland to find ourselves in the only traffic jam in the whole of New Zealand getting from the airport to the city, which was strangely comforting as it was reminiscent of home! Just one night was spent in Auckland before we started our hasty trip around the north. Our first stop on the big green Kiwi Bus was Mercury Bay on the Coromandel peninsula. On the way we stopped at the dormant volcano Mount Eden, which everyone in Auckland is really scared will erupt soon. Our bus driver told us that a few years previously on April fools day some local boys set fire to tyres and rolled them in to the crater of the volcano, causing a mass evacuation of the city, as the authorities thought it was about to erupt!
After Mercury Bay, we went to a place called Rotorua which means "second lake" as it was the second lake the settlers came to.....original ay?! Due to the geo-thermal activity in Rotorua, the town has a distinctly sulfurous twang. Despite Kez being told this on more than one occasion, Tom still got blamed every time the window was opened, or a particularly potent waft passed through!! That said, objects with a lack of vocal cords or any other means of defending themselves such as geo-thermally active towns often become unjustly credited for gaseous mishaps!
In Rotorua we went to a cultural evening with a Maori tribe. This included demonstrations of surgery, food storage and warrior training. After the demos we were lead to the "wharenui" or the meeting house, where the Maori tales were told and the famous "Haka" was performed. The last place we moved to was the eating hall or "whare kai", where a feast had been prepared in the underground Maori oven called a "hangi". This is where rocks are heated up until they are white hot and then put in a hole in the ground with wood, and sacks doused in water to create steam. Food is then put on top in layers, with the food that needs the longest cooking time at the bottom, and food with decreasing cooking time placed in ascending layers. The whole arrangement is the covered with soil so that no steam escapes, and left to cook for 3-5 hours. This gave the food a smokey flavour, that was strange, but really good! All the Kilbeys/Freemans may be more interested in the dessert however, of which there was steamed pudding with custard, fruit salad, and kiwi fruit Pavlova!
The next stop after Rotorua was a tiny hamlet-sized town called Waitomo, and was the unlikely setting of our most enjoyable outdoor pursuit yet: "Black Water Rafting"! This included a 40 metre abseil in to the Waitomo cave system, followed by a zip-line (or "flying-fox" as they are known in NZ) in pitch darkness to the next section of the cave! After this we had a sit down and some hot chocolate & flapjacks that rivaled Maz's! Despite being covered entirely in wetsuit, with the exception of our hands and faces, the next step was a real shock. We had to jump about 4 metres, holding a rubber ring to our bums, in to 15°C water...this was very, very cold! From here we paddled through the underground river, navigated some pretty tight pot-holes and climbed underground waterfalls! Towards the end of our trip we were told to lie back in our rubber rings and turn our head torches off. As we peered upwards, we had left the cave and were now looking up at the darkest night sky with an abnormal number of stars...at least this is what we thought to begin with, but as our eyes adjusted we soon realised there were thousands of glow worms on the ceiling of the cave!! It was truly spectacular, and is an experience that will be hard to beat! As we came out of the cave it was a bit confusing as it was nine 'o' clock at night and the stars were out for real this time! Being in the caves for three hours was brilliant, but also freezing so luckily there was some tomato soup and a bagel waiting for us when we returned to caving shop!
Our next port of call was a place called Taupo. Similarly to lots of places in NZ, the town is built next to a lake which shares its name. Lake Taupo was pretty special though, as it is larger than the country of Singapore! The lake was first formed 26,500 years ago due to a massive volcanic eruption, but its most recent activity occurred in 180 AD. The volcano, although dormant, is still bubbling at the bottom of the lake, and if it erupted again would destroy the whole of NZ! In Taupo we were given the option of paying NZ$130 to go on a walk called the Tongariro crossing...we couldn't justify paying money to go on a walk, so went on our own five hour trek to a place called Huka Falls which is the only outlet for Lake Taupo. The falls are famous as more water passes over them in one second than any other waterfall, per square metre. The falls are only eight metres wide and 11 high, but the amount of water flowing over can fill an Olympic swimming pool every ten seconds! At the end of our walk, we went to a natural hot-water stream, the water was boiling, and helped us out after our hike!
A place called River Valley was next on the agenda, and although was very picturesque, calls for little comment as there was nothing there but a par three golf course if you didn't want to go rafting!
The most southern point of our northern trip and NZ's capital city of Wellington was our next stop. We rode the tram up the hill to the gardens and found some cool views, as well as a playground that, as 22 year-olds, we probably enjoyed too much! We also managed to see a really good Maori film called "Boy" while in Wellington, and after having spent the last few weeks noting how eerily similar NZ is to England in some respects, discovered another of the differences. When we got to the cinema everyone was dressed in what was fairly close to black tie dress...it turned out there was a dress code and we felt pretty silly as we smuggled ourselves through in flip-flops and jeans!
We had to stop off for one more night in Taupo on our way back to Auckland after leaving Wellington. Taupo is built next to........!
While in Auckland we arranged to meet up with Robin who is staying in a town near Auckland! He very kindly showed us around some of the city and we snuck in to the Maritime Museum to help him find his ancestors name, with no success! We did however become addicted to a racing boat simulator in which all three of us had to steer the boat, or pull the sails in/out! We couldn't leave, under strict plank-walking consequences laid down by captain Rob, until we had won!
New Zealand has been amazing, and is the place we would most like to come back to for a longer stay. With slight regret that we had to leave, but also excitement for our next adventure, we got on our flight to Fiji!!
Kia Ora!
- comments