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Mon 5 Feb
So, our real 'Stray' adventure starts here. We did a two day tour with them up to the Bay of Islands but this is where our 'Max' pass of the whole of NZ begins. 'Stray' is a 'hop on, hop off' coach service similar to Kiwi Experience but apparently not so much of a party bus (we're getting old and sensible you know!). We were picked up at 8.30am by our driver DC for our first journey on a big orange coach with around 30 others. We went up Mount Eden again then set off for the drive to Hahei on the Coromandel Coast. We were quite pleased to find that Stray had somehow charged us incorrectly so our dorm beds are only costing us NZ$10 per night (about 3.50 pounds) instead of NZ$20+ ..... we only realised the error after we departed otherwise we would have told them of course! Unfortunately by the time we arrived in Hahei the weather was quite grey and miserable - the main attraction there is the 'Hot Water Beach'. Ed decided to join a small group walking to Cathedral Cove whilst I braved it with the majority of people and went to Hot Water Beach. Volcanoes have formed huge underground reservoirs of hot water, which for some reason manages to escape to the surface on this beach. So despite the quite blustery weather about 20 of us headed off there expecting to have the beach to ourselves...... we got there to find most of the beach empty but the 'hot water' part of the beach absolutely packed! Never mind, we gathered our spades and toddled off to dig ourselves pools of hot water. I actually chickened out of stripping down to my swimming costume and just paddled. It was amazing how hot the water was - digging my feet into the water, I jumped out several times as the water was just too hot! The others who had braved it in trunks and bikinis were cooled down by a few waves that managed to reach the pools that we'd dug. All good fun though. After that we headed back to the hostel, had a great BBQ and were in bed by 11pm.
Tues 6 Feb
Up and away by 8am. We had a stopoff at a place called Paeroa, specifically to taste the drink 'L&P' (Lemon and Paeroa) which is made there and 'world famous in New Zealand!'. It is very sweet lemonade, tried it once but probably won't be buying it again. We reached Raglan by lunchtime, a really pretty town with a huge lake and mountain views. After a picnic lunch overlooking the lake we headed for the Raglan Surf School Hostel but neither of us were brave enough to have a surf lesson! Instead we walked down to Whale Bay and relaxed there for a while. It has been hectic ever since Fraser Island in Oz so it was actually nice to sit down and relax for a while (other than on the bus). We went back to the hostel for a lovely gourmet dinner of Moroccan Beef, watched a corny surf film then headed up to the flying fox (zip wire) and ropes course. It was good fun as it was so dark we couldn't see the zip wire, just hear people screaming as they came down! It was good to see the glow worms on the walls around too but unfortunately they weren't bright enough to light up the flying fox or rope course!
Wed 7 Feb
Another 8am start for the drive to Waitomo. I decided to go Tumu Tumu Toobing which I thought was a nice little walk into a cave then a couple of hours of fun floating around in the water in an inner tube..... little did I know! After getting dressed up in a wetsuit, white wellington boots, hard hat and headlamp we set off across the fields (the cows thought the aliens had landed I think!). After about 20 minutes we reached the entrance to the cave - a big ladder. We then spent the next three hours basically potholing, climbing over rocks including some very scarily sharp looking very thin vertical ones, swimming in water so deep I couldn't touch the ground, oh, and we did manage about 20 minutes in an inner tube! Actually it was absolutely fantastic and I loved every minute of it from jumping into the water with the inner tube to floating down the cave in the dark marvelling at the hundreds of thousands of glow worms in the caves, to caking ourselves in mud to scare off the monsters (Maori legend), to swimming through the water trying to avoid the eels (I think the guides were having us on), to the hot lemonade and chocolate bar at the underground 'Hard Rock Cafe'. It was great fun, just a little bit cold when we first jumped into the water. All of this yet we couldn't tempt Ed to get into the water so he headed off on the 'Spellbound' boat trip in one of the caves.
Not content with four hours in a cave with then headed to the Zorbing site. You may have heard about zorbing, but if not, you basically climb into a big plastic ball and get pushed down a large hill!! Only this time, there were three of us inside the ball and a big dose of warm water ....... imagine being inside a washing machine and you're probably somewhere close! Doreen, Ed & I just laughed the whole way down and were pleased to hear that we were probably the noisiest zorbers! It was actually much wetter than we'd expected and although we wore their shorts and t-shirts, we were stuck in our wet underwear for the next few hours - very attractive (we did out our own clothes back on so it just looked like we'd wet ourselves).
We arrived in Rotorua and instantly knew it when we could smell the sulphur - it is a geothermal area located on a volcanic plateau. We checked into the Hot Rocks Hostel then went for a walk around a local park - complete with bubbling mud and steam coming from the ground. In the evening we were challenged to some party games in the bar but of course we were far to sensible to compete and watched from a safe distance!
Thurs 8 Feb
I went with a few others from the bus to Whakarewarewa, a geothermal Maori village that is open to the public. A guide showed us around - we saw the thermal pools (used to bathe and to cook, not the same one!), a hangi (traditional way of cooking underground), the Pohutu and Prince of Wales geysers (huge spurts of steam shooting into the air) and had a general walk around the village (which is still inhabited by Maori families). We then went to a cultural show where some of the villagers sang and danced for us, swung their poi (pom pom) and performed the traditional haka. They also got us up singing and dancing which was good fun. After that we got to try some corn on the cob, sausage and steamed pudding, all cooked using the geothermal properties in the area either in the boiling water pools or in the hangi. After that DC collected us and we went to some mud pools - just lots of mud bubbling away! Ed went to a different geothermal area to see more geysers and mud pools.
We all got back on the bus and then set off to Taupo - we had a quick stop on the way at Huka Falls. They are only 11 metres high but enough water flows through them to fill an Olympic size swimming pool every three seconds. We dropped some of the group off to go skydiving (very tempting to do it again but saving our money for other things), had a BBQ at the hostel and finished the day off with a few beers.
Fri 9 Feb
Today was our first real day of tramping (walking/hiking) in New Zealand as we walked the Tongariro Crossing. It is said that it is the best one day trek in New Zealand and one of the top ten day treks in the world so we couldn't say no really. Ed set off super early with one other person in the group as they had decided to go the whole hog and walk to the summit of Mount Ngauruhoe (2287m) which you may know as Mount Doon if you saw Lord of the Rings. I was quite content with the Crossing itself (1886m) which was 17km and an estimated 7-9 hour walk (www.tongarirocrossing.org.nz). The Tongariro National Park has World Heritage status and it is easy to see why. The walk was hard work (especially considering our driver DC said the first hour was a killer but in fact we didn't even reach the 'Devil's Staircase' for over an hour) but well worth the effort. The landscape was out of this world taking in the volcano, hot springs, the Red Crater (an old lava flow spreading down to the ground below) and the Emerald Lakes (the colour is caused by minerals leaching from the rock). Even the descent was spectacular although also hard work as it was like trying to walk down loose slate, but it did then turn into boardwalk areas and rainforest. Of course the views were also amazing and even the rain that set in in the afternoon couldn't spoil it. Unfortunately we had some very slow people in the group (& I wasn't one of them - yippee!) so we had a two hour wait at the bottom. We eventually got to our hostel at about 7.30pm for a well earned shower then we went to the pub for steak and chips.
Sat 10 Feb
Most of the day was spent on the bus :-( We stopped off at a place called Bulls where the locals have really taken this to heart and we saw shops called Collecta-bulls, Computa-bulls, etc. which was quite funny. It is also famous for it's gum boot throwing competition - we saw the arena but didn't have time to have a go so had to make do with a photo in front of a giant gum boot! We eventually arrived in Wellington at about 4pm where we had exciting things like showering, clothes washing and internet to attend to. We were warned that Wellington was a big 'Stray' night out and ended up in Boogie Wonderland (wearing our hiking shoes!). It got so late that a girl called Paula & I decided it wasn't worth going to bed so we stayed up all night and I made it back to the hostel just in time to pack my bag and jump on the bus to the ferry terminal - rock n roll eh!?!?! (or am I nearing a midlife crisis?!).
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