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We arrived in New Zealand on the 14th October and booked ourselves onto the Kiwi Wxperience to leave on the 16th. Whilst in Auckland we visited the Auckland Museum and looked around the city.
16th October
Up at 5:30am today so that we could get to the Kiwi Experience office to meet our bus for 7am and begin our journey around NZ. The trip up to the Bay of Islands was fun and we were able to meet other travellers from England - after spending weeks in a van this made a nice change. Once we arrived at Paihia we booked a skydive for the next morning. That afternoon we went for a walk and saw some good scenery, something NZ is full of.
17th October
Up early again after surprisingly actually sleeping before our skydive. However, when the man came over to our hostel he said that the weather wasn't good enough and that we couldn't jump. Later on though the clouds cleared and at around 11am he called to say it would be worth us going to the jump site to see what it was like there. Once there the plane was tiny and we found out we would have to go up singly, with just the pilot and the camera man with us. Danny was the first to go up, and he was terrified (as the DVD will show you). He had to dive through a rain cloud on the way down and the water really stung when he hit it at 120mph. Michelle went up second and was really calm, she wasn't fazed by it at all and 2when she got down simply said, 'that was pretty good.' One bad part of the day was that, after Michelle's jump, it clouded over and the people we were with couldn't jump, which was a shame as it was them who encouraged us to do it in the first place. That afternoon we headed back to Auckland and went on a night out with 4 of the people we had met on our coach.
18th October
Today we started our journey south, heading first toward Mercury Bay. On the way we stopped at Cathedral Cove for another scenic walk while some of the rest of our group went kayaking. After this we went to a hot water beach and warmed ouor feet up in a pool of boiling hot water. It was really strange because it was quite a cold day but people were lying in the hot water in swimming shorts and bikinis.
19th October
Today we travelled to Rotarua where our hostel had a hot water swimming pool, which we all got into. The rooms werent very nice though and we were sharing with 10 people and we had only one toilet. In the evening we went to a Maori village and saw the Haka. This was impressive and the Maori were initimidating when they are only a couple of feet away and are screaming in your face.
20th October
We headed toward Waitomo today and stopped at a Maori park on the way and saw some geysers and hot rocks. We then got a free BBQ from our driver which was pretty tasty. In Waitomo we stayed at a nice hostel where the dorms were all 4 shares. We went out to a bar last night but lost a boat race against another tour bus :(
21st October
In the morniong we went for a walk with some of our friends from Kiwi Experience before leaving Waitomo for Taupo. On the way we went to an Angora rabbit farm and saw the rabbits being sheared and saw the small town where Martin Johnson grew up and learnt how to play rugby. In the evening we went for a pub quiz and our driver got quite drunk and told us an embarrassing story about his holiday in Bali.
22nd October
Today we had a lie in as we were actually staying in the same place for another night. While most of our group did skydives we took the chance to buy some warm clothes as we were getting sick of being freezing all the time and having to wear the same jumper had after day. In the evening we all cooked a chilli together and then went for ice cream before an early night.
23rd October
We went to River Valley today and stayed in a little hostel in the middle of no where. We played card games and just relaxed in the hostel. We stayed in a dorm that had 32 beds (4 beds in a row). It was like being on a school trip everyone staying in the same room.
24th October
We got up early today to go horse trekking. This was scarrier than sky diving as the horses kept going near the edges of the steep hill and I was worried that we might fall off. We got a chance to go trotting through the paddake which was fun. When we got back we went on a small pulley that allowed two people at a time to cross the river - Danny went first on his own so he could look brave. That afternoon we got back on the bus to head towards Wellington. When we got to Wellington we went out for Tims fake birthday and we had to say good bye to alot of people from the bus as we were staying in Wellington 3 nights. Out of a group of eleven there are now only four of us left from the original bus.
25th October
This morning we got a taxi to Gerald and Natalias (dannys mums uncle) and they took us in the car around Wellington to see the sights. It was freezing cold and windy so we were glad we had the car to keep getting back into. That evening natalia cooked a meal for us which was nice.
26th October
Today we just went shopping and to the museum nothing special. That eve we went out for a curry and got an early night ready for our 6am start.
.....South Island will be on its way very soon - we keep forgetting to write the blog :(
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