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Ron's Adventures
Hi Everybody or Kia Ora as the locals say...
I arrived in NZ on 5th June to be greeted with wet and windy weather, a newspaper headline that said 'A World without Gays' and prison-like bed in a dorm full of young backpackers (oh well, some compensation then!).
I'm not keen on Auckland, a city full of wierd people as far as I can tell including a guy in full leather playing the electric guitar on the street on Saturday night for no apparent reason. I was keen to start my bus tour - 'Kiwi Experience' on Monday morning so I'll move on to that.
There were about 40 people on the bus and my heart sank as I seemed to be the oldest. Lots of 'awesome man' surfer dude types who mainly wanted to know 'Was I going to do a bungy jump?' (Ans - No) and 'Was I going to do a skydive?' (Ans - NO!).
New Zealand is a bit of an adventure playground so if you aren't doing something EXTREME you are considered slightly odd. I resisted peer pressure until day 2 when as you will see from the amusing photographs I had a really good time at 'The Agrodome' in Rotorua.
I did 3 activities that day (fondly called 'The Triple Bypass'). First there was Zorbing - a dream come true for me. It involves rolling down a hill encased in a huge plastic ball with water inside. It was great fun and very silly. It is also something I dreamt about years ago before I knew such an activity existed...
After being thrown around like a drunk hamster, we went on the Jetboat. This I enjoyed though my hat in the pic looks like I'm just out of Dad's Army. Why oh why didn't I put my shades on like the very cool driver? We were whizzed around an assault course in a very fast jet boat. The girl in the picture is from the bus as well.
Next it was the final terror of the day - 'The Swoop'. This involved being strapped into a sort of glorified sleeping bag, suspended between two support struts by cables and hoisted back and up until you are 40m (approx 120 ft) off the ground and then...well then you swoop towards the ground at 130km per hour. I don't like heights at the best of times and this has to count as one of the scariest activities I've done so far. As you can see from the pictures I REALLY enjoyed. Actually, it wasn't too bad...
Other than silly activities I've also been to a place called 'Hell's Gate' which has bubbling geothermal pools. The place (in fact the whole town of Rotorua) smells of Sulphur. We were welcomed by a Mauri warrior who did a little dance with a spear to inimidate us and we had to accept his gift to show we came to their land in peace. It was very surrreal (and for show for the tourists of course, but they do regard these protocols as important.)
We were taken to some geothermal spa pools that we could bathe in. They were about 40 degrees celsius and really nice. The sulphur fumes went to my head though as I'm sure I felt stoned afterwards.
We were also treated to traditional Mauri dancing and singing, plus a demonstration of the Haka. It's meant to intimidate opponents in battle but I think my version would probably make them laugh.
Then we were given traditionally cooked food, known as Hangi, which is cooked underground with heated rocks (takes about 5 hours to do that - no such thing as fast food in those days).
I'm staying in a sort of hippy hostel at the moment called 'The Funky Green Voyager'. It's really cool and friendly. You take your shoes off before you go in and it's all compost recycling and the like.
Small World Story: I met a couple from Belfast who live next door to my old PE teacher!
Off to Waitomo tomorrow where we will be exploring some caves, complete with Glow Worms - can't wait!
Love to everyone and take care!
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