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WARNING: THIS IS THE WHOLE OF NZ, SO IS RATHER LONG! SORRRRY!
Landing in Auckland was a very exciting time for us, new country so a new adventure. But before we could really get stuck in on the adventure we had to go and buy some normal looking clothes. Rocking up in our happy pants from Bolivia and Peru and Alapaca, well everyone was looking at us very strangely. SO after some much appreciated showers we went straight across the road from our but huuuge hostel (which was based on the main road in Auckland, Queen Street, much like Oxford street of London) and hit up some shops in an attempt to make ourselves look human again. Thank god for Glassons, Supre and Cotton-on, they literally put a huge smile on my face, jeans, jumpers, boots and nice clean clothes! Was a day to remember!
That evening we met our friend Chris who we had spent a lot of time with during Carnival in Rio. He was at the end of his stay in New Zealand but had extended his stay for a few days just to see us, was very nice to see him :) The hostel has a bar right next to the hostel where we spent the evening playing pool but then the jetlag kicked in for me and i had to pass out in bed, i could of slept for a wk but instead we got up early the next day and took a walk down to the harbour and had a nice civilised lunch (the waitress understood my order and everything, was such a strange time for us) The jet lag hit me quite hard, we literally lost a day of our lives so the majority of the time we had Chris with us I was shattered and totally out of it which was such a shame. We did take a short boat trip across the lake to a little island called Devonport on the sunday afternoon. The boat was only 15 minutes, but it was so pretty looking back on Auckland city from a distance. We found a cute little cafe where we got in some coffees and hot chocolates and spent the afternoon reading magazines whilst Chris (always the Grandpa) reading the sunday paper.
Chris left us on the Monday morning, just before we met Alex who we are to spend the next month with in a van! Most people advised us to not spend too long in Auckland but in our unorganised fashion, by the time we organised the van and could actualy drive it away we had spent one week in Auckland. I was getting a little restless so one day we took a 45 min boat ride to Waheike Island which was but stunning. Cute little beaches on all corners and beautiful views of the lake. We hopped on and off the bus that just went round the island in a circle and managed to see quite a lot of the island, despite the freezing weather.
On our last day in Auckland, just after we had all stayed up all night to watch the stupid Chelsea match, and not been to sleep but rather have a big fat breakfast and stay awake for like 30 something hrs, we bumped into two Irish guys we spent a few days with in Brazil so on our last night we all went out and had a right giggle. We ended up at some random toga party but being the only people in normal clothes so we looked like right idiots. Once everyone decided to go home, three of the boys dragged me out to another club where they bought me a shot each, ughhh!!
We finally picked up our van which sleeps 3. We had requested a van with flowers on it, but we ended up with what the company call 'Surfing Sausages' as it had green waves on one side and sausages surfing green waves on the other. I can't say it was my to liking but hey, it was our new home so we love it!! Kosh the Surfing Sausage is our name for him!
We left Auckland and drove south east to a place called Taurange where Alex has an Aunt. It was such a beautiful area, right on the coast. During the day we spent their we climbed a little mountain (although compared to Inca it was more like a hill) and at the top all you could see was the sea for miles, and beatiful rocks with the waves crashing into them.
I have never seen so much beauty as i have done in New Zealand, it's unbelievable, I can totally see why so many people chose to move here!!
We stayed two nights with Alex's aunt before heading to ROTORUA which is also known as the end of the earth as it is such an active area in terms of volcanoes and hot springs etc... We hit up some free hot springs on our first afternoon, the water was boiling! Even when it started raining there was still steam coming off the water, craziness.
There are so many activities to do in New Zealand, so we had to get involved. We went luging, which is much like go karting but the vehicle doesnt have any engine, you are so close to the ground, and you can go pretty fast, espcially round the corners of the track. We all loved it, was lots of fun! After our spectacular attempts at luging we went on the skyswing, which is much like a bunjy but you are in a cage which can hold up to 3 people. You are raised up to a 90 degree angle, like 100 metres above the ground and then the person in the middle (in our case, Kate) has to pull and chord and then the pod is released swinging you forward at an insane speed! was fun! Kate and Alex were literally nearly wetting themselves with fear which i found highly amusing as i was so calm, but we all enjoyed it. Watching the video back was hilarious! The pod swings out over the mountains so we had an incredible view, but it did look like we were about to be dropped into the hills to roll down to the caravan park at the bottom of the hill ha!
As many of you probably know New Zealand's traditional people are Maori, known for being amazing at rugby! The maori men are hench and they all have tribal tattoos which look incredible. We had the chance to visit a living and working Maori Village, i couldn't even tell you the name as it was 39 characters long but it was such an interesting experience. The tour guide was so lovely, referring to us as family all the time. Family is a huge part of Maori culture, the village as a whole are all apart of one big family. The village had lots of hot springs, bubbling and steaming hot i tell you. We learnt all about traditional Maori food which is cooked on the Hangi and lots about Maori culture in general.
After Rotorua we drove a few hours south west to Lake Taupo where we managed to get ourselves on a rapid jet boat within 10 minutes of being there. The boat went ridiculously fast and as there was only 5 of us in the boat, when we went over the rapids the boat literally went vertically up, nearly flipping back at one point. The driver was doing crazy 180 degree spins and everything, was fun and the river was so pretty.
Taupo is not only the largest lake in New Zealand, but it is skydiving central and as i have wanted to do a skydiver since well, forever i booked myself on a plane for the next morning! It was so annoying, my dive got reschedueled 3 times in one, so much so that I had to wait until the next day. In that time i managed to persuade Kate and Alex to get involved with a bit if skydiving too so we all went the next day...when thank god the weather was better! :)
We booked our dive with Skydive Taupo who's plane is PINK...yes, we jumped out of a pink plane! only me and kate would find a pink plane to jump out of! We all booked in to do the 15,000ft jump with the dvd and photo package to go with it! You do the dive tandem, so my instructor was of course Irish (I honestly don't think there is anyone left in Ireland, i'm telling you they are all travelling) and his name was Ronan! He could tell i wasn't nervous but ridiculously excited so in his attempt to syc me out he thought it would be funny to tell me he was feeling suicidal and was going to jump out a plane and not open the parachute! My response was he can do whatever he wants, but when he's attached to me he WILL open that parachute! ha!
It was the most intense thing i have ever done! I LOVED IT SO MUCH! I was the first out the plane, you just swing your feet out the plane and then booom, Ronan jumped and we were gone! Freefalling 10,000ft for over 60 seconds. You just fall and all you can see is the earth approaching at speeds reaching 200kph! I cannot put into words how much i loved it, i actually want to become a professional skydiver...need to do me another skydive and soon. I was on such a high i can't even begin to describe it in words! :)
That night we had a little celebration in the bar connected to the hostel where we were taking advantage of the facilities! All the way through New Zealand we have been sleeping in the van but following the Kiwi Experience bus and crashing the hostel using their kitchens, showers, toilets etc...and then we sleep in their car parks! It's shocking how know one notices that we're doing it, they assume we're staying there! ooops!
Feeling a little worse for wear the next day, we drove down to Wellington, the capital city! Thankfully it wasn't my driving day, was a tad too hungover (ooops again). It was a long drive down, and as we approached Wellington we noticed some crazy wind! We didn't find out until after we arrived there that it is also known as 'Windy Welly', it was insane! I really thought we were going to be blown away at one point. As it's the capital city there wasn't anywhere we could park up for the night so we had to stay in a caravan park a bus ride away, Lower Hutt!! We drove into the city everyday though. We found the most incredible museum in Wellington, Te Papa. We hadn't been to any museums through-out our trip (not museum people before anyone sighs ha) but this one was an exception. It's an interactive museum that kept us entertained for hours. Seriously. We found a room with tons of huge interactive TV where you could take photos of yourself on the computer and they would then appear on the TV's. As you can imagine Kate and myself were in our element! We had some amazing designs going on. Alex actually got bored and left us in the room, we must of been there at least 2 hours.
After a fun filed afternoon, we bumped into two guys that we had actually met in La Paz and all decided to go out that evening! Pre-drinks in their room, with some rank alcohol and a few giggle later we found ourselves on the main street where there were hundreds of clubs and bars. It was a fun night, but wasn't fun was getting the night bus back to Lower Hutt at 3am in the morning and in the freezing cold.
SO, that was the end of the north island. The next day after myself and Kate had a mooch around the city leaving Alex to eat pizza (he didn't want to come shopping with us for some reason) we got the late night ferry across to Picton, the South Island. The journey was not fun. Firstly it was delayed by like an hr and a half due to the wind, and then the wind meant that when we did eventually start the 3 hr crossing, the swell was high! Basically, i got sea sick! Turned green and was throwing up for about an hr, nice I know!
When we finally arrived (i couldn't of been happier) we decided not to stay in Picton and drive a few more hours south to Nelson. The drive took longer than planned, I was not expecting the roads to be as windy as they were, so we didn't arrive until close to 4am! Of course it was my driving day! grr! Anyway...i soon parked up in some random road and near enough passed out from exhaustion (not before having to pee on the side of the road as we didn't have any hostel facilities to use). There didn't seem too much happening in Nelson so we decided to move onto our next destination -FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER!
Franz Josef is a beautiful and rather quaint little town with one huge glacier to it's name. Again, we arrived late at night, but this time we managed to sneak into a campsite, but had to leave very early the next morning before anyone noticed. Moving the van at 6.30am wasn't ideal but had to be done! We found a little car park to park up in for a few hrs, but were woken up to loud knocking and shaking of the van. Needless to say we were a little bit freaked out, thought it was the police going to tell us we weren't allowed to camp where we were. It turned out to Jonny and Andy (the two guys we met in La Paz, and are basically doing the same route as us from now on, including fiji for our bdays wooop wooop) who had spotted us and thought they were being funny, hmmmm!
It rains 2 out of 3 days in Franz Josef, and of course it was raining when we were there. The difference in temperature from north to south island was/ is huggge! Bloody freezing down here, i am struggling severly with this coldness...especially when we're sleeping in the van! Due to the rain many of the glacier walks weren't happening, so we all decided to do a free one ourselves. The walk meant we could see the glacier from a distance, but that wasn't enough for me, I didn't want to pay to walk on the glacier after my terrifying ordeal on the volcano in Chile so free walk just looking at the glacier worked for me! The only thing seperating me from the glacier was the river! grrr! But as per usual, there ain't no stopping us so we went through the freezing river. I had a real Moses moment when everyone was contemplating crossing the river...i'd had enough of talking about it so just waddled on through the water! Once everyone saw i was safely on the other side (of the first crossing) they all followed suit!
This glacier was huuuuuge, and stunning to look at once the sun decided to come out and play. We got as close as we possibly could, we stopped at the sign that said extreme danger, but i didn't taKe much convincing to go no further after seeing a whole bunch of the glacier fall down into the river below it. The noise was imense. Andy went right up to it (silly boy lol) but he was determined to get hold of some glacier ice for a photo. By the end of our little adventure, my shoes were soaked, as were my feet and leggings right up to my hips! I was FREEZING. We met a lovely girl called Ami during the walk who we took back to her hostel, which we discovered had some amazing facilities including a hot tub! We were sold, sleeping in their car park it was. Luckily enough Ami and her friend Sofia had two spare beds in their room which they kindly offered to me and kate! I have not been that happy in a while, it was so nice and warm and i mean i had a bed to myself, didn't have to share with two other people for a night! it was aaaamazing i tell you!
Waking up early the next morning was painful but we had a big day ahead of us...our drive to Wannaka and then ARROWTOWN to stay with David and Sharon. I couldn't of been more excited driving into Arrowtown and find Dave and Sharon's house, the prospect of seeing family, being in a house, and sleeping in a bed was too much for my little head.
Our first night with my amazing cousins we were treated to a roast dinner with proper roast potatoes and veg, oh my, I was in heaven! It was the yumiest dinner i've had in a long long time! After some wine, we retired to a BED! Was so so good to finally get a good nights sleep, and be warm in a bed, rather than the back of the van.
Arrowtown is 20k from Queenstown so on our first full day we ventured into town to see what all the hype surrounding Queenstown (QT) was about, and we were not disappointed! Arrowtown and Queenstown are by far my favouratist places in NZ they are just so beyond beautiful, I don't know what i'm going to do when i'm not seeing such beautiful scenary! I've become very accustomed to looking out the window and looking out onto snow capped mountains, and then seeing the stariest skys before i go to sleep!
We formed a little crew whilst in Queenstown so all hit the town a few times whilst we were there, having lots of giggles. We never made it further than world bar which was the 2nd bar of the night...absolute disaster we were! If we weren't stuck at the pool tables in Altitude then we got stuck in World Bar and then most got distracted by FERGBURGER!
Now, for those who don't know, FERGBURGER is the most amazing burger place you will ever go to in your life. Their burgers are quite literally to die for, and i only had the cod one...called the codfather! They are huuuuuge, me and kate split ours and it still filled us up! And the chips, o wow the chips! It brings me near to tears just writing about them, they are scrumptious, best chips i've ever eaten hands down! This place is doing so well for itself, it closes for about 2 hrs of the day, and it has q's outsite it pretty much 22hrs a day, i tell no lie! It's unreal! everyone must eat a ferg in their lifetime!
Seeing as we didn't manage to catch a rugby match in Wellington, Dave told us about a local match that was going on over the weekend! It was really cool to see, and experience the atmosphere of such a local match, was a real community feel to the match! However, it is so cold down here that we had to give in and leave about 10 mins toward the end of the match, only to later find out that we missed the streaker by a matter of seconds. gutted.
Alex did his bunjy jump on the saturday, he said he had to do it then otherwise he would back out. Myself and Kate had it booked for the sunday..and i couldn't of been more excited. We all went out on the Sat night, but i was driver for the night so there was no drinkipoos for me, which meant come 1am i wanted to go home. I wasn't impressed when at 3am Alex and Kate decided they were going to stay in town in some spare beds as they wanted to stay out later. Me being me then overslept the next day, nearly missing my bunjy! ooops! THANK GOD FOR SHARON who woke me up! Thank you sooooo much Sharon! :)
The drive up to the bunjy, kate was severly hungover and i was in a bit of a daze so neither of us really thought about what was about to happen. Even when we got to the bunjy place, looking out into this canyon with the pod levitating above it attached only by a few cables we weren't freaked out! The Nevis is the highest bunjy in NZ, maybe number 5 in the world (not sure though) coming in at 134m. You fall between 7-9 seconds depending on how you dive.
We watched a whole lotta people go before us, as it's according to weight all the guys went first. When it came to my go, I was sat in a chair, that resembled a dentists chair, and you have all the gear attached to you. The straps on your feet feel like weights, but the harness is somehow attached to your foot strap, just incase! lol!
I waddled over to the plank, and the guy (who was lovely) held onto my back and counted down, 3, 2, 1 and off i went! Diving off this plank into nothing, being held by my feet, it's insane when you think about it. I couldn't pull the chord after my 2nd bounce to turn me the right way round so i came back up hanging upside, like a dead chicken. I should of tried to pull the chord but i was quite enjoying hanging about upside down....my video is hilarious! I'm just flopped there. When i got back up I was complimented on how good my dive was, very elegant and dainty it was apparently that made me very happy. It was a really cool experience, but i didn't get a huge adrenalin rush from it, nothing compared to the skydive, but it was fun!
Following our Nevis experience, our next adventure was organised by my fabulous cousin Dave who took the three of us wine tasting for the day and out for lunch. I don't know how much wine we had, all i know is that i was rather drunk by the end of the afternoon. Was such a nice day. Learnt a lot about wines, like Pinos Gris is superb ha! We went to Gibbston Valley for lunch, which is a beautiful, yumi wine and a scrumptious lunch! :) Thanks for a lovely day Dave xxxxx!!
We spent over a wk in Arrowtown/ Queenstown and I can honestly say i didn't want to leave, love it here. Arrowtown is stunning, I've become quite attached the Charlie, the dog Dave and Sharon are dog sitting and really enjoy taking him for walks, especially at night when the sky is so clear you can just see stars upon stars. Never see that at home! I love it here, I will for sure be back here one day to work...make the use of my 1yr working visa in NZ and i would recommend everyone to come visit here!
Off to Christchurch now, check that out! Hopefully i will see Dave and Sharon run their marathon before heading to Fiji. Me and Kate decided that instead of going back to Auckland where we have already spent a wk that we may as well move fiji forward by a couple of days, cannot wait! we go sunday....so we get about 16days of sun, sea and coconuts, plus it's both our bdays whilst we're out there, i literally actually cannot wait!
Sorry this blog entry is so long, i guess it does cover the whole of NZ pretty much, but heeey if you got bored by now, i wouldn't blame you!
David and Sharon -Thank you so so so so much for such an amazing time, and letting us stay with you! You guys are by far the best!!! :) lots of love!
Meryl -just because you want a shout out, love youuu ha!
Ok so, my next one wil be fiji....i look forward to writing it! I am hoping I will be able to stay more on top of my blog from now on, well thats the plan! Fingers crossed it works!
Miss you all, lots of love
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