Welcome to another addition of 'Where's Sally'?!

Well the moment we arrived in Auckland both of us knew we were going to like it. As the bus slowly made its way down Queen Street it amazed me how much it reminded me of Oxford Street in London! In fact, Auckland (apart from being by a harbour) is like a little London so we felt at home straight away. We arrived on the Friday night and so the first thing we did was look for a bar that was going to be open late enough to show the ever important Man Utd vs Liverpool game (Kav being a fanatical United supporter and me following in Dad and Jamie's footsteps and being a Liverpool fan). It was always going to be dangerous to watch it together and let's just say we won’t be watching another football match together again! We went to a nice bar on the harbour which was full of Saturday night revelers, had a few pints of cider and then finally at 1.30 in the morning the football started. It was a bit of an eye-opener to see what groups of girls look like and get up to at that hour!! But anyway, the football started, Kav started shouting abuse about Liverpool, then they scored and I went home. After 5 minutes I knew I couldn't stay and watch the rest of it with him (childish maybe!). So I went back to our motel and waited up for him - not a good idea as he came storming in at 3am and didn’t speak to me until the next morning - bless!!
On the Sunday we decided to go see Confessions of a Shopoholic. Girls, if you haven't seen it go! It's really quite good and very funny, even Kav was laughing out loud and really enjoyed it. I think the UK is the most expensive place on the planet because going to the cinema, buying drinks or even groceries is just so much cheaper in Oz and NZ compared to at home.
On the Monday we picked up our next car rental (the tiniest thing you've ever seen!) and departed Auckland for a more rural look at the country. We headed up north towards Cape Reinga and although driving distances aren't quite as far as in Oz we didn’t make it one afternoon so we stopped over at a motel on the way.
By Monday 16th we were ready to start driving and hit the road as soon as we picked up our car. We started driving west towards Karekare and its black sand beach. This was the location for Jane Campion's "The Piano" in 1993 and so you would think that it would be extremely touristy, but it wasn't. In fact apart from a few local surfers we had the beach to ourselves.
The sight of black sand on the beach is truly remarkable and it feels so surreal to walk on. It was a bit of a chilly day so we refrained from getting the swimwear out and instead played hide and seek on the beach! We hung around for a bit and stopped at a few lookout points before making our way north towards Cape Reinga.
Cape Reinga is not quite the Northern most point of New Zealand but it is pretty close to being so. The name of the cape comes from the Māori word 'Reinga', meaning the 'Underworld'. Another Māori name is 'Te Rerenga Wairua', meaning the leaping-off place of spirits. Both refer to the Māori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld. There is a multi signpost to cities all over the world telling you how far away you are. Brought quite a tear to my eye to be reminded that I was 12K miles away from home!
The drive was too long to do in one day so we stopped along the way for the night before continuing the next morning. We were almost there when suddenly we came to a flock of sheep on the road and before we knew it we were in amongst them! It was a pretty amazing sight looked like the scene from "Three Men and a Little Lady". We negotiated our way past the sheep and made it to Cape Reinga. The lighthouse on the cliff was beautiful and the views of the cliffs and endless ocean were stunning however we were both a little disappointed as the drive isn't really worth the end product. In fact I think the highlight for both of us was getting caught in the flock of sheep!

After seeing the Cape we headed back down south to the Bay of Islands. This area is famous for being beautiful and apparently it's a must that you go out on the water to see the islands and experience the wonderful towns, but when we got there we were just slightly disappointed. The town we stayed in, Paihia, was gorgeous and had lovely little shops and cafes but there was no wow factor. There are plenty of different water activities to choose from including fishing, day and overnight trips on yachts, speedboat trips etc. We didn't want to spend a whole day out on the water so we opted for the Mack Attack speedboat trip which was awesome fun! It goes up to 100km/hr into the waves and takes you up all around some of the islands and through the famous 'hole in the rock'. We got a little wet but the ride was so much fun and just like being on a water rollercoaster!

We left the same way and drove down to the Coromandel Peninsula. The next morning (Thursday) we drove to the Far North Coromandel which is a National Park and took a very scenic around the park on a coastal road. The drive was probably one of the best I have ever done and besides the endless cliffs and beaches we passed we also drove right to the top and had the most amazing views of the valleys below us. We literally drove until we ran out of road before turning around and heading back.
By the time Friday had come round we had been in New Zealand for a week. We had a fairly busy day planned and it all started at the hot water beach. This is basically an area on the beach where hot water from underground reservoirs comes up to the surface 2 hours either side of low tide. You dig yourself a hole on the beach and voila you have your very own spa. The water can get seriously hot - in fact we both almost burnt our toes when we first got there (I'm not kidding if you dig far enough down the water can get to 64 degrees). It is really weird when the tide comes in because you are standing on sand that is really hot and you have the sea water which is cold! Thankfully we managed to get away without any burns and started driving towards Thames.
Thames was and still is a gold mining town and we decided to do a tour of the mines while we were there. We had a walk around the mines and were shown had the rocks are crushed and gold is eventually found. Our tour guide was a real old timer who obviously worked in mines. This was really interesting and we heard some really great stories. Having wetted our appetite about cold, dark and damp places we headed to the Broken Mountains for a bit of hiking which included some tunnels. The walk wasn't long - around 1 hour and we went through some pretty cold and dark tunnels and before long we were back in the car and heading back towards Whitianga. On the way we stopped and had a quick game of crazy golf - which I won!! Beating a boy at a boy's sport is the best!
Recently we'd had a bit of a shock when we looked at how much money we had left so from then on we decided we can't stay in motels any more because believe it or not they are too expensive so we started looking at backpacker places, and we were actually quite pleasantly surprised. We've stayed in a few now and they've all had amazing facilities and really friendly owners. In fact, I think I've been adopted by Pauline, the owner of Windsor Backpackers in Whakatane (pronounced "f***ataney" much to our surprise and delight!). The moment we checked in we were chatting away because although she sounded 100% Kiwi she was in fact from England. Somehow we got onto the subject of her kids and it turns out her son played Greaseball in Starlight Express in London some 10 years ago. That floored me, she might as well have told me her son was Brad Pitt! Starlight Express is my all time favourite musical so we were chatting away about it for ages. Kav was not only bored out of his mind but desperate for the loo so was giving me the eye to shut up! Later on that night we were sat out in the garden having some wine and playing Ludo (1 won best out of 5 that night!!) and Pauline kept coming over for a chat, showing me pictures of her son in his Starlight costume, showing me pictures of him and his wife, she really was so sweet. Every time we saw each other we'd have a chat and a giggle. We stayed there for 2 nights and I didn’t want to leave on the Monday morning. I felt so at home there and the day before on the Sunday we'd had a really chilled day watching movies and playing pool.
We left Whakatane on Monday and drove to Rotorua and along the way stopped at a place called Te Wairoa and the "Buried Village". Te Wairoa Village, in a valley above Lake Tarawera, was established by a Christian Missionary in 1848. It was abandoned during the land wars of the 1860's, then repopulated a few years later as the staging post to the Pink and White Terraces. This was a huge tourist attraction and people travelled from around the world to see them. However, on June 10 1886, in the early hours of the morning, the volcano over-shadowing the local villages erupted and four hours, rocks, ash and boiling hot mud bombarded the area. The eruption was New Zealand's greatest natural disaster and the explosions were seen and heard as far away as Auckland.
The eruption destroyed the Terraces and buried Te Wairoa and two smaller villages under hot heavy ash and mud before they were excavated in the early 30s. So now you can walk along and get a glimpse of life in the 1800. This doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but some of the stories we were told by our guide were fascinating.
We spent the night in Rotorua before going to Wai-O-Tapu and Geothermal Wonderland on Tuesday. Located close to Rotorua, this is New Zealand's most colourful natural volcanic environment. Our first stop was the Lady Knox Geyser which spouts out water at 10.15am every morning to a length of up to 20 meters - and after that we started our walk around the park.
We spent a couple hours walking around this park which is unbelievable. You are walking amongst active volcanoes and everywhere you look there is either steam coming out of the ground or boiling hot water or colourful lakes. After we got over the awful sulphur smell (like rotten egg) of the area we had a great time wondering around and exploring the park before heading to Taupo.
This morning Kav went off to do a sky-dive over Lake Taupo. I'm really jealous because I would have loved to have done it too but I don’t think my heart of stomach would have lasted long enough to get me to the ground again so I chickened out. I've seen his DVD though and although it looked amazing I'm glad I didn't attempt it!
And now the best news of all, you'll all be delighted to know that I've just spent 3 hours uploading all our photos so far on the trip. Now, I'm warning you there are a lot so you may want to do them in bits. I've hopefully captioned all of them so you know where we were when the photo was taken but if you want more of an explanation then let me know. Or, I'm sure we'll be holding 'photo nights' when we're back home where we'll have drinks and nibbles and photos up on the TV to show so you're more than welcome to those!!
There is a Thailand folder and an Australia folder so far. To view them I have shared my folders on Snapfish for you all, so you will receive an email which you need to link from, enter your name etc and then you can view my 2 albums. Any problems let me know and I'll remedy them if I can!
Lots and lots of love and good health to every single one of you!
Sally xxx
PS - I must admit that most of this blog was actually written by Kav because I've been uploading all the photos for us both. I'll write all of mine next time!!