Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I was thinking of doing just one blog for the whole of the North Island of New Zealand but it would probably be mahusive so I'll just start from the beginning and see how far I get before it gets too long. So we flew into Auckland on a cool afternoon which we wholeheartedly welcomed having spent the last week roasting in Fiji. Our hostel was absolutely huge and reminded me of being back in halls at uni with all the filthy cheapskates moping about and partying. But most of the hostels in the main places in New Zealand are like that, I just wasn't use to it having stayed in guest-houses/shacks in South East Asia. So ye I was expecting the next month to lean more towards a piss up rather than culture, especially seeing as in general the people on the Kiwi Experience bus were pretty young. Thank god I'm not any older because my tolerance of young people getting messy decreases by the day these days. Who am I kidding anyway no doubt we were going to be just as bad. Anyway shut-up Tazly. So we spent just one full day in Auckland doing our usual blitz a city in a day walking everywhere of interest. It's a pretty lively modern city with big fancy buildings and all the usual chains littered all over the place. And with the main road leading out onto the harbor (packed with loads of cool expensive boats) it's kind of like a mini Sydney. We also spent hours cruising over to Mount Eden just out of town to get a good view of the city and the sky tower and see the big volcanic crater up there which was pretty cool. But then the next day the Kiwi-Ex bus drove everyone up there anyway!! Idiots. But that's one thing we weren't expecting, the bus tour to be so organised. We thought it would literally be jump on the bus going to the location you want and that's it. But the driver actually sorts out all your accommodation for you and your activities and takes you to all these random little points of interest in between the main stops that otherwise you'd never know about which is a bonus. So all of a sudden because we didn't have to spend time organising everything we found ourselves getting through the North Island way faster than we were expecting. So the first place we went after Auckland was the Bay of Islands up North so that Ben could do some world famous scuba-dive in the Port of Knights. He had to stay somewhere else to do it so me and Rich just spent the afternoon cruising around the town up there which was fairly minute. We did a small forest trek up to the viewpoint (standard backpacker mooching activity), which had some decent views of the bay, and then cruised up along the beach. It was just a quiet little seaside town with lots of seagulls and fish and chips shops. The main thing to do there is go swimming with dolphins but the trip was unbelievably expensive for what it was and you're not even guaranteed going in the water so we didn't bother. In the morning the following day we just did some kayaking around the small islands off the beach, a fairly gentle activity to get us warmed up for the big ones to come, and then cruised back on the bus to Auckland in the afternoon to meet Ben. New Zealand has absolutely tons of small places like that that you basically get into, spend half a day there and you've 'done' it, and leave the next day. So like I said we were cruising around fairly rapidly, but honestly you don't need any longer in these places, unless you're one of those hippie travelers that can just hang, which I'm not. So next was Mercury Bay which is East of Auckland on the left of the Bay of Plenty famous for its sandy beaches. On the way we stopped off at a place called Cathedral Cove which is a fairly cool white sandy beach characterised by it's odd rock formations scattered all over the place as well as limestone arches and caves with blowholes (when the tide is right). The placed looked like a failed geometry experiment which made for some good photos. We decided to swim out to one of the random blocks of rock in the sea to jump off it, but what a poor decision that turned out to be because the water was like sub-zero and we froze our b******s off! But any pneumonia and unwanted shrinkage was soon to be rectified with the next little stop at Hot Water Beach. It's basically a beach where thermal water brews just below the sand so you dig yourself your own little spa and roast. I couldn't sit I mean this water was f***ing boiling! You scrape a little hole with your big toe and bloody lava hot water streams out, it's pretty weird. So after cooking our feet for half an hour we got back on the bus and finally reached Mercury Bay, which is another tiny little town with absolutely f*** all in, the highlight being the bolognese the guys at the hostel cooked up for us that we managed to sneak thirds of! f***ing tight-ass backpackers ay I hate them. Okay that would probably be a good time to stop. So the next blog will cover the rest of the North Island, starting with Roturoa, where the real activities all kicked off!
- comments