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An interesting fact for you........ did you know New Zealand has more cows than it does sheep? Sure, your told about the fact that there are 10 sheep to every New Zealander, but there are in fact more cows! funny hey. So anyway, i've decided to do this entry a little different to the others.
The others are based around a day to day account of whats going on, which when reading back, i have found to be pretty boring in parts. Dont get me wrong, i have found many an interesting read, but i am i little biased!
My flight from Santiago left on the 10th March, and when i arrived in Auckland, i found it to be the 12th. Because i flew over the date line, then 11th didnt really exist for me, and i accelerated a day instantly. If you think about it, the mischief i could of got upto, and the crimes i could have commited. If the officer came round and said there was an offence commited on the 11th March, i could easily say back to him that i was not around on this date, as this year it wasnt going to exist for me! Anyway, maybe i read into that in a little too much depth, but its still a funny thing.
So yeah, i arrived into Auckland in the wee hours of the morning, 4am to be precise, and when i got through the various security checks, and immagration, i was greeted in the arrivals hall by a rather tired looking sister. You see, she has been travelling around Aus and a bit around NZ by the time i got there, so it made sense for me to go off travelling with her for a while, then to try and find myself a job, to replenish my depleated funds.
She had stayed the night at the airport as the plan was to go straight from the airport to a camper rental company as soon as they opened and then go off. problem was, there werent many of them open at 4am, so we had to wait around in the airport until they did, at about 8ish. After ringing around loads of different companies, we settled for one called Hokianga, which on paper, were far cheaper than the rest, or if they werent, the others didnt have any availability. So at 8am precisely we rang them, and arranged to head down to the office in the centre, sort the dosh out, then head off with out newly aquired home.....for the next two weeks anyway.
So there we were, heading down route 1 in our Toyota Townace camper, which we nicknamed "daisy". I wanted to call it Maurice, but i guess sometimes with sibling relationships, you need to compromise, and daisy was to be it.
We didnt really have any idea where we wanted to go. Nicola had marked out a few things she wanted to do, so thats kind of what we based out first week on. During the time i had spent travelling so far, i had met loads of people who had been, or lived in New Zealand, and pretty much everyone of them had said to me that the south island was far better than the north, and that i should spend most of my time there. So we headed down to the South. As we did, the first place to stop in the north was a place called Waitomo.
Waitomo is famous for its caves, which back in 1937 ish i think were discovered by some lazy explored who wanted to take a shortcut through the caves, and down the river. One was a Kiwi, and the other a brit i think. Anyway, they got stuck in one of the caverns, and thats basically how they were discovered....there you go, a bit of history for you! So anyway, these arent just normal caves, these caves are filled with thousands, if not millions of glow worms. The tour we took was focused on seeing them, but as the tour started, you were taken into various caverns and shown the different shapes etc...all those things you expect to find in a cave really. The whole walking tour took about 40 mins in all, then at the end you were treated to a 5 min "silent" boat ride through pitch black so you could go see the glow worms. Ok so 5 mins doesnt seem like a lot, but for anyone who has been there, the 5 mins you do get are amazing, and well worth the entrance fee. Yeah i would have liked more, but i think i was satisfied with what we got.
So obviously with it only taking 45 mins of the day, we had plenty left to spend around the area before having to drive further south. So we went and visited a big natural bridge made of limestone. Ok, so that may not seem exciting to you, but if im honest, it was pretty impressive, nearly as impressive as its name "Mangapohue".
Thats something that has got me since arriving here, yeah they speak the same language as i do (well most of them anyway), but all of the place names are from the Maori influence, so you have a hard time trying to pronounce some of the places. So that day, we were heading down to a place called Taupo, which funnily enough, is just on the shores of Lake Taupo. It is, so i was told, one of the main places for adventure sports on the north island. another place was also meant to be good (rotorua), but we didnt get chance to visit there. So anyway, Taupo was the place where we were going to spend our second night in Daisy.
From Taupo, the next few days are a bit of a whislte by, as not much happened. Taupo was ok, if you wanted to do the jet boating, bungy, "zorbing", but we wanted to do that stuff on the south island, so we pretty much just passed through. Next on the agenda was a place walled Whakapapa, which is pronounced "faka-pa-pa". This is the place where one of the most famous tramps in New Zealand is, the "crossing". Its basically hyped up to be on of the most scenic and eyesight pleasing walks known to man, so i was extremely excited about doing it. When we were driving there though, i wasnt so convinced by the weather. It pretty much rained the whole time, and when we got there, to the visitors centre, the pretty much laughed at me when i said i wanted to do it the next day. They had a weather forecast prediction, which basically told them, it wasnt safe for anyone to go out on the trail for at least the next 4 days. Problem. I didnt have 4 days to wait around, and Nicola, who didnt wanna do the walk anyway, wasnt going to either, so off we went.
Next place on the journey was a place called Wanganui (see what i mean about the place names). Again, this place wasnt anything to write home about, in fact, it has absolutely nothing of any attraction, so we headed a little further south to a place called Palmerston North, which im afraid to say, again isnt that great, but it does have to worlds biggest land-based wind farm in the southern hemisphere!
Another thing i havent really touched upon since arriving here is the sky. In the day time, as there is no ozone layer, the sun sizzles down onto you, and instead of warming you up, after just a short while gives you a slight stinging sensation. Then at night, because of the same problem, you get this amazing with of thousands, and thousands of stars. The nights are breath takingly beautiful. You cant just see the odd star, which is pretty much all you can see in the English sky, oh no, you can see galaxies, planets, hundreds of consolations, it really is amazing. So at nights i tended to pop out for a little while to go stare up. Its quite mesmorising you know. So anyway, from the awe of the wind station, as big as it was, we had to go get a ferry from the north to the south. This was going to take place from the town, well city of Wellington, and go across the cook straight to a wee village called Picton. The ferry, we were told was going to cost around $120 for the both of us. It in fact actually cost us $280, which in english makes it a round 100, which for a 3 hour trip, i think is pretty expensive, especially for a traveller such as myself. But i guess it was a necessity to get there.
By the time we got there, it was about 11pm, and we still had to drive about and hour and a half to a place called Nelson, but it was ok, as the clocks had gone back that night, so we had an extra hour.
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