the rest of the north

hello hello!!

As i have gotten a bit behind on my blog writing i have decided to do one entry for the North Island and one for the South.

So after a few days in Auckland we decided to rent a camper van for a couple of nights and head up to the Bay of Islands, as our 'Magic Bus' doesn't go there.

The camper wasnt actually a camper, more of a people carrier converted into a camper, but it looked pretty damn cool and went pretty damn fast so we didnt really mind!

from Auckland it took us a few hours to get up to the bay of islands, during this drive i decided to become ill, so slept the whole way in the hope of feeling better when i woke up!

We stayed in a town called Paihia, in a little motor park, i was still pretty rough that day so not really sure what we did, maybe see Tims Blog for that!

the next day after a visit to the doctors and some medication, i was back to my normal self and so we decided to take a dolphin watching trip out into the bay.

We got to see a large family of dolphins, i think they like the attention as they were performing for us, they also decided to try to race the boat a few times, and as we were at the front we got pretty close to the action. Unfortunately they had babies with them or we would have been able to go swimming with them.

After the boat trip we did a little more expoloring in the area, found a nice view point and waterfall. the Spaceship had to be back the next day so after a quick break in a town called Kerikeri we headed back to  Auckland.

The next day we bagan our adventure on the Magic Bus! First stop was the Coromandle Peninsula. Turns out we were the only people heading up there so it was just me, tim and the driver.

NOw im not going to go into detail about every stop we made and everything we saw coz i only have 3hrs internet time, so i will go through the highlights, and you can see the pictures for the rest!

Basically the magic bus is a hop on hop off bus tour, they also take you to places on route to the stopovers, for example short walks, waterfalls, beaches and little towns.

Waitamo 15/09/06

this is the home of black water rafting! This small town is built  on top of a huge cave network. So there are lots of tour companies that take you down into the caves. we were feeling adventureous so we decided to get into a wetsuite, grab a rubber ring and head into the caves for a spot of rafting.

Now bare in mind that it is the end of winter in New Zealand so its bloody freezing outside, now head 100ft down into small caves that dont get any daylight and jump into some lovely cold cave water, what fun!!!

Actually despit the cold it was actually good fun, we started off by walking around the caves,  then our guide, who happened to be the biggest man i have ever seen, made us turn off our head lamps and look up, and above us was what looked like thousands of stars, but what was actually thousands of glow worms! it was pretty cool!

As we headed a little further into the caves its was time to board our rubber rings and begin our float along the underwater canals. The whole experience seemed quite peacefull until we came to this waterfall, it was probably only 6metres high, but when you have to turn your back to it, stick a rubber ring round your bum and jump backwards into 2degree water it was a little daunting. We all did it however and got absolutley soaked then continued floating along the canals.

After drying off a bit/warming up a bit we were coming to the end of our little trip, by this time i had boots full of water and was used to the fact that i could no longer feel my feet or hands, i was at the front of the little train of rubbr rings, and started to get concerned when i could hear the sound of fast running water again, do'h!! This time it was a playground slide which they had brought down here but angled it so you were almost going vertical into the water, again i got another drenching!

Just after that we disembarked our rings and bnegan our accent back to civilization, 200 steps up to ground level isnt much fun when you have welly boots full of water and you cannot actually feel your feet, but you know me, im not one to complain about these things!!

Rotorua 15-17/09/06

Welcome to the smelliest town on earth!! As we approached Rotorua we were warned about the smell of sulphur as basically this town is built amoungst hundreds of thermal, sulphuric pools (due to the earths crust being really thin here, the hot gas escapes through the ground). They told us we would get used to the smell, you wont even notice it after a few days!! Bollocks! The place stinks! But it is pretty amazing when you see all this steam rising around the city, and take a closer look and the ground is just bubbleing away!

Despite the stench Rotorua is a popular town and there are quite a lot of activities to do here, we decided on Zorbing! Its basically a big inflatable ball with a hole in the middle which you climb into a roll down a hill! They also put a bit of warm water in there to slop around in so you get to know what its like being in a washing machine! It was good, me and tim went down together, so just getting to see the look of terror on Tims face was worth it! he's such a wimp!It was all over within about 30 seconds, but hey I've been zorbing, not many people can say that!

Lake Taupo 17-20/09/06

Just before we arrived in the town we stopped at this place called Rock n Ropes. it was one of those adventure courses built ontop of big woodden poles. we were only there for half an hour so if we wanted we could do the rope swing. now i put my name down for this before we got there because it sounded fun. When we arrived and i saw that to do the swing you had to climb up a 15 meter telephone pole, stand on top, then jump off holding on to a piece of rope! But being the only girl who had put their name down and not wanting to look like a chicken, i decided to go for it! How brave am i??

Well actually not that brave because after that we went to the skydive place and i decided that i would rather stay on solid ground and watch tim jump out of a plane from 12,000 feet! Enough said about that really!

Actually i am pretty gutted i didnt do it, and so hopefully i will talk amie into doing it when we get to OZ.

The rest of our time in Taupo, we did some waking, shopping, drinking and spent a really lazy day watching DVD's in the living room of the hostel, saw Gladiator for the first time, ace!

Wellington 20-22/09/06

We arrived in Wellington on a rare warm and sunny day, so as soon as we checked in we were advised to get outside as the weather is never this good! So we did just that, after taking in the views from the top of MT Victoria, we headed into the city to get a feel for it. This soon became my favourite place so far, its a great little city with a lot of character and atmosphere.

Whilst in Welly we visited a museum, took a ride in what they called the cable car, but it was more like a finicular (a little tram that goes up the side of a hill) at the top was the botanical gardens, which we walked back down though! i was also introduced to a drink called Jagermister by our German friend, Carston,  yummy!!

From Wellington is where we hoped on the inter islander ferry over to the South Island!