New Zealand!

Day 45- 19/09/09
IN THE AIR

Beautiful Flight, slept for most of the journey!

The Silver Fern!! We've made it to New Zealand!!!

Day 46-20/09/09
AUCKLAND – NEW ZEALAND

Country number 6!! We landed in Auckland Airport at 4am, local time. Too early to pick up our Escape Van and too early to wander around the city! So we took full advantage of the airport facilities and had our last shower for the next few days! We tucked into an early breakie, my first Egg Mc Muffin!! (Don’t worry Mom we’re not always eating Mc D’s, it was a once off, nothing was open at that hour!!)
By 9am we made our way to the city, everyone is so friendly and the place is so clean and fresh, so our day was already looking good! Unfortunately it’s a Sunday and most things are shut, but we didn’t mind waiting for our van, sitting in the sun down by the docks. Finally we were introduced to our home for the next 3 weeks!! Gollum - Our van! We got a Lord of the Rings Van!! Gollum on one side- ‘My Precious’- and Gandalf on the other! So Cool!
We had a quick walk around the city, checking out Albert Park, the Art Gallery and Sky Village. This has the highest building in Auckland and people can bungee off it. This gave me a taste for what we’ll be doing in Macau!! Ahh! We also popped into the National Museum to get an introduction to the Maori Culture and the history on New Zealand. Then we hit the road in Gollum! Stopping off to stock up on food then we went straight to Rotorua – New Zealand’s famous tourist destination. Rotorua is full of steaming hot springs, mud baths bubbling away and loads of hot geysers! Our first stop was Kuirau Park. It’s like any local park, like Bushy Park, but its got about one hundred steaming puddles of mud and hot springs dotted about. And the central lake is so hot, that it just looks like a cloud of hot air until the wind blows and the water is revealed! Check out the ponytail!!We ended up sleeping here that night as it was so nice, well apart from the sulphurous gas that gives off an eggy smell but you can’t get away from that in Rotorua!!


Day 47-21/09/09
ROTORUA This is Gollum!
Nutella for breakie!!

Travelled 3 hours in Gollum to get to Rotorua, the Maori capital of New Zealand. Still jet lagged, we woke up at 6am. Our first night in Gollum was comfortable but we were on a slope so we both ended up on one side of Gollum in the morning!! Quick breakie and we were off to Hells Gate Mud Baths. When arriving to Hells Gate, right beside it was a White Water Rafting company. We found a deal that if you went to Hells Gate and the White Water Rafting, you got a discount, so poor Danielle thought she was going to have a nice romantic morning in the mud baths but she was really going down Kaituna River, down the highest commercial waterfall drop at 7meters in a raft!!!! When arriving to the river, they went through all the safety drills with us. Then it was time, boys up the front acting as the engine and the girls at the back looking at the scenery!!! Our guide (Chonk) was leading us from the back, so on his call “FRONT PADDLE” we all paddled like made to get through the rapids. Down the first waterfall (3m) under half of the big one and it looked ridiculously big!!! “FRONT PADDLE” we all paddled like mad, and to get through the waterfall, we had to keep paddling after the drop to get through the rapids. Waterfall 1 complete but that was the easy one!! Travelling down the rapids it was time for the biggy!!! 7 meters Tutea falls; this would be the height of most houses. Teasing us, he stopped 10 meters from the drop and said this is your last chance to get out!! Obviously no one got out, so he said a little prayer and we made a load of noise and off we went!!!! “FRONT PADDLE, FRONT PADDLE” 5…4…3…2…1… HOLY SHIT!!!!! We were air born for a few seconds until we hit the water, the front of the boat hit the water so hard ¾ of the boat went under, but we made it without turning over!! Loud cheers, paddles in the air!!! We were nearly at the end of the river but not for Danielle, as the guide told Danielle to go up the top of the raft and hold on, we rafted over to fast rapid and Danielle got submerged in water, soaked from head to toe!!! (Picture says it all)!!!

After 3 hours in cold water it was time for Danielle’s romantic day out in the geothermal park!!! This was a natural park where we had a 20mintues dip in a natural mud bath! Mud is fun!!

Even I thought this was very relaxing, even though I liked playing with the mud! We had our own private bath full of mud, by the end of the 20min the mud was all over our face!! The funny bit was that to get the mud off we had to have a cold shower, and we all know that Danielle hates cold showers or anything that has the word cold in it! The screams coming from her was like something out of a horror movie!! The torture over, it was time for the sulphur bath, hot springs. Mmmm...so warm!!

First bath was 38degrees, which was pretty hot but Danielle was still shivering beside me, so she jumped into the 42degree bath!! This was like jumping into a cup of tea!! Great way to finish a water rafting trip. The day wasn’t over yet. That evening we went to a Maori village called Te Puia with natural Geysers on site. We were greeted with a Hangi concert, consisting of the famous rugby Haka and other famous cultural dances. We also got to see our first Kiwi bird, she had very Big Feathers!!!!! We also got to see the highest geysers in New Zealand called Pohutu, means big splash in Maori which reached a height of 30 meters. After the show and guided walk we slept beside the Rotorua Lake in Gollum!!!!
Dinner by the lake!!

Day 48-22/09/09
ROTORUA-WAITOMO CAVES

We woke up early this morning ready for another day of action. Starting the day off with a bit of a tumble down a hill – yes ZORBING!!

We climbed into the 11ft inflatable plastic ball, got strapped in and off we rolled!! Ha ha ha!! I laughed the whole way down, it was so fun! But over so fast! Check out the videos!
Then we left Rotorua and headed for Waitomo Caves. Danielle playing in the field!Danielle stuck in a cave!

This place is a must if you are in North Island! Black Water Rafting, where we spent 3 hours floating in a tube through the limestone Ruakuri Cave. That's us to the far left! For most of it we wadded through the Freezing water kitted out in all our gear, wet suit jacket, booties and big wellies! That didn’t prevent me from freezing, my hands and feet were totally numb. Every time I reached out to hold on to a rock my hand felt like it was getting a funny bone shock, but I couldn’t really feel it!! But for once this didn’t matter, cuz it was so much fun in the caves! We got to jump backwards off a waterfall onto our tubes in the pitch black of the caves! And then we turned off our head lights and floated down stream looking up at the ‘stars’…. no - at the glow bugs! Actually it’s the glow bugs larvae that glows but it looked like thousands and thousands of stars! I really enjoyed this trip, and it was made even better by the hot showers at the end and free bagels and soup… which we used as our dinner!!


Day 49-23/09/09
WAITOMO CAVES-WELLINGTON

This was a driving day for Rob, from Waitomo Caves all the way down south to Wellington the Capital of New Zealand, where we will get a boat to the South Island. It took 8 hours to drive more or less the half the length of the North Island. Just 3 hours outside Wellington we stopped to have lunch in a ski resort called ‘Rangataua’, in the Tongariro National Park. We are hoping to hit the slopes in Queenstown later on in our tri

Gollum in the snow!

When arriving in Wellington we drove through the city to get a taste of the place. We came across numerous Irish bars on Courtney Place. We have seen one in every country so far!!! When parking up, right in the centre we get the odd person laughing or pointing at our van (Gollum) lets just say it stood out!!

These have seen a lot!!

We fell in love with Wellington very clean and not too big for a capital. We’ve been dieing to go to the cinema since South America, so we got super size popcorn and went to see “District 9” great movie, check it out. Finding a place to stay in a city is difficult especially when you’re in a Lord of the Rings camper van!! So the Lonely Planet came in handy. We headed to Mount Victoria lookout point. This was a huge find!!! Where you could look out at Wellington at night and even have the best view from your bed!!

Mount Victoria viewing point (Wellington)

Day 50-24/09/09
WELLINGTON to SOUTH ISLAND

It was so nice waking up this morning and looking over Wellington, especially after the stormy night that we had. I thought our van was going to be knocked over it was so windy, and my mind was playing games and thought it was an alien from the movie last night!!Ha Ha!! Wellington, spotty house!!

It took 3 and a half hours to get across to the south island and the swells were big so Ken, you would have been very sick!!! We decided to drive as far north as we could so we could, to see the beautiful beaches of Abel Tasman. The weather at this point was awful but it did remind me of Ireland a little bit!!! Not that I’m miss it or anything!!!! There was only one road to get to the farewell spit and it was 4 hours there and back, so it better be good!!!! Farewell spit is basically a bit of land shaped by the current of the Tasman Sea, shaped like a hook. The pictures looked amazing, but I think we are going to find out better when we get there!! Getting there wasn’t easy, travelling over mountains with winding roads and lots of snow at the top of them. After 4 hours of driving we decided to stop in our usual stopover, a car park!!!!! Ready for the amazing views and lovely blue skies of the farewell spit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah right!!

Day 51-25/09/09
FAREWELL SPIT to WEST COAST

It's Raining!!

We woke up in the car park nice and early to get a full day of the beautiful Abel Tasman National Park and Farewell Spit. But of course it was totally overcast and raining, we still drove to the spit to say we were there, but once out of the van we got soaked and the wind nearly blew us away! So instead of stopping off in the National Park to check out the beautiful beaches, we drove back through the snowy mountains (which I was awake for this time!) and down towards the west coast. We drove down along the coast until we came to Bruce Bay, a really cute little Bay that was totally deserted (apart from the hippy couple playing the bongos!) It was great arriving early as we got to chill out on the beach and cook out dinner out in the open!

Day 52-26/09/09
WEST COAST & FOX GLACIER

Waking up in the most scenic place yet, Bruce bay!! The drive down the west coast was very impressive, coming across spectacular beaches and bays, stopping at viewing points along the coast. We stopped off at Punakaiki, this was a geography teacher’s heaven, showing blow holes, spits, caves and many other things I can’t remember!!!! Onwards to Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier is obviously a glacier, 217 km long and melting 7mm a day! HELLO GLOBAL WARMING!!! When arriving, getting the odd laugh at our van Gollum, it was a short walk to the Glacier but on the way there were small blue lakes formed by the melting glacier, amazing site. When arriving at the glacier, what can I say?? It was a big lump of ice but a pretty one, and a high one at that!! Stupid tourists climb over the barrier and stand under the ice. It clasped on 6 unlucky tourists only a few months ago. So when we climbed over the barrier………. To get a closer look, don’t worry Gabrielle we were still 50 yards away! Spectacular views. After Fox Glacier we found an amazing lake to spend the night but we couldn’t open the doors because there were flies everywhere that bit the arse off ya!!

Day 53-27/09/09
WANAKA

We got to Wanaka today, a small town north of Queenstown. We popped into Puzzle World! The place was filled with optical illusions and games; there was also a huge maze but we decided to just try the illusion rooms!! Check out the photos…we literally couldn’t walk in here, the room was playing games with our vision!!! Ha ha!! We’re going skiing tomorrow, so we got all our gear today, pretty good gear too. I got a really cool looking jacket… I think someone’s jealous!! Then we wandered around this Uber Cool town! Everyone is so cool here, they all wear their ski gear around town and it’s obviously the latest ski gear!! That evening we decide to stop off in a camp site, to freshen up and use their internet! This was a 5 star camp site, it had a jacuzzi and a sauna, which we totally enjoyed, (who said camping isn’t relaxing!!) and the floor in the toilets were heated too!! Luxury! So we plugged in and charged up everything, including a plug in heater… Mmmm, Nice cosy sleep!!