Last Day in New Zealand - Auckland, New Zealand

Today feeling a little hungover we didn't really do to much even though I was up for taking a trip to Devonport (just a short ferry journey) by the time we sort of woke up and go ready it wasn't really worth going. We also ran into Gemima and made plans to go to the bar later that evening.

We decided that we must do something today so what was easy to do, doesn't cost too much, and involves little walking.......SKYTOWER!!!!

An interesting fact is that the Skytower is the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere and as it was just round the corner from our hostel and gave a decent offer to backpackers we decided that we would do that. It did give pretty decent views of Auckland but the best part about it was watching the people do a “Skyjump” which involves being connected to a bunch of cables and launching yourself off the Skytower to fall about 200 metres to a target at the bottom. It seemed to give a bit more resistance than either of us expected but still seemed like it would be good fun.

When we got back we ran into some more people we knew from the Kiwi bus our room mates from Franz Joseph and sat round talking to them for a while before making the our best curry to date. We then went to the bar and had drinks with some more people from the Kiwi bus Susan and Kerry.

Well that's all folks!!! Well for me and New Zealand for a little while at least. We caught a plane the following day getting to the airport around midday where we would be chilling out in Fiji for a week so Ollie has an easy time of the blog.

I Don't Want You Out Of Eden Forever - Auckland, New Zealand

A walk up to Mount Eden was on the cards today. First of all we made some sandwiches so that we could have a feast whilst on the tallest volcano in Auckland. It was a fair distance from where we were staying and uphill most of the way to reach the “base” of Mount Eden then a short climb up to the summit. Here we celebrated with the lunch we had made earlier and there was much rejoicing. The hill gave us pretty good 360 views of Auckland including Eden park stadium where the Crusaders would be playing the Blues the day that we leave, we were unlucky not to be in a city whilst a rugby match was on. That is match in the Super 14 competition between the South (represented by the Christchurch Crusaders) and North (represented by the Auckland Blues) islands. On our way back we decided we would walk through the park and go to the museum which was free!!!

The museum was pretty large and had a wide range of Maori items as well a small dinosaur exhibition, information about volcanoes and other stuff stuff related with Auckland and New Zealand. The best thing about the museum was a room where you would get a feel for what it was like when the Volcano slight off Auckland erupted.

In the evening we were lured to the bar for free pizza and as it turned out Sam and Nick our room mates in Queenstown were in the same room as us again. The rest of the evening was spent in the bar where we entered a speed pool competition and Nick, Ollie and Myself were knocked out by the same guy, who lost in the final quite comically. Some of us had a bit too much to drink that night and we all didn't get back too early.

The title comes courtesy of Rachael Harlow and Transatlantic who's music always reminds me of good times and home so I must thank you guys for that.

A Hobbits Tale - Auckland, New Zealand

We were finally leaving Rotorua, Yay!!! and taking the Kiwi bus for the last time to complete our journey through New Zealand. We saw a few people from our South Island bus getting off in Rotorua before getting on the same bus through to Auckland, it turned out we would see them later in Auckland before we leave New Zealand.

The bus stopped off in Hobbiton, well Matamata the closest village to the place where the Shire was constructed for The Lord of The Rings films. We got a couple of photos of the sign and Gollum statue in the town and headed to the Subway via the Sushi bar to get some breakfast/lunch. The girl at Subway thought I was from New Zealand, I think it was because I mumbled a little bit but she also commented on how nice it was to serve the people from the bus as we were all so polite, which made me feel quite happy.

Back on the bus it was another couple of hours to Auckland so our driver put the film the Bucket List so we were entertained on our way to Auckland.

Auckland is most definitely the largest of all the cities in New Zealand. After a brief stop at the Kiwi Experience office we were at our hostel on Queen St where we saw a $10 pizza and beer deal that evening in the bar so we decided to do that as we felt lazy.

It Sinks... It Really Stinks - Rotorua, New Zealand

As we were stuck in Rotorua and there wasn't too much to do on the cheap we decided that we would have a lazy start to the day and so didn't get up too early. It was a pretty lame day weather wise but it was more that we had explored Rotorua the other day and didn't really know what to do with ourselves today. We decided that we should have a lazy day and go to watch Star Trek at the cinema as we had heard pretty good things about it. This turned out to be a really good move and we were very impressed and both could have watched the movie again straight away it will be hard in our opinion for anything to top the film this English summer.

I Do Love The Smell of Sulpher in the Morning - Rotorua, New Zealand

The town of Rotorua is pretty much in the middle of the geothermal activity zone, with number of geysers, lots of hot springs and mud pools in a park across the road from our hostel causing the whole town to smell like rotten eggs. In the morning we decided to check that we were booked on the bus to Auckland the following day but when we rang up we found out that there was no bus going to Auckland on the day that we wrote on the booking sheet before going to Waitomo meaning that we had to spend another day in Rotorua, not ideal.

Although the weather looked pretty ominous we decided that we would do a walking tour of the city which started at the Museum, where we both decided that we had seen enough museums for the time being and it also wasn't free. From the museum we doubled back on ourselves heading through Princes Gate, a Maori structure that was moved there a few years back, and heading down towards the lake. We then followed the lake all the way to an old Maori village which had a pretty impressive meeting hall and other Maori carved statues. We then got a little lost and ended up walking through the hospital which we figured out was just across the road from our hostel and as our next stop was to check out the springs which meant we didn't deviate too far from the tour. There were quite a few springs in the park, one of note was actually hidden away a little bit but was the main contributor of the gas so much so that it was hard to actually see the water in it. The walking tour finished at the information centre after which we went to subway to read a few leaflets that we picked up at the information centre, as well as seeing to the hunger problem.

The rest of the day we spent in the hostel and in the evening we went for a drink with Lee and Lindsey the couple that we went on the caving tour with.

A Caving Advenure - Waitomo, New Zealand

A bacon sandwich to start the day as we set off to do a caving adventure tour in Waitomo meaning we had to be on the bus for 7:30am. There were a couple that we knew from our south island bus also doing the Abyss today so we waited for the bus together. A minibus arrived just after 7:30 and we were on our way to the caves. We got to the centre about an hour before the actual tour started and as I was struggling to open the lock on my large bag I just took it off the bus so the driver could leave. I continued to struggle with my poundland lock (I guess it is to be expected, it had been stiff for quite sometime) eventually I got the lock off and managed to get my towel and swim shorts as it turned out we needed them. I did actual struggle to even get the key out of the lock, I don't think I be using it again.

Snappy and Andy were going to be our guides for the day and we had about 10 people in our group for the Abyss. We started by getting all the gear that we would need which included: wet suit, waterproof soaks, a wet suit jacket, thermal top (Ollie got one of these), helmet with light, a couple of carabina, and a device I can't remember the name of which allowed us to abseil. We then had a short drive out to the hole we would be abseiling down and a quick lesson on how to abseil before taking it in turns to abseil the 30 metres into the cave. Me and Ollie had a bit of a wait at the top cause we decided to go in last but we would only have had to wait in the cave anyway. We both abseiled down with relative ease although a couple of points I decided that I was going to fast so stopped myself a little abruptly which hurt my back a little bit.

Once in the cave we could see a few glow-worms with our light turned off then we were off through the cave along a few narrow passage which took us to a zip-wire known as the flying fox. This would allowed us to get down to the next part of the cave otherwise it was a 20 metre drop into relatively shallow water. Once everyone was down the bottom we all sat over the edge about a 5 metre drop to the water to have a hot drink and a biscuit little did we know that we would be jumping off the rock onto our tubes (rubber rings) a few moments later. We were then told by Andy to jump off the rock and land on the tube, I was convinced that I was just going to fall out to the tube straight away but managed to stay in but oh my the water was pretty darn cold, bit of a shock to the system.

We then went tubing down the river feeling pretty cold to begin with when we stopped briefly to turn out our light and check out the glow worms, which Snappy told us were really just glowing fly lava that first of all fed off their brothers and sisters before forming their maggot stage on the walls and finally reaching their fly stage surviving for just enough days to mate where the male would die and the female would die after giving birth, so really we were in glow-maggot caves. We continued to tube down the river before briefly stopping and then going the other way back to where we originally jumped on the tubes. We then were told we were getting of the tube and wading for the rest of the trip this initial bust of water into the wetsuit made us very cold again.

We then explored parts of the cave wading through some deep water and some very shallow water always nearly falling over because of the constant change of depth of water under our feet and rocks. We waded down a couple of small waterfalls before getting to some very deep water where we swam/waded under a narrow gap in the rock.

The final part of the expedition would have us climb up two waterfalls and we were told that it was pretty tricky but we would be given guidance of where to put our feet and hand so we could climb up. The first waterfall was a good 5 metres high and wasn't too difficult to climb but really did look it when you saw other people doing it. The second wasn't quite so high and wasn't quite as hard to climb up but it had no pool of water at the bottom to fall back into if you did slip! We both made it over the two waterfalls with relative ease and then proceeded out of the tunnel to see daylight for the first time in a couple of hours.

We then caught the bus to Rotorua where we arrived at about 6pm.

Fly me to the moon... - Taupo, New Zealand

The weather today was good enough so that we could actually do something which was quite amazing as we thought it was still going to be raining quite hard today. We decided to make the most of the break in the wet weather by going for a walk to The Craters Of The Moon, no that isn't an exaggeration it was geothermal site a few kilometres outside of Taupo. The walk started with us going past the sight of the Taupo bungy which was on a ledge extended over the river Waikato and as we saw one person jump we were very tempted to have another go. The walk continued to an adventure playground where I just had to go on the zip wire, sometime you just have to do these things. Back to the walk again we followed the Waikato river to some hot springs and then continued on route to the Huka falls as we had to pass this way to get to the Craters of the Moon. We then saw a guy pass us followed by his white dog, this really meant nothing to us at the time but a couple of minutes later a women dog walker asks us if we had seen a white dog. It turned out that the white dog had bitten some poor guys foot further up the track *pulls shirt collar*. We walked passed the Huka falls to a picnic site a little further up. This is where Ollie started to sing song about raining which quite obviously was going to jinx the fact it had stayed dry and quite sunny up to this point.

The Craters of the Moon was still a good 30 minute walk up hill once we had found the right direction. The walk around the geothermal site took about 30 minutes and we saw a lot of steam coming from rocks and some quite impressive mud pools. We were sick of the smell of sulphur by the end though. Thanks to Ollie it started to rain whilst we were walking around although it was only a brief shower, so enough time to take our coats out put them then for the rain to stop. For the journey back we decided to walk along the road hoping that it would be quicker. It wasn't really any quicker and it also began to rain and didn't really stop until we reached a sign welcoming us to Taupo, still another 3km to the centre of town.

Once back at the hostel we were hoping to see some of our Kiwi Experience friends but the hostel was still really empty so we just sat around in our room for a bit having a rest from our walk. When the Kiwi bus did arrive nobody that we really knew was on it although we had heard that it had broken down for 2 hours.

Untitled 1 - Taupo, New Zealand

We set off for Taupo quite early, we can't remember if it was raining or not which means it probably wasn't. We arrived in Taupo by about 2pm after we had dropped people off to do the skydive as the weather was clear enough over the lake to do today but the Tongorio Crossing was definitely off until after Sunday meaning we wouldn't be able to do it in the time we had in Taupo, which made me a sad panda.

We then got a lift to the Huka falls an impressive waterfall on the Waikato river which was the main river flowing into Lake Taupo. The falls were pretty impressive with the aqua blue water flowing through the gorges before plummeting over the small but powerful falls.

We knew the weather for the next few day wasn't going to be too amazing and as our driver, Dave put it. It is going to be Poos and Wees, he really did like this phrase and it amused me every time he mentioned . We decided to have a few drinks as the jugs of Snakebite at our hostel were very cheap and we played a bit of pool were I managed to take the lead in the overall pool series 6-5 for the first time with the standard of pool definitely the highest so far.

Poos and Wees - Taupo, New Zealand

We set off for Taupo quite early, we can't remember if it was raining or not which means it probably wasn't. We arrived in Taupo by about 2pm after we had dropped people off to do the skydive as the weather was clear enough over the lake to do today but the Tongorio Crossing was definitely off until after Sunday meaning we wouldn't be able to do it in the time we had in Taupo, which made me a sad panda.

We then got a lift to the Huka falls an impressive waterfall on the Waikaru river which was the main river flowing into Lake Taupo. The falls were pretty impressive with the aqua blue water flowing through the gorges before plummeting over the small but powerful falls.

We knew the weather for the next few day wasn't going to be too amazing and as our driver, Dave put it. It is going to be Poos and Wees, he really did like this phrase and it amused me every time he mentioned . We decided to have a few drinks as the jugs of Snakebite at our hostel were very cheap and we played a bit of pool were I managed to take the lead in the overall pool series 6-5 for the first time with the standard of pool definitely the highest so far.

You might just need your Wellington's – Wellington, New Zealand

Finally the day where we would reach the North Island is here. We started out for the ferry in Picton at about 9am and arrived just gone mid-day and boarded the Ferry shortly afterwards. The ferry took about 4 hours in which time we sat in the on board bar watching a re-run of Sunderland Vs Everton whilst doing some puzzles in the Kiwi Experience guide book, Ollie managed to complete all the Sudoku and was very pleased with himself, me and Gemima really didn't care that much.

I forgot to mention that it was chucking it down with rain for most of the ferry journey and continued to do so in Wellington. In the evening as it was still raining we got a pizza and decided that we would take the opportunity to instead of walking round Wellington go to the cinema and watch Wolverine. In the end we didn't really see Wellington which is a little sad because there were a list of “100 free things to do in Wellington” on the YHA board. We were short on time but we probably should have stayed a little longer but we were hoping to do the Taurongio crossing from Taupo.

I apologise again this is pretty dull reading but seriously it wasn't the greatest of days as we arrived late and it was raining.

There's Nothing to do in Kaikoura When It Rains, Except get S*** Faced - Kaikoura, New Zealand

Day 2 of our travel to the North Island another exciting day in Kaikoura, well it was meant to be more exciting as we decided we would go Whale watching based on what Tom said about it in Queenstown. As we got to Kaikoura though, the sea was very rough and our driver informed us that it probably wouldn't go ahead today but we remained hopeful.

We checked in and walked to the whale watching centre only to see the screen indicating that the tours were awaiting confirmation from the captain. A couple of seconds later our hopes were dashed as they told us the whales were outside the range that the boat is allowed to go. We now had no idea what we were going to do as we had already done the round walk last time and we didn't fancy walking all that way again. We decided to casually stroll through town to take a look at the seal colony again. We finally reached the seal colony we were pleasantly surprised that this time there were lots of the smelly fur seals which made us a little happier as it is quite a walk just to see a couple of seals.

That evening we hung around with our new room-mates Gemima, Ian and Tom. We all decided to go to the pub quiz which had a maximum team size of 4 so me and Ollie just entered as a two and did alright, well not last anyway. The guy then made a comment after the quiz about there being nothing to do in Kaikoura when it rains except s*** faced. We then played couple of Kiwis at pool and we won 2-1 which meant we spent $14 on 4 beers result! Victory for England WOOOO!!!

Back to BASE

Nothing too exciting for you dedicated followers today I'm afraid we have begun our trip to the North Island with a long drive from Queenstown to Christchurch where we would be staying at the BASE hostel. The highlights of the day included a stop off at a glacier lake with a really good view over to Mount Cook and view surrounding mountain ranges. The glacier lakes are just an unbelievable aqua blue colour that is really hard to put into words and on a nice sunny day it is truly an amazing sight. The other highlight of our day was when we decided to go for a couple of drinks and Ollie managed to attract yet another crazy guy with his bearded look. We really struggled to understand what the intoxicated Kiwi was trying to say but he was obsessed with shaking Ollies hand. We eventually ran away when he was going to chat up some girls, unluckily for them but we were glad.

Well I would walk 500 hundred miles.... - Te Anau, New Zealand

Today I decided that we should do a half day trek along the Keplar track, a 60km walk which should take about 4 days. Originally the plan was to walk a stretch that led down a river to a place known as Rainbow Reach. Unfortunately, we got up a little late to attempt this as we had to catch a bus at 17:15pm it would be pushing it a little. Instead we walked in the opposite direction to Brod Bay which was a little beach area on the lake which would have been a decent swimming spot if it wasn't so cold. The trek took us through a forest mainly full of beach trees and mushrooms it took us about 2 hours to reach from the information centre. Then I decided we should try to walk further in the track which would take us up hill in hope of getting a good view over Te Anau. It turned out that we just kept walking up and finding more trees so after about an hour we decided we best head back down this was a little demoralising as we were sure that it wasn't too far to a viewing point but we looked at the positives like it was good exercise and we walked above the cloud, although it turned out that the cloud had just burnt off. By the time we had finished the walk we had been walking for about 6 hours with only limited stops, our legs hurt quite a lot after this so we were very glad of the rest in the cafe whilst waiting for the bus.

On our way back Mangee put “It's All Gone Pete Tong” on and although I thought that this film was going to be a bit like “Kevin and Perry Go Large” it was nothing like it and was much better than we thought and quite deep in places.

Milford Fiord - Milford Sound, New Zealand

Our whole room was of to visit Milford Sound today so we had four different alarms set to ensure we got up and other than myself everyone got up on the last after several snoozes. It was another beautiful sunny day in Queenstown we might even get to see Milford in the sun quite a rare sight as it is rainy more days than it is sunny.

Our driver for the day was a guy called Mangee, pretty cool guy but 100% nuts. There was only about 10 of us on the trip which was great as it sped things up and more importantly meant more food for us at the buffet. As we were running ahead of schedule Mangee decided to take a quick stop off in a village just outside Queenstown so we could take pictures of the lake and an old steam train, which apparently was used to advertise Cabury's Crunchie back in I think the 1980s

After that stop we were on route to Te Anau (the place we would be stopping the night). It was very misty round Te Anau but we were told that would burn off pretty very rapidly by midday and Milford would be similar to Queenstown, nice and sunny. Sure enough the cloud burnt off on route to Milford and we got awesome views of the mountain ranges and their reflection in the Mirror Lakes. Mangee told us that he had seen it quite as good as today for quite some time and it was one of his favourite days for viewing the lakes although his personal favourite was when it chucked it down.

We stopped a few times on route to Milford Sound to view the lakes, waterfalls, and the tunnel which we had to go through close to Milford Sound. On Arrival at the docking bay at Milford Sound we were all pretty hungry and all glad to get on board and enjoy the buffet a good few times :D.

Once we were satisfied we crawled to the top deck to enjoy the views Milford Fiord had to offer (yes it is a fiord ad not a sound, it was incorrectly labelled a Sound). It was pretty cool and gave us some good views all the way out to the Tasman sea before we turned round and saw a seal and a pretty big waterfall up close. Then we visited the underwater observatory which to be honest was pretty lame. We were told that a shark had been spotted the other day and that dolphins are also spotted regularly but during our briefly visit we just saw a few fish. It then began to rain which was pretty good as it gave spectacular misty views of Mitre peak.

It was then time to leave Milford and we headed back to Te Anau where we crashed out pretty early due to the morning starts and partying in Queenstown.

Go ahead and Jump - Queenstown, New Zealand

So it is here.... the day of the big jump, nervous rating currently quite low anticipation & excitement help give me the energy to wake up after the last night. We met the other jumpers on our bus Harry, Nick, Kate and Eviand (Harry still wasn't feeling too great after last night) and headed over to the bungy station. Once there we weighed in to determine the bungy rope we would use. We still had a 30 minute wait till be set off to the bungy site and me and Ollie were still pretty cool and were finally realising that we are about to go through the the jump. After chilling out on some bean bags we were on our way to the bungy site about a 45 minute drive to a canyon that we passed on our way into Queenstown. The tunes on the way helped get us in the right mood and included such tracks as Song 2 by Blur, Jump by Van Halen, Jump Around by House of Pain.

When we arrived to the site we got our harnesses and were reweighed, no backing out now. Before I know it Ollie, who got his harness on a little before me, was pointing me to the cable car I was a little confused but suddenly realised I was going out to the bungy platform to watch Ollie as he was jumping second. My nervousness went up a notch during the cable car trip but I regained composure pretty quickly on the bungy platform. It is pretty hard for me to write Ollie's exact emotions but he can't be bothered to write them himself so you'll have to make do with the little I gathered or ask him yourself. There is a pretty good photo that seems to show Ollie's pre-jump nerves. I myself wasn't sure when I was going to be jumping as I went out with the first four I thought I might jump after them but this was not to be and I would just have to wait until all the people heavier than me had jumped, nervous rating slightly up and anticipation went through the roof.

The first jumper was an Irish girl and she set a very high standard and really didn't seem to show any sign of nerves, I was beginning to get used to the fact we were now suspended over 134 metre above the base of the canyon and she definitely helped my confidence. Now it was Ollie's turn to get prepared for his jump and he was look very nervous at the point when they called his name, by this point Nick and Harry had arrived with Lucy (who was just watching). He was sat in the seat looking a little more nervous than I had seen him previously getting strapped up and I found myself getting pretty nervous just watching him but also wishing I could just straight after but I knew I had quite a few jumpers ahead of me. In just a few short seconds Ollie was standing over the edge of the platform, he told me afterwards that he “S*** himself” but to me it seemed like he was relatively in control, considering the situation of being over 134 metres above the canyon base. Then the count down 3........2........1 and he jumped, UNBELIEVEABLE GEOFF! This helped really pump me up shame I would have to wait so long. I watched as he tried to pull the leg cord that would right him so that he wouldn't have to come back up upside down but his cord was a little tight so he tried for a while before giving up and hanging upside down to be lifted back up... Not Ideal! Although he was ecstatic when I spoke to him post jump and absolutely loved the experience and now I just had to wait...

Harry said a few days later that “he looked at red as his t-shirt”

I watched as both Nick and Harry jumped also very composed and also gave similar reactions following their jumps, getting me really pumped and ready to do it for real. Although Harry let out a very girly shout. Kate and Eivan came over on the cable car then Ollie, Nick, Harry and Lucy all headed back that made me a little nervous but I still had a couple of people I knew there with me at least. It turned out that Eivan was jumping before me nervous, hells yeah! I then heard my name call and my heart skipped a beat momentarily and then I confidently strolled over to the chair to get hooked up, while this was going on Eivan had just got back on the platform and looked pretty happy. Then time moved very quickly and I getting up ready to jump, I thought I would be fine but I looked over the edge and now the nerves hit me big time I said out loud “I can't do this” even though I knew that I would. The bungy guy said I could do it and I believe all I said was “ok” and then he began the count down 3......oh s***.......2 I have to do this everyone else has and I'm way to tight to waste the money...1 and then I went for it and jumped, well I say jumped but it wasn't the best. I was pretty scared for the first couple of seconds then relaxed a little more before calming down a little more on the first sign that the rope was holding my weight and then I let out the tension my shouting something like “Oh my God.......Yeah!” when I finally puled the cord to sit up again I got to view the spectacular canyon and the great height I had jumped for a few seconds before I got pulled back up.

Meanwhile little to my knowledge Ollie was about to do the Nevis Arc, the world highest swing and it too was over the canyon. He did this cause our room mate Nick wanted to do it and they were offering it cheap if you do it as a pair. I might have seen their swing cause I was travelling back on the cable car and saw from a distance what it looked like two people on the swing, I was still really buzzing from my jump at this point. We then purchased our DVDs and got the free t-shirt and Ollie got a hat for doing the Arc and headed to the bus which would take us back to Queenstown.

We talked to a few people about our jumps and what it felt like before running into Tom who told us if we have time, to walk up the hill next to the gondola to the viewing area. He told us the walk would take about 1 hour 30 minutes and it was quite intense to begin with. Still buzzing from the jump we decided to go and boy was Tom right the initial path was very rocky, steep and had a lot of trees but luckily the path wasn't too long and reached the road which would take us the rest of the way, winding up the hill which seemed like forever. It was well worth the effort to climb, we were now 487 metres above sea level and had great views of Queenstown and its mountain ranges. We then walked a little loop around the luge track before heading back down the hill before it got dark.

In the evening we hung around with people from the Kiwi bus playing some pool and having a few drinks. I almost forgot we had our first Fergburger which everyone who visits Queenstown will know exactly what I mean, for anyone else it is a very famous burger restaurant. I can say we honestly weren't disappointed despite all of the hype.