New Zealand - North Island - written Oct 19th - Bundaberg, Australia

Arriving in New Zealand at 11am on a cold, dreary Tuesday it was hard to concieve only 12 hours before we were sweating buckets on a street corner eating roti in Singapore's cosmopoliton 'Little India' Apart from the accents around us we could have just arrived back at Heathrow everything seemed so normal compared to the diverse culture we had experienced in South East Asia. The only thing that seemed similar to Laos or Vietnam was the difficulty in actually getting into the country, but with new challenges! The grilling we got at customs was unreal, despite showing proof of onward travel to australia in 5 weeks and our tickets for the Kiwi experience - we were spoken to rudely and treated as though we were in the wrong despite having more than enough documents to prove who we were and our purpose. After escaping jobsworth central we caught the bus into town to stay at Nomads. Definitely a party hostel but luckily our room was quiet in the day so we could sleep off the jetlag and try and get through the worst of the horrible colds we had caught due to the change in climate and the recycled air of the plane.



We had four days in Auckland in all, pushing back our kiwi bus by two days in order to get better. Exploring Auckland was fun but a little odd, there seemed to be hardly anyone around! The actual centre of the city is tiny, but the suburbs are sprawling. It's the same all over New Zealand, a lot of houses are quite large, all with gardens and no estates as such, more blocks like the states, every house is an individual shape, size and colour creating an interesting patchwork effect. We visited the art gallery, walked the whole city and the harbour, had tons of birds sitting in our hands while we fed them bread in the park and ate great Chinese food. We also had to do a little shopping for jumpers and thermal socks -chilly! I also went to my first rugby game and met an all black!



On September 6th at 8:30am it was time to jump on the kiwi bus. we were introduced to our driver, Flea who drove around some more sights of the city as we picked others up. She took us to a city look out on top of a dormant volcano which was really windy! Some people on the bus didn't like how scheduled it was, but we had plenty of free time and it was a welcome break from long walks in Asia with heavy rucksacks hunting for a place to stay. or first stop out of Auckland was cathedral cove, a one hour walk down to a deserted beach. The views on the way down were incredible. Then onto our lovely little hostel Turtle Cove and we all had a group meal and got to know the other 35 people on the bus. Sam did awesome at the killer pool competition beating off 15 others twice in the night to win free drinks!



We set off early the next morning for Rotorus, stopping on the way for an hour walk through a disused goldmine and for photos in hobbiton! Rotorus is famously one of the smelliest places on earth (the geothermal activity causes natural hot springs, boiling mud, gizers and a distinct whiff of rotten eggs) It is also the town in New Zealand with the highest percentage of native Maori people -the original settlers of the country in arouond 1350 We visited the Te Paua visitor centre and had a guided tour learning all about the origins of New Zealand. We saw the second largest giza in the world and there was a kiwi house but they were hiding unfortunately. We also saw a giant bubbling mud pool (think the bog of eternal stench in Labirynth). Straight after the museum it was only a fiv eminute drive down the road to the luging. luging is basically like human mariokart down the side of a moountain. You take a cable car to the top and then dry sledge to the bottom. It was really great fun and I only crashed into a pile of mud once! Hurrah! Back to the hostel after for a sunet dip in their natural thermal swimming pool - so nice and toasty it was hard to believe it was not man made! The hostel put on a free bbq that evening and we got to know people better with a free beer and and hot dog.



On the way out of Rotorua the next morning we visited a farm show which explained all the different types of sheep are bred and for what purpose. There are four million people in NZ and 47 million sheep (make what you will of that) The best bit of all was the animal nursery, they had a 4 day old lamb in there called Poppy. sadly her mum rejected her but she was getting a lot of love form everyone else! I got to hold her for about 20 minutes and she bleated and just fell asleep in my arms! Next stop on the bus trip was Waitomo, for caving, glowworm tours, black water rafting. Sam and i skipped this activity to save cash and had a very nice chilled afternoon instead. That night was the first boozy night of the trip, drinking bottles of wine at curley's bar and bonding over games of 'ring of fire'



Waking up the next morning, suitably hungover (and already freaking out about the impending skydive that afternoon) the bus left for Taupo. We stopped on the way for a couple of walks. One to check out some caves around Waitomo and another just outside Taupo to visit Hukka falls, a selection of white water rapids and a waterfall that churns out 7 olympic sized swimming pools per minute. So much pressure and froth is created that it gives the water a stunning aquamarine colour. So beautiful despite the drizzly, grey day we saw it on. as we came into Taupo the rian got heavier and the skydive was cancelled. Next morning the rain cleared and the sky was clear - judgement day had arrvied!!! They took 8 of us in a minibus out to the dive site and it was only 20 minutes from arrival through to suiting up and getting on a very tiny plane. 5 out of 8 of us opted for the 15,000 ft jump, making it a 20 minute flight up, one minute of cheek billowing freefall and another 10 minute parachute ride down over the lake. The scariest part was definitely the plane journey, your instructor shows you a height level gauge once every 5 minutes so you know how high you are. sam was sat at the back (jumping last) with me in front and then 3 other girls from our bus jumping before us. when we reached 10,000 ft we had to sit on our instructors laps to fasten onto them. At 13,000 ft we had to put our oxygen masks on and the fear was building - no way back no though. i think he would have thrown me out no matter what i said! We hit 15,000ft, the plane door opened and the the first, then the second girl just disappeared. As the third sat on the edge of the plane my instructor pushed me forward, i gave Sams hand a squeeze and told him i loved him half convince it was the last time i was ever going to say it! The fear hit crisis point now as my video guy climbed out on top of the plane and i swung my feet over the edge. Ah this isn't so bad i thought as all i could see was cloud, but 2 seconds later the clouds parted and you could see the outline of New Zealand below like a tiny map! I jusrt went numb and the instructor pulled my head back against his shoulder, i felt a sense of falling and air in my face as we somersaulted out of the plane taking 9 seconds to reach maximum velocity. you find yourself in sensory overload. i barfely remember more than ten seconds of the freefall because the adrenalin just takes over. It felt like no time until the parachute opened and everything went quiet. apart form my screaming and whooping about how amazing it was of course! We floated back down to the gorund and i got to watch Sam coming into land too. he landed a lot more gracefully than me - on his feet, whereas my legs were like jelly and i just fell on my bum. after a lot of jumping around we went back to the hostel and had our bus chartered a boat out onto the lake and we had some beers and a bbq and the sun shined for the first time since we had been in NZ!



The next stop was River Valley lodge. A big house set by itself in a valley 45 minutes from civilisation by a white water rapid river. Unfortunately the rafting trip we were so excited about was cancelled, the rain had been so bad that the river was running to high and fast for it to be safe. Instead i rented a hot tub with 4 other girls down by the river, very relaxing sat there listening to the waterfalls. next stop was Wellington and despite our plans to stay for 3 nights and explore the city we were having so much fin with our bus we decided to only spend one night and move onto the South island at 7am the next morning. This left just enough time for a big party at the hostel and then onto the hostel bar. Jaegerbombs caused much havoc!!! Sam had to stand outside and have a naan bread before he even went into the bar as the pre-drinks him him pretty hard : p Muchos fun had on the North Island. Cannot wait to see what the South will bring!