|
  | |  |
New Zealand, North Island Part 1
Entry 6 of 12 | show all | print this entry |
|
Well Lads?
How is it going? We are doing so much i'm going to try and write a little bit at a time and then add photos and post it ye all then!
Auckland
Well as ye can see we landed in New Zealand! Yippeeeee.. I can totally see why people would fall in love with this country! I fell in love with it the minute we landed in Auckland and while we were waiting for our luggage to come off the conveyor belt a little old lady was offering us a free cup of tea! Wow! and the people here are so friendly! They just go completely out of their way to help you and just so nice! its great! Well anyway arrived in Auckland and it was nice and sunny and we just walked around in amazement.. there was clothes shops with clothes that were actually in fashion and didnt have llamas on them and huge supermarkets with all the fruit all shiny and stacked so neatly.. We just sat around and drank coffee and buns and stuff in Starbucks! We stayed there for a couple of nights and didnt really do anything much just soaked it all up.
Me outside Kelly Tharltons.. with spongebob!
We went to a place called Kelly Tharltons, an underwater world for all the creatures of the sea! They have recreated a little Antarctic for all their little penguins so that they are fooled into thinking they are really there so they mate at the right time and all that but i suppose its so they dont feel homesick the little pets!
The penguins!
We saw a load of those Stingrays aswell... wow what mad creatures! They have these flat teeth normally but when they are mating they grow these kinda hooks onto their teeth to reel in the stingray laydees! Sneaky!
Mr Stingray!
God, we also saw a right sneaky fish aswell.. a cunning little one and if i was a fish id be.. a stonefish! They look exactly like a stone and i couldnt figure out where the fish was for a while, they are that tricksy! The only reason you can spot them is when they blink every now and again with their beadly little eyes! And then some poor innocent little swimmer will step on it and boom! the little fecker shoots out a poison into their foot and thats it... dead! (well i dunno does it kill them, but i have a feeling it does!) There was also sharks and sea-horses and of course we saw nemo swimming away with his dodgey fin!
That evil little stonefish!
Nemo!
We were supposed to be hiring a car but figured we dont really have much time so we said we'd go on the magic bus! You have to pay $600 but they cover most of the cool places in the North and South Island and you can stop at each point for as long as you want and then hop back on and continue on your route!
Hot springs, Rotorua
Pongy! Hot springs, sectioned off
Our first stop was a place called Rotorua. Its a small little town a couple of hours south of Auckland and its most popular for its smell! It smells manky.. just like rotten eggs. Actually it was weird coz for the days that we were there i had a really bad headache and was tired all the time.. sara would come back and i'd be like laid out on bed reading my cosmo (my only guilty pleasure when i reached Auckland! it cost more that my food shopping for the 2 days!) it wasnt until afterwards that we connected my depression/sickness with the eggy sulphur smell! it was killing me slowly! Now that we are away from the place, my sickness has fanished! Weird!The town has a park that has loads of hot springs that are cordoned off coz they are so hot... you just hear the water gurgling away-i think there is lava maybe under the earth's surface that heats the water up so you cant go near some the springs but there are a couple that you can stick your toes into and they are roasting!
We did a couple of things in Rotorua actually. We rented bikes for the day and headed off to Redwood forest! wow it was so cool! They give you a bike and then you head off into the forest which is about 3-4 hours cycle from one side to the next.. Its like all these dirt bike trails you can head off into labelled "you'd be mad not to" and names like that which we obviously had to go and explore! Cool.. Over bumps, down through forests, through bushes and all that kinda jazz! It was brilliant fun altogether although our asses were killing us the next day and my legs were scraped left right and center but all in good fun you know! God, i am turning into a sporty chick on this holiday!!!
Sara, looking a bit lost in Redwood forest!
Yikes!
Had a hard choice to make when we arrived in Rotorua actually.. Could do either black water rafting or head off on a Maori night so decided to choose the Maori night! God, it was great! Bascially from what i got from the guides and stuff the Maoris where a bunch of people who came from islands like Tahiti and such places and settled in the North Island of New Zealand. They seemed to have a few strange beliefs like i think one was that woman was created from the red soil of the earth and then this woman went on to produce a human child and the Maoris then, to thank mother earth for her gift of life, they then bury the umbilical cord of any newborn babies back into the red soil that the woman was created! I think it seemed to all go wrong then for the Maoris when the european settlers arrived into the North Island. Governments decided they wanted to push the Maoris out and let the settlers take over the land so they made up this new rule that land could not be owned by more than 10 people so that ruled out land ownership for the Maoris seen as they shared their land with their families, extended families etc etc. European settlers took over, fell alot of the trees and hunted local animals to extinction. Bascially causing mayhem! Anyway, we went to check out the local Tamaki Maori village to see what it was all about! You head off on a bus out into the forest and our driver was one imaginative man.. we had to pretend that we were in a canoe headin to the North Island for our 1st encounter with the 1st Maori settlers so we had to like huff and puff all the way to the forest.. heave hoe heave hoe all the way and sing songs and stuff. Then, just before we arrived he decided that our tribe had to have a chief so one poor misfortunate Irish boy had to step up and be our leader. There were 3 buses with a chief picked from each bus and then it was time.... The boys had to line up to meet the Maori warriers- one English dude was rolling his head from side to side and loosening out his shoulders like he was going into fecking war or something! The warriors came out and did some mighty scary dancing trying to imtimidate the chiefs. Then they placed a placed a leaf at their feet and if the chief picks it up then it means they come in peace and if they dont?.. trouble in the house! They picked it up though and then we were all welcome to check out their huts and way of life. They also held a concert for us where they did a bit of singing, a bit of dancing and of course they preformed my favourite.. the haka! After the concert, it was off to a huge hall where they had a huge feast for us! They cooked us a hangi meal which is when they dig a huge hole in the ground and fill the hole with hot stones and then place the food (meat) in baskets covered in cloth, then they cover the hole with the soil again and leave the food to cook really slowly for the whole day! Yummie! The meat was just falling off the bone.. After the feast we had a bit more dancing and then back into our "canoe" and off back to Rotorua where we had to sing a song from our country! Morto! did you ever hear me sing?? It was a great awl laugh though and those Maoris were fierce warriors and they fecking scared me anyway!
Our "chiefs" line up to meet the Maori warriors!
One of the warriors stoking the fire!
After Rotorua we headed to Taupo where we stopped off to check out some mud pools and then to a geyser that explodes hot water at exactly 10.15 everyday which was mad! and hilarious cos anyone on the front row got drenched.. cameras and all! They discovered it years ago when all the criminals were sent over here. There was a prison right near the Lady Knox geyser and the boys were sent out the fell trees around that area. One day they just spotted this hot pool and thought "nice one"! They had no showers so they used it to bathe in and wash the clothes.. that was until one day they were happily soaking when there was a huge explosion and the boys were flown into the air! hee hee! And so Lady Knox geyser began!
Me by the boiling mud pools!
The Lady Knox geyser just before it erupted!
Erupting water everywhere!
Haka Falls
Emerald Lake- Tongariro Crossing!
From Taupo we headed off on the best one day treks in NZ- the Tongariro crossing! Started off by getting up at 4.45am- absolutely crazy! i dont know what we have turned into, i know! Sick! We consider getting up at 9am a lie in now!and that only happened twice since we started!!!! Anyway it was a tough enough hike.. we had to climb an area called the devils throat- they call it that for a reason i'm sure! it was never ending. You climb and you climb and you think "wow we are nearly at the top!" and then when you get to that top, there is another one 10 mins away and that continued like that for about an hour! we were wrecked!
We literally slipped all the way! V dangerous!
when we finally got to the top it was another 6 hours to the other side!!!! i was cool though and i think they filmed alot of the Lord of the rings there and we saw Mordor and Mount Doom!!! Well worth it for that alone!
Its Mordor, precious...
Its so pretty though...
Next stop, Wellington. Not as nice as Auckland but its the capital all the same. Only stopped off the one night so didnt get to do too much. Headed to the Te Papa museum- the most fun you can have while learning! Its a museum about.. everything! I only managed to see 2 floors outta 5 or 6 and that took us 4 hours! They explain the earths composition and how earthquakes occur and we got to go into a little minature house where they simulated an earthquake and basically shook us to (near) death! Then you get to see all the animals near extinction in NZ- there was a flightless parrot that they are trying to save.. he just aint helping the zoologists! He just isnt up to mating alot of the time and when he is.. he digs a big hole and waits for the female to check him out! I think the females arent really mad into him so the zoologists decided they would create the most beautiful fake female flightless parrot that there was - problem was... Mr parrot was not that interested in the fake bird so instead tried to get it on with the Zoologist's hat! I think these parrots are beyond saving!!! Also got to check out life as a sheep. They stuck a camera onto a sheep's head and you get to live a day in the life of a sheep.. how they feel when they are chased by the dog, the panic when they lose their lamb, nosing though the grass to check out the best grass! Wow, it is such a cool museum and i swear you would spend the day there and not get bored! Such fun!
Bye bye Wellington!
After Wellington, it was time to head to the South Island. Got the ferry over to Picton and the adventures for the South Island begin...
Latest Comments (4)
|
Hello (reply)
May 18, 2007 09:42 EST by joyc
Hey Annmarie, Sorry I havent emailed in so long, its been absolutely hectic in work over the last couple of months, I have been working from 7am to 7pm most days so getting really worn out.
Well thats enough about work, how are you getting on? Got your postcard, Joy & Owen Phelan......I like it..ha ha. So any fabulous men on your travels? I got your text, ye are in Sydney now. Are you going to... show all
|
|
|
stonefish (reply)
May 4, 2007 07:31 EST by fgough
ann-marie,
david mckeon stepped on a stonefish in Mauritius and went into a coma. he recovered in hospital with an antedote, wrote a song about it (the stonefish) called the 'waves in my brain' and sung it at his wedding last year.
|
|
|
hey (reply)
May 2, 2007 08:50 EST by emmagough
wow annmarie, im amazed by all this exercise yuor doing!! id be 20 metres up a mountain and take a break!! go on you!!
|
|
|
hi! (reply)
May 2, 2007 08:10 EST by elainecgough
well amarie!its nice to see your loking fairly stylish still esp at the geyser!! no dykey trousers for u!
|
 Post a new comment |
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from New Zealand or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
6 votes 
