Auckland then north some then south some
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2008
1
12
17
Trip End
Jan 25, 2009
Christchurch,
New Zealand
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The next day as it was a bit nicer weather we ended up just going for another stroll (saving money) and headed down to the shore where there were loads of expensive boats and we went to the places I seen the day before that kev had missed.. Also down there we could see Auckland bridge and you got a nice view over the bay. Other than this there didn't seem too much to see and I wasn't overly impressed by the city centre and there wasn't much in terms of sites to see further a field so we sat around for the next couple of days and slept a lot catching up on lost sleep from Fiji
Auckland Bridge
. We did go to an Auckland Blues game one night where they were playing the Bulls from South Africa who had Bryan Habana on there team so that was cool, there were also a lot of other guys from the South African team and the All Blacks playing. Also at the hostel we were at we met the first person of our travels who was from Edinburgh, it's strange how you can travel to the other side of the world and meet a guy that knows people you know from back home, shame he was a jambo though! The following day we had decided to rent a car for the rest of our time in NZ and headed out to the airport in the morning to pick it up. Once we had it we headed north to see the top of the island and stayed in a place called Pahia which is in a place called the Bay of Islands. This area is really nice and the drive there was about 4 hours but not that bad. Once there it was raining though so probably didn't do the place justice as it was a very nice little town right on the cost but it rained the whole first day we were there.
The following day it was still a bit dull but we headed to a place called Honarura Falls which there was a walk to so we were feeling energetic and decided to do the walk. Unfortunately due to a land slip you couldn't walk the whole way but we went as far as we could. It was about 5 miles round trip so a good bit of exercise for our standards. Once back in the car we decided as it was still raining to go for a drive a bit further up the coast, we also stumbled across the falls which we where trying to walk to earlier but we could just drive up to which was pretty handy
Bay of islands
. As I had a long drive the next day we took it easy at night a watched a load of TV.As I said the next day I had a bit of a drive as we were going to Rotarua which was about 8 hours away and as Kev doesn't drive it was going to be a long day. The drive went a lot better than I thought though, only bad bit was coming back through Auckland when the heavens opened and the traffic was really busy it was a bit of daunting drive but got through it unscathed. Once in Rotarua I was pretty tired so decided to take a sleep and then we had a pretty uneventful evening watching a mix of rugby and darts in the bar, not that I could be bothered with much more!
On the Tuesday we hired some mountain bikes from a local place in the forest and took them on a load of off road tracks, some more taxing than others. The tracks were graded 1-6 and as we were told we couldn't take these bikes on 5 and 6 the highest we went on was 3. After 3 hours of bumpy tracks and steep slopes up and down I had a very sore bum and we ended up heading back. (I also got stung by a wasp for the first time in years) Anyway on the way back we must have taking a wrong turning ( kev says my fault) and ended up on the main road were we had loads of huge lorries flying past us but I managed to navigate us back to the bike place.
The next day we went to a local place where you could go on these luge things down the side of a hill
Bryan Habana
. We drove there and gave a lift to an American guy we met in the hostel as he wanted to go as well. Once there we had to get a gondola ride up the hill which was pretty good for views and then once up there we had a few goes each and got a chair lift back up the hill every time. They were a lot of fun and went pretty quick if you wanted to, I had to watch though as wasn't the best on the corners so had had to take them a bit slower, I blame my height. After this we headed back into the town and took a wander over to where all the geysers were. Now these weren't the type that come to your door looking for sweets or money and singing songs but the ones in the ground that pour out gases and sulphur and absolutely stink off a combination of rotten eggs and burnt rubber which you can imagine is not that nice and the town does have a general smell lingering most of the time! Anyway the geysers were pretty cool, some more active than others and a lot of the area was quite prehistoric looking, you'll know what I mean from the pics. Also the big thing that day was I managed to see neighbours for the first time since I left, two episodes, bit far in advance from what I had seen back home but I soon caught up. Anyway will leave it there again and speak again soon, px. 
