New Zealand

As we begun our trip to New Zealand I was excited just to be in an airport again! I miss airports here, I’ve got used to flying all the time at home. So I spent my time trying on perfume and browsing duty free. The flight seemed to go really quickly- perhaps due to the onboard entertainment systems. I’m a big fan of having my own personal screen for shows and games even though the flight is only 3 hours. They should introduce them on trains and buses!

So we arrived in New Zealand around 12pm and caught the airport bus into Auckland where we had booked to stay the night in Nomads. The hostel was extremely noisy as it was right above a club but I was so exhausted I slept right through it until our alarm went off early in the morning so that we could catch our 7.30am bus to Rotorua. This first bus was actually a Great Sights tour bus so we had a really good driver who was telling us all about everything we passed. The countryside is very similar to English countryside. And there were a lot of cows –many more than sheep, which was unexpected. Our North Island bus ticket had included a stop at Waitamo Glow Worm Caves. They were amazing! At first it just seemed like a standard cave tour, in a huge cave with normal rock so nothing too exciting there. We were then shown some small patches of glowworms and some that were low down so that we could see the lines they put down to catch food. After this we went down to the river that flowed through the cave where we all got in a large boat that was going to take us out. As we travelled along the river the amount of glow worms was amazing. The cave wasn’t lit in this part so the glow worms really stood out. It was just like looking at the stars in the sky –just really up close! It was so beautiful.

We then got back on the bus and carried on to Rotorua where were greeted by a horrible smell of egg due to all the sulphur produced by the geothermal activity. We stopped there for a few days but never really got used to the smell. At least it wasn’t very strong in the area we were staying. It was amazing to see the bubbling, steaming pools of water and mud though. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s so strange to think that the water I was standing by was heated by the centre of the earth. You expect that sort of thing to be impossible or a volcano. We spent the rest of the day wandering round the town and visiting the park with the hot water pools. Then in the evening there was a night market on which we had a little wander around before claiming our free drink from the hostel in the local pub.

The next day we slept for ages and then got up to have a wander by the lake where there were baby black swans! They were so, so cute! We didn’t really do much this day, but we’d been so crazy busy lately it was nice to have a rest and a chance to actually sleep in. We arranged to go to Hell’s gate park and spa the next day. We were picked up by a minibus in the morning and taken to Hell’s Gate Thermal Park. We firstly walked around the park where we saw all the various thermal pools –all different temperatures, pHs and colours. It was interesting to see the variety of it all –we even saw a hot waterfall. Where usually you see spray from the falling water, steam was rising. Very strange to see. Some of the pools were so hot they would bubble ferociously up into the air –even metres high! After the walk we came back to the Wai Ora Spa where we had a mud bath! It was so much fun sitting outside in a warm bath covering ourselves in mud! I think everyone should probably play in mud more often. We stayed in the mud bath for 20 minutes before having a cold shower and getting in the Sulphur pool. A large hot bath where the sulphur water is supposed to have healing properties. From the sulphur bath you could look out over the hot pools where the water was taken from. It is quite a surreal experience sat outside in New Zealand in geothermally heated sulphur water looking out at the bubbling pools and rocky landscape. I think this was definitely the highlight of the trip, and really the geothermal activity was the reason I went to the North Island. It is like nowhere else I’ve ever been. After our time in the spa we looked around the shop and tried our hand at wood carving. It looked surprisingly good after the carver fixed it up for me [Symbol]. We then headed back to the town for some lunch and a wander around. That night we had nachos in the pub with the free drinks which was quite delicious.

The next day we went for a walk around the lake but came to a part of the track that was completely flooded –we had managed to make our way around the puddles up until now but now the track was completely covered and water would have been up to out ankles. So we decided to go back and walk through the golf course. I think we would have been dryer wading through the puddles. The golf course was completely waterlogged and our feet got drenched! But at least at the end of it we got to see the baby swans. Someone started feeding the birds bread and it was so funny to see all the geese run over with their wings spread wide. The birds were crazy stealing bread off each other and there were so, so many of them!

That afternoon we got the bus to Napier where we found a nice hostel to stay in that seemed more like a house. Somehow the dorm room we paid for turned out to be a twin so that was a bit of a bonus too. Napier is interesting because it was more or less completely destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s and was rebuilt in the art deco style. Although to be honest I never worked out what that was but whilst we were there we had a good game of mini golf, spied on the seals through the fence of the closed sealife centre and walked up to the top of a hill to lookout over the coast and the port. I later rolled down the hill which was great fun, something I have not been doing enough of. I even started a small craze as some teenage girls saw me doing it and then went to have a go. I also somehow managed to have my picture taken with a random Asian guy at the lookout. I accidently walked down a path into his picture so he decided he would have it with me. It was quite amusing and he seemed a nice chap who was studying something that I couldn’t quite understand in NZ.

From Napier we travelled on to Wellington, which I think was my favourite place we went to on the trip. We checked into a hostel right by the station when we arrived before having a wander into town and then a look around Te Papa museum. The museum was really quite good we went in an earthquake room where it’s as if you are actually in an earthquake, and we saw the only colossus squid on public display. It was huge- many metres long and apparently has the largest eyes in the world. It is even supposed to have shrunk since the found it, but it was truly massive. It was caught accidently by Antarctic fisherman when their line caught the fish the squid was eating. As they pulled the fish up the squid just did not let go and ended up coming up to the surface from the depths of the ocean. It was really interesting to see it.

The next day in Wellington we had tickets for the city sights bus tour that had come free with our bus pass. So we got the bus at 9.30am and were driven around the city. We saw the wooden houses that people still live in and the way Wellington is expanding up into the hills rather than outwards because it is constricted to the small place in the valley. People who live there have to walk up hundreds of steps or use cable card to get from the roads up to their houses! We got off the bus in town and then caught the cable car up to the top of the hill. We then went to the Carter Astronomy where we sat in reclined chairs to watch a film on the ceiling of the dome about the stars and how the universe was made. It was really interesting and really cool how you were surrounded by the film. I would definitely recommend it. We then had a look around the exhibit before going to the cable car museum where we sat in one of the old cars that used to be used. We then walked through the botanical gardens, stopping at the duck pond and to see the rose garden. We then got back on the citysights bus to go to see parliament. As we walked in we had to go through metal scanners and leave our bags in the cloakroom before we could go on the tour. Luckily one was just starting as we got there. It was actually so much more interesting than I had anticipated. We learned how absolutely anybody can write in to have an audience with the committee as they make their decisions on which laws to pass and I was made Queen for the day as I stood exactly where the throne is put if any of the royal family are ever there. I think I’d now like to do one of these tours in London but I wonder if you even can there... There was also an Anne Frank exhibition at parliament which was interesting to see.

From parliament we walked into town and did a little shopping before heading back to the hostel where we played pool with a couple of guys and I even managed to pot a few balls! Later we went and ate tea by the harbour looking over the water. I was sad to leave Wellington and in hindsight we should have planned an extra day there instead of in Auckland but at least we made the most of our time there. We got an early bus to Taupo but on the bus encountered the most awful, ridiculous girl I think I’ve met. The bus was really full and me and Ryan had managed to get the last pair of seats together. At a later stop a girl and her boyfriend got on but had to sit apart as there weren’t any seats for them and this girl ended up sitting in front of us. We stopped for a quick loo stop and me and Ryan had both got off the bus, literally only for a few minutes. But when I got back on I saw this girl moving my bag and sitting in my seat. Giving her the benefit of the doubt I told her she was sat in my seat (perhaps it was an accident) but all she replied was “So?”. I asked her to move and she refused and then started to call her boyfriend over to go and sit in Ryan’s seat, but all of our stuff was still there. I looked at him to see what he was going to do and he at least acknowledged that it was our seat and told the girl to just stay where they were. But she was so stupid she just refused to move and then other people on the bus started to get involved telling her to move and eventually she did but really what did she think she was doing. As she moved Ryan had got on the bus so I told him what had been going on and then got threatened by this girl that she would “punch me in the head” if I kept on talking about her. She was crazy. At the next rest stop other people were commenting about her to us and telling us to get on the bus quick so she didn’t steal our seats again!

Thankfully we were able to get away from her at Taupo. We checked into a hostel and then went for a wander around the town. Down by the lake there is a hole in one golf course where the hole is out in the lake. We watched a few people having a go but no one managed to do it. The next day we got up quite early and had a morning game of pool in the hostel before heading out to walk to Huka Falls. The waterfall was amazing! The water was travelling ridiculously fast, but it's not like a normal waterfall. The fall forms as the river is constricted because the type of rock changes to one that is not easily degraded. The water speeds along, shooting into the air and off rocks before it makes it to the ledge of the waterfall (which is really actually quite small in comparison). At one point the water seems to form an inverse wave as it hits a bump and is forced backwards over itself. I have never seen such powerful water -you would easily go along the 100m length in about 10seconds if you fell in but you would nearly definitely die on the way. We walked back along the path to the hot water stream where geothermally heated water joins the lake so you can sit in it as if in a bath. Although the heat is a bit more patchy and less consistent. Weirdly as we sat there rocks were floating by us. Apparently they'd all been washed down in a storm. These porous stones were easily carved so we sat there in the river bath making stone shapes. It was lovely. On the way back to the hostel we walked through a park and found a zipwire to play on. Some Asian people also found it at the same time and the granny Asian even had a go! It was quite funny.

The next day Ryan was watching the rugby so I went shopping when it was on and then we went to play crazy golf. Which I won and amazingly we both got hole in ones on the last shot which meant we won a free round. It was quite amusing because Ryan's went straight in to the hole whilst mine bounced off the sides for a while before going in. But I clearly meant for it to happen like that. Unfortunately we didn't have time for a 2nd round so we gave the tickets to reception to give to the next people to come in before going to catch our bus to Auckland and our final stop in New Zealand.

When we arrived in Auckland we checked into the first hostel we saw (which turned out it wasn't that nice as we had a boiling hot room in the basement with no windows) before going to a little chinese restaurant for tea. I decided to try something new so I had wonton noodle soup. It turned out I liked the wontons but not the soup, it actually made me want to be a little bit sick. Anyways, the restaurant was located opposite a reverse bungy so we were able to watch crazy people getting shot up into the air. We didn't really do too much in Auckland, there wasn't really anything to see. We spent the first day wandering around town and down to the harbour.Where there was actually a giant rubber duck that was really cool. But when we went into the iSites even though couldn't tell us anything we could do without spending loads of money. We thought about going up the skytower but as we were walking in someone walked out going "That was definitely not worth it". So we thought perhaps we should save our dollars. When we went back to the hostel we asked the staff there and a funny gay man recommended walking up the volcano Mount Eden. So that's what we spent our evening doing but it took so long. We had been told it would take 40mins so me, Ryan and 2 Swedish guys we'd met in our room headed out. It ended up taking us hours, we seemed to have walked halfway across town and out into the suburbs before we were anywhere near, and by that time it was dark so we had to scramble up the side of the volcano and every short cut we took seemed to be the complete opposite. It was a very beautiful view from the top though -definitely worth going to instead of the sky tower. It was cool to see the crater as well -a huge, huge dip down like an inverse hill. You could barely even see the bottom of it, although it was pretty dark by this point.

The next day in Auckland was spent looking round the shops, using the internet (trying to find a house) and then getting a bus to the seaside. It was pretty average there though. I had a paddle but decided it was too chilli for a swim. Stupidly we had decided to go the airport early for our 6am flight rather than staying in the hostel so we spent our night not being able to sleep in an airport.

New Zealand was great but it seemed to end on a bit of a low note with Auckland being so disappointing. I'd really like to go back though -next time to the South Island to see some glaciers!



lots of love xxxxxxx

Monday 10th January

After Kiama we headed to Kangaroo Valley to camp for the night. It was the loveliest free campsite you could imagine. I was amazed it was free. It was huge and ran along the side of a river with plenty of places you could get in and swim. It wasn’t too chilli and I even had a go on the rope swing to launch myself into the river! After a swim we headed back to the van for some dinner and were hopeful of seeing a wombat. Ryan had overheard someone saying the bridge was a good place to stop one so I had a look for it on the campsite map but there didn’t seem to be anything. As I told Ryan h0ow sad I was that I probably wouldn’t see a wombat he span me around and there was a wombat right by the sign I had just been looking at! We ended up seeing 5 wombats that night. One was in the night when I got up to go to the loo and it was right in front of our van. They were so cute and cuddly looking! The only bad thing was some of the kids at the campsite were chasing them which I was shocked at! There didn’t even seem to be any adults with them to tell them not to so other campers seemed to be telling them off.

The next day we drove further down the coast first of all stopping at the little national trust village of Central Tilba. It was very pretty although we managed to arrive before everything was open as we had got up early. There was a little market and cute little shops. We walked down to the cheese factory where we sampled some cheese. I really wanted to get some but it just won’t keep in the van. It was delicious though. We bought some fudge instead and a pie and pasty from the bakery. It was a lovely little village with really pretty wooden buildings and a lovely setting in a valley. We then headed on and stopped at a beach in Mollymook. We ate by the beach and then went down on the beach. We ended up playing the spinny game where you have to spin until you’re dizzy and then try and run towards the sea! It was a lot of fun but we both ended up feeling a little sick. The campground we stayed at that night was really quite nice as well. We went on a bushwalk to a lake. I much prefer the eucalypt forest to the rainforest as it’s a lot more open –more like the woods at home. And there are not so many creatures to worry about, although Ryan was banging his stick all the way to ward off snakes. We hadn’t planned to do the whole walk as it would be getting dark shortly, but as we reached the lake quickly I wanted to do it and Ryan went along with it, despite not being the biggest fan of walks. That night we were camped next to an old Scottish man who was from Melbourne and had moved here back in the 60s. He seemed to be talking to everybody –we thought it was probably so he didn’t have to talk to his wife as she looked like she was pretty grumpy!

On Saturday we were driving further south and stopped at a sign on the side of the road that said coastal walk. We went along the path until we came to a huge lake. I decided to go for a paddle and ended up getting half way across the lake with the water only coming up to my knees! It was so beautiful with the sea in the background. We then had my first ever game of beach cricket –using a stick for a bat, a pinecone for a ball, and a bottle for a stump. I surprised both of us by actually winning the game! After my win we headed back to the van and drove further down the coast we stopped at a beach called Beares beach where we spent some time just relaxing on the rocks looking out to sea. In the sun it felt like proper Australia, just how I had always imagined it. We then carried on to Eden where we went to the Killer Whale museum. There used to be a lot of whaling in the bay by Eden and the killer whales would actually help the people to hunt other species of whales. They would round them up into the bay and then alert the people who would come and kill the whale. They would then leave the carcass for the killer whales to eat the tongue and lips before bringing it to shore to harvest. The skeleton of Old Tom, the killer whale whose job was to alert the people of the whale the pod had captured was preserved in the museum. It was all very interesting but pretty horrific learning about how they harvested the whales for their oil. Apparently NASA still uses oil from the brains of whales as lubricant for their spacecrafts. We drove to a campsite near the Victorian border where we ended up making a campfire. Ryan initially tried to make a campfire with little success until I decided to help with the knowledge I had learned as a Girl Guide. It actually turned out really well –I didn’t realise I was even able to make a fire but it turns out Guides taught me pretty well. We sat by the fire as it got dark whilst Ryan played his guitar. Just like proper camping.

Yesterday we stopped at a beach town just as you enter Victoria although I can’t remember its name. It was another place where the lakes join the sea so you have the option of which you want to swim in. These places seem to be particularly popular with families as they can keep away from the dangerous surf. We saw a sign for a World War II bunker so went to have a look. It turned out that it was only open on Tuesday mornings though. Apparently it wasn’t used as an air raid shelter but was where they collected information from the boats out at sea to send to Melbourne, and also where they intercepted messages. After discovering it was closed we headed to the beach where we found loads of animal tracks, had a go at beach Olympics by doing the long jump and explored some of the secluded beaches over the rocks. From there we had to get some driving out of the way so made our way on to Orbost. We cooked chicken wraps in the park before playing my first game of park cricket. I managed to win 2 out of 3 games! It’s probably something I should have taken up earlier! Unfortunately play was rained off so we headed to a campsite and managed to watch half a film on my laptop before the battery died.

Today we have been to Buchan Caves; we had a tour of the Fairy Cave which was really beautiful. There are loads and loads of stalagmites and stalactites and things called blankets which are like sheets of rock hanging down and do actually look like blankets! There were some huge, pure white stalactites known as the Ivory Palace. There were a lot of sparkly crystals in the cave which were the reason it was given the name Fairy cave, because it was like a fairy wonderland. The cave we went through was around 500m long with the deepest point at 50m underground because it goes under a hill. The entire system of caves here is about 3km long though! I preferred these caves to the Capricorn Caves just because they were so pretty and there seemed to be a lot more to see.

Right now we are making the most of the facilities in the campsite by the caves before heading on to The Lakes Entrance and 90-mile-beach.

Lots of love xxx

Friday 17th December

On Tuesday we headed from the rest stop on to Airlie Beach, stopping at a beach at Bowen en route. It was a nice beach with white and black sand (which really burned). We just had a little stop at the beach before continuing onto Airlie Beach. Although we somehow managed to find ourselves on a golf course. After walking along the beach we thought it might be nice to walk back through the park but turned out people were playing golf there. Hmmm better go back to the beach and not get hit by a golf ball. We drove onto Airlie Beach where the water is ridiculously blue. The nicest colour sea I have ever seen! We treated ourselves to fish and chips and managed to get given a huge box of prawns by some people who’d been having some sort of team meeting by the beach and couldn’t finish them. I did try one but I didn’t like the way it was looking at me so didn’t have any more. We managed to pass them on to some travellers having a BBQ who seemed pretty shocked at the amount of prawns we were giving them. I wonder now how many people those prawns got passed along to! After lunch we did a little shopping and I bought 2 pairs of sunglasses to replace those I’d lost in the swimming pool at Townsville. Ryan’s remaining 2 pairs both popped their lenses whilst at Airlie Beach so he also had to buy some more. They were from Primark though so it’s not too surprising they can’t survive the Ozzy heat! We then headed toward Mackay but the squeaking fan belt was back! We were driving towards Eungella and had to call out the RACQ again. It took hours for them to come and then once they had there was no difference in the screeching so we had to call them back. I wondered whether the mechanic was actually a real mechanic as he didn’t seem to know what he was talking about and then proceeded to tie the engine up with cable ties. On his second visit he did manage to work out that it was an issue with the bolt though which no one previously had done. In the morning we took it to the mechanics who told us we had a cracked bolt and replaced it for us. Since then nothing has gone wrong –touch wood!

So after we’d been to the mechanics we drove back to Eungella as the guidebook said it was pretty much guaranteed that we would see a platypus. It was a steep climb up a mountain to get there but the views were beautiful. There is a platypus viewing platform at a place up in the mountain called Broken River. We parked up and went to see if we could spot a platypus. We had no luck at first, but we did see a lot of turtles. We had got there around lunchtime but it was said that the best times to spot a platypus are dawn and dusk so I was worried that we’d driven all the way and would not manage to see one. But when we’d been waiting for about 10 minutes a little platypus did pop up to say hello! He was so cute! He dove down again but then came back again a few minutes later and I managed to take a photo! He didn’t come back after that so we were very lucky to have seen him. It was so exciting! We then drove back towards Mackay where we picked up some sausages to BBQ for lunch but ended up getting completely lost, not even finding the sea and heading back to the highway and driving about 100km to a free campsite at Clairview. They spelt my name wrong. We finally had our hot dogs for dinner! The campsite was right by the beach in a quiet village. In the morning I even drove the van back to the highway (before Ryan took over for the ‘proper driving’.

We had got up early and drove nearly all the way to Rockhampton. We went to the Capricorn Caverns –a dry limestone cave system. When we got there we saw 2 kangaroos just out in the garden. I think they were semi-tame as they were not fenced in but there seemed to be food and water put out for them. I’m not sure if it counts as seeing actual wild kangaroos.... Anyway, I was interested in doing an adventure tour but with the extra cost at $70 I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. So we decided to go on the summer solstice tour at 11am instead and go caving in Wales when we go home. We were lucky as the summer solstice only occurs for 6 weeks of the year. It is when sunlight comes through a hole in one of the caverns roofs between 11-12 from November to January time. We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The tour was very interesting; we saw rock formations in different shapes that resembled other things such as a rhino, Australia, and angels amongst other things. We learnt that we were actually all stood on bat guano and that when the caves were first discovered it was waist deep and has only been compressed so much because the tours have been going on for hundreds of years. In one of the caverns the cathedral cavern they have weddings and opera there! At the end of the tour the guide left us to go through a less ‘spacious’ part of the cave so we had to creep through a narrow corridor in the cave ending up with rope bridges to cross. They don’t do that at Wookey Hole! We were shown one of the entrances for the adventure tour and it was just a small hole that you had to climb in feet first then make your way down but it simply looked like a vertical drop!

After visiting the caves we headed to the Capricorn Coast to find a campsite for the night. They are some very beautiful beaches there and we managed to find a campsite right on the beachfront. While we were looking we saw 2 wild emus just walking along in a field! I had never actually expected to see any Emus as I thought they lived in the desert. I should perhaps have been enlightened when the name of the nearest village was Emu Park though... It was all very exciting! At the campsite we finally got a chance to do some washing and have a bit of a sort out. It was nice to have got all the travelling out of the way early in the day so that we could relax a bit in the afternoon. Yeppoon where we stayed is a nice little town but there’s not much about apart from the beach. I’m not sure what the plan is for today but I’m sure we’ll end up somewhere!

xxx