Waitomo Caves, Rotorua, Wellington and Picton

I  hope you enjoyed the last blog. It's somewhat of a different style, combining sentence and short form together, but hopefully it gives you a taste for what we have been up to! Again, my apologies for spelling and grammatical errors. It's tricky to self edit on the iPad so this'll have to do!

Our next stop was Waitomo Caves (more specifically a company called Blackwater Rafting) where we repelled 27 metres into a cave and we were able to float down the pitch black water on inner tubes! We had little head lamps on our helmets buT at this point turned them off so that we could see the millions of little glow worms...the coolest thing! The whole adventure was 5 hrs (including driving to the caves and suiting up in full on wet suit gear) so towards the end we were getting a little chilly. Our guide Amy handed out cups of hot juice (surprisingly delicious) and three pieces of chocolate to give us a bit of energy to get out of the cave. The only way out was to climb what we had just repelled down. Jordan of course was up in a jiffy while I took just a wee bit longer, but still made it up in under 5 minutes. The caves were well worth the money we spent and we would definitely recommended it to everyone! We were one of two other couples that did this little adventure. One of the couples, who was on their honeymoon from Ireland, were on a six week adventure stopping in  Fiji, Australia, NZ, LA, and Dallas...all in six weeks!! It was unbelievable...they had flown into NZ for only four days and were planning on seeing the North and the South Islands...not entirely sure how they were planning on doing that as Jordan and I are finding that one month is not nearly enough time to be ale to spend in NZ.  (I think if it weren't for family and friends back at home....I can see my mom tearing as I'm writing this...we would probably live here for a while since we love it so much! But don't worry Ma, we are coming home...eventually!). 

After Waitomo Caves, we drove two hours south to Rotorua (Roto meaning lake in the native Maori language and rua meaning two). Going a little off topic here, the majority of town names and lakes all have Maori names which is very similar, I found, to Hawaii and how their towns are all named in the Native Hawaiian language...too cool!  Anyways, Rotorua is the adventure spot on the North Island and has all sorts of activities including Zorbing (which was first invented in NZ) and luging. Rotorua also has a whack of thermal activity where you can actually see mud bubbling in the middle of the city!  They have thermal pools all over the town which absolutely wreak of sulphur...so much so that we kept on driving when we pulled into one of the places you could have a thermal bath! Isaac and Mia, who I will be referring to a lot in these blogs re NZ , recommended use to do the luge in Rotoruaa. Essentially you are on a little toboggan with bicycle handle bars and you zoom down a windy ski hill...let me tell you, we had an absolute blast!!! I've never had so much fun on a little toboggan than on this luge track....we were definitely going the fastest out of anyone on the track and we would race each other down the hill! Jordan won twice (because I let him..didn't want to damage his self esteem) I won once. Apparently there is another luge track on the South Island, so we are hoping to hit that up before we leave...so much fun!!

We also had Wendy's for the first time in a year!!!! NZ has so many things from home that Australia doesn't have so we are feeling a but closer to home (even though we are further than ever!). Here's a list of things that NZ has that Australia didn't for home:

Queen Anne's lace

Wendy's

Burger King

Fruit loops/Cheerios

Dodge and Ford trucks

Nature valley bars

Bagels 

Starbucks (had a gingerbread latte yesterday....yum!)

Trivial to everyone at home but having these things around us make us feel a little bit closer to home, which during the holiday season is nice! Haha

Anywho, after Rotorua we drove on to Taupo were we ended up finding this incredibly hot thermal river where we bathed in...well sort of. It was so hot that you could only stay in for a couple of minutes but nevertheless, it was really cool to be swimming in a hot river! We spent the night at a free campground called Reid's something rather and ended up driving straight to Wellington (the southern tip of the north island). While driving into the city we spotted a caravan park (of sorts) in the middle of the downtown...right on the water!! We ended up staying there that night and enjoyed a (much needed) hot shower. I ended up falling asleep at 7:45 for the night! I think it might by endless days of fresh air but I never have a problem falling asleep! The next day we wandered around Welli enjoying the free Te PaPa museum and their free Internet! We were able to catch up on all that we had missed and even write a few emails to back home! (It's crazy how so much happens in such a short amount of time...but at that same time, it's nice to be completely disconnected from the digital world!). 

After the museum we wandered the Sunday markets and even checked out the Hobbit exhibition they had going on. As some of you know I'm sure, I loveee The Lord of the Rings trilogy (yes, a little bit of a geek in me) and the prequel to these movies, The Hobbit, was made in NZ recently. Anyways, they were  hosting the world premier of the movie only a couple of days after we left Wellington (sad face) but on this day, they were showing how they did the make up of the Orcs (scary creatures in the movie)...Dad, I'm sure you'll appreciate this! The whole make up process takes three hours for each person (sometimes they had over 300 to do in one day!) and at least an hour or two to take the make up off. We watched this process for a bit while one of actors answered questions about the movie and about Peter Jackson (the director) who he referred to as PJ. It was so interesting! (Jordan was a good sport about this as he is not nearly the fanatic that I am!). 

That night at 8 we caught the three hour ferry to the South Island that dropped us off in Picton. We slept in a parking lot that night...surprisingly there were no "no camping" signs, so we took full advantage...even cooked our breaky there in the am!). Random sidetracking here but this town had the craziestttt toilets! Everything was electronic to the sliding door, the lock and unlock, the toilet paper, the soap dispenser, the water (which when turned on would flush the toilet) and the hand dryer. Oh, and did I mention that jazz music was turned on once you entered and you were thanked by the toilet gods when you exited for using "Ezeeloo"?....like I said, crazy! Jordan was in love. 

We then carried on to the Marlborough Sounds, reached by a beautiful road with some fantastic views of the islands. We found a beautiful little private beach were we went for dip in the freezing ocean! After, we drove west to a town called Nelson where we enjoyed free internet from Makkas (McDonalds). We were able to FaceTime my family for a little bit but then I think the employees switched off the Internet bc we were using up their bandwidth...or it could have been because we didn't buy anything... But hey, it's expensive here! Like I was telling my family, a Big Mac meal here is $12.80!)

Thanks to Mia and Isaac, again, we had NZ's best fish and chips (they were delicious) and found a beautiful campsite by the river where they stayed on and off for three months! One spot in the river is even deep enough to dive I ( I'd say at least 8-10 ft deep), so we busted out the shampoo and had a much needed river bath! We loved this campsite so much we decided to stay two nights. The days were filled with jumping in the river and reading our books on the cushions from our van...hippies to the max, but it was by far the most relaxing day we've had yet!  Now that we are on the South Island and we've got three weeks, we are taking it a bit slower and soaking it all up!

Well, that's it for now..hope you enjoyed!

North Island, New Zealand

Ok, we are back! Now that we have started travelling again, I'd like to keep on top of the blog as much as possible. The following post is an accumulation of the past week. Since our Internet access is few and far between, they won't be regular and unfortunately until I can figure out how to upload photos, there won't be any photos either. However, this gives you a bit of a taste of what we are doing! Enjoy! (Ps. Please ignore and spelling/grammar mistakes as I am writing this on the iPad).

We got up at 5:40am after only 3 hours of sleep after my Gde ball...amazing!

We said goodbye to 41-43 Bourne st and took a quick last look around, it was somewhat sad to leave the gong....we loved it there!

We then headed to the train station for 6:18 but then realized that it didn't actually come until 6:45! Damn, could have got a few more minutes of sleep. Jordan slept on the train ride there (2 hrs) and then we dropped off our one jammed suitcase at the storage lockup where a friend of ours, Ashley, would pick it up on the Monday and bring it back to Canada with  her...we owe you ash!!

Waited at the airport for 3 hours..my need to be early had evidently rubbed off on Jordan who planned this leg. We then flew to Auckland with Air New Zealand...highly recommended! The safety video was all LOTR and we both actually watched the entire thing...so cool and very smart!

When we landed in Auckland it was freezing and raining. Since we landed after the campervan rental placed closed (such a pain) we had to pay $32 bucks to get into Auckland, $22/each to stay in a hostel and another $30+ bucks to get back to the airport area to pick up our home for the next 29 days. After picking up the van, we drove around getting breaks and groceries/supplies for the next week or so. We then drove up north to the town of Puhia, in the Bay of Islands district, where we spent the night at a campground for $20. When we first arrived in Puhia we immediately went to book an overnight boat trip on "The Rock"- which came highly recommended by our good friends from home Isaac and Mia who lived in NZ for a year or so. After looking our trip we went back to our campsite had some din (chewiest steak we've ever had) and headed over to the local pub called Shippey's-an actual ship...very cool! 

Turned in for an early night...still exhausted from the Gde ball I think...we partied hard!

Well, woke up this am on a boat called The Rock. Surprisingly I slept like a baby and was not motion sick at all..yay! The night prior we jetted off on this overnight tour boat and got to fish off the back and ended up having a late dinner with the crew and fellow passengers. We also went night kayaking and saw the phosphorescence in the water (algae that glow when you touch the water...think Disney water! Very cool!) However, I was freezing this entire time and despite the on board fired, I couldn't shake the cold feeling. The next am we woke up and had NZ traditional porridge (same as home) and went snorkelling for some sea urchins. I, however, already feeling a bit under the weather, decided not to venture into the freezing water. The air temperature was probably only 17 degrees as well and pouring rain. Jordan did go in but was back in a jiffy after collecting eight spikey sea urchins that we later ate (their eggs which tasted like slimy salt and looked like an over saturated crouton). After that , we ventured up a mountain in the pouring rain...very cool but again, freezing.

 We then were back on land by 3pm and driving north to the Coromandel Peninsula. That night we stayed at a beautiful campsite that was at the bottom of a huge mountain. Going off track a bit, NZ is such a beautiful country. I can't even begin to describe what it lookalike by it encompasses so many features from, other countries into one. First of all, if you hAve seen LOTR, those little (and massive) green rolling hills with little "stairs" going up them actually do exist...duh, the film was shot here! On top of the rolling arm hills/mountains, there are rivers and beautiful ocean drives everywhere. I have never been in such a green country. Completely and utterly green everywhere you look.

Anyways, after spending the night in Thames, we drove to the Peninsula and man was it beautiful! Our main goal however was to go t the Cathedral Cove, apparently stunning. But since we had been driving forever and we so caught up in the scenery, we drove way, wayyyy passed it. Unfortunately we drove too far to turn around and ended up continuing on to Raglan for the night. Raglan, well, it's a pretty town ill give ya that but not a whole lot to do. However, since the whole boat trip the day prior, I was getting pretty sick and having (and still) the worst allergies ever. Not sure how I got the short end of the stick and Jordan went swimming n the freezing cold and is fine but that's the way the cookie crumbles haha. 

We ended up spending the night at the local, and only campsite. In NZ there are very few places where you can damp for free. They have no camping signs everywhere and if you do and get caught, which you will, it's a $200 fine. So, each night we've had to pay for 'accommodation' even though we sleep and cook from our van. This, in turn, has added on a whole other cost that we were not accounting for. Not entirely pleased about this but what can ya do?

Anyways, the next am we went to Kawhia (pronounced kaf-ee-a) to check out the hot water beach!  There is a very popular and famous beach called Hot Water Beach, however, we heard through Our friends Isaac and Mia that this one in Kawhia was much better and we might find ourselves the only ones there...which we were! In short, there are old volcanic remnants that lay under the sand and heat up the water like a hot tub. When the tide goes out, you can literally see the water boiling up through the sand! We just dug a little tub for us to sit in and voila, our own personal hot tub with a view of the ocean and mountains. The water was so hot that we actually got a little bit burnt! The beach also has black sand so walking on it was somewhat painful. We had to wear flip flops and even then it was incredibly hot. Jordan decided to try and test his limits and ran..literally sprinted...down the dune in bare feet and burnt his feet so badly that he had blisters! 

Later on the afternoon we drove to Waitomo Caves to book our black water rafting trip. More about that tomorrow! We carried on to Te Kuiti where we found a beautiful spot to park the van for the night...alongside a river on a reserve. Best part- it is free and there are no signs saying we can't camp here! If we had more time, we definitely would have stayed longer....beauty spot!

Well, that caught you up to the last few days...more to come about Waitomo Caves and Rotorua soon!