A summary of New Zealand, Pt 1
Ok, so, as I mentioned, I took the Kiwi Experience bus right the way through New Zealand, stopping in all the good bits along the way. I took 24 days to do the whole country, which isn’t much time at all, so I spent most of my time on a bus and I woke up in a new place pretty much every day. It all started in Auckland, which is probably quite a nice city if you get to know it, but as a tourist with just a few days to see it, I couldn’t find much of interest, it reminded me of Southampton, and I just wanted to leave. I did, however, get out to Minus 5, an ice bar, where everything, from the bar to the seats to the glasses you drink out of, is made of ice. I thought it was awesome.
Day 1 on the bus took us to Whitianga via Cathedral Cove. There isn’t a lot in Whitianga, but there’s a lot of nice scenery around. The main attraction came the next morning, when we went out to Hot Water Beach: underneath the sand a hot spring flows into the sea, so parts of the sand are too hot to walk on and boiling water bubbles up along the tide line. If you dig a hole, it fills with hot spring water. Mix in some sea water to keep the temperature down a little, and you’ve got your own hot tub. We chilled out here for a few hours and then headed on for breakfast.
For the rest of day 2, we traveled to Rotorua, via the place where they filmed Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. Hobbiton wasn’t very exciting, but Rotorua is cool: the whole place is full of active geysers, which makes everything smell of sulphur but makes for some awesome scenery. I spent the afternoon relaxing in the hot tub outside our hostel. In the evening we went to a Maori feast and saw some traditional Maori dances. The poi they do is awesome, very different to the Western culture. The food was also awesome, but while it may have been cooked in a traditional way, I’m not sure that a roast dinner (including mint sauce) was very traditional. I could be wrong.
Day 3 saw us on a trip to the geyser park to see some of the largest geysers around: they spray water 30 feet into the air for hours every day, amazing stuff. They also had kiwis there! The kiwi is, in fact, the most useless of all animals: it is facing extinction because even rats prey on it. The poor thing doesn’t stand a chance. We headed to Waitomo, home of the famous glowworm caves, and stayed in a funky little lodge where we were treated to twin rooms and a barbeque.
Day 4 was a day for blackwater rafting through the caves. This involved us wearing ridiculous wetsuits, getting into rubber rings, and floating through dark caverns using our lights as little as possible to see the glowworms. They look amazing: hundreds of spots of light on the roof of every cave we entered. Later we headed to Taupo, widely considered the best place to skydive in New Zealand, but we were denied our fun by the weather so we headed to a hot spa instead.
On day 5 we got some good weather in the morning so we went out to the Tongariro crossing: a 7 hour trek over mountains featuring some incredible views, including views of Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings. Absolutely stunning scenery, but it was hard work for sure. We were given crampons in case the snow was bad, but it wasn’t, which I was a little disappointed about. I slept well that evening.