Last few days in Auckland

The majority of New Zealands population live in Auckland, so as you can imagine it's bigger, busier and louder then the rest of the country. 

We were a little annoyed that we ended in Auckland as we didn't have any money left to fully enjoy the city, we were also very eager and excited to get to Fiji that we didn't really throw ourselves into the place as much as we should have. 

The main (down town part) city is quite small and after walking around all the main attractions in a day there wasn't really much else to see. We had a look at the tower, the art gallery, the main shopping street and found a nice park on a hill. We were told about the Eden mountain that we could climb. It was quite far out of town so required a bus. We were thinking to do this on our last day but we spent our last dollars on the new 50 shades of grey film (wasn't worth it). 

We were only in Auckland 2 days and 1 of them was spent washing and preparing for Fiji so it was a bit of a flying visit in the end. 

Anyway's New zealand has been awesome. We have done some crazy activities here (like jumping out of a plane). I know i have learnt that i am braver then i thought. Cj has realised he is a bit of an adrenaline junkie (it's his fault we swung off a cliff). We have definitely spent way over our budget here and it has turned out to be our most expensive country because of the amazing things we have done. 

The next morning we made our way to the airport to catch our flight to Nadi, Fiji. 

To the north and a not so good tour.

It took all day to get to Paihia (pronounced Pie-here as i was corrected by the bus driver). We left at 7:30am and arrived at 4pm. The second half of our bus drive from Auckland to Paihia was not fun. The bus driver was the biggest twat ever. He was rude and very uptight, not towards us specifically but towards others. First of all he nearly killed an old man as he yelled at him to hurry up whilst he hobbled as fast as he could and almost tripped over across a very busy road. The old man only went to the loo quickly which apparently made the bus driver 2 minutes late. Then he had the cheek to ask a woman with a baby, sitting directly behind him if she could move seats if her baby starts crying as it'll distract him. Bearing in mind the front seat is probably the safest place for a car seat as it had a barrier it could wedge in-between. And it was on this journey we decided to sit at the front, right behind him. 

Anyway, rant over. We arrived in Paihia and loved the look of the place straight away. Its a small seaside town in the warmest part of New Zealand, so it was pretty hot. We checked-in to our YHA (posh!) hostel. We stayed in a 6 bed dorm in the chalet. The layout was quite odd. Luckily we got in there before the remaining 2 people and chose some good beds. 

We hadn't eaten all day as for some reason there was no 'lunch' stop on the bus journey. normally there is but because we had to change to another bus half way through, we had no time to grab some food. We were starving. We found a cheap Italian restaurant above a shop. It didn't look posh at all (it was very cheap) but actually served the most delicious food. 

The next morning we woke and grabbed some more cheap food on the pier. An english breakfast (called Hansen's)  was £6 and it was good. After this we made our way to the wharf ready for our swim with dolphins tour. This was something on our bucket lists, oh and it was valentine's day so we thought we'd fill the day with something. I have swam with them before in Florida but this tour was completely different as the dolphins were wild. This also meant it was hit and miss as to whether the swimming happens but as the tour is called swim with dolphins we were pretty excited to get in the freezing cold water (with no wet suit this time, i thought the seal swim diving gear was bad enough so i have no idea why I'm doing it again).

We boarded the boat and set off pretty quick. We looked around and thought the set up of the boat and tour was a little strange. For example, we couldn't see any snorkel gear and the tour guides didn't look like they were swimmers/swimming. It wasnt long before we saw a pod of bottlenose dolphins. They were amazing, huge and really playful. Everyone on the boat started to get really excited as we could see about 4 people already in the water with them. Then the captain announces that we are not aloud to swim with these dolphins as there were a few babies/teenagers with their mum's. If we are in the water, the babies will want to interact with us and will miss their feeding time (they feed 8 times a day) and this is not good for their wellbeing. We completely understood and respected the dolphins health but there were people in the water, why are they aloud in?.

I think a few people asked the captain this as he then announced that the people in the water were from their own private boat (yes, they were filthy rich with a really nice posh catamaran...so jealous)  therefore do not have a special license and cannot be fined. If we went in the water, the tour company would be fined. It's annoying when the rich get experiences like that for free just because they can afford their own boat, we pay for it and still don't get the privilege. The dolphins were getting really close and really interacting with the people in the water. It was amazing (and annoying) to watch from the boat, everyone was ready to jump in as soon as we got the go ahead.

Unfortunately, we never got the signal. We moved on to find some more dolphin pods. After half hour we found another pod, they came pretty close but were swimming around. We were also not aloud to go in the water with this pod as they were in the middle of the sea and swimming too much...dont ask?? You could see on peoples faces that it was a confusing situation, nobody really knew what to do with themselves. Some people were geared up in wet suits and snorkel kit just waiting around. Luckily Cj and i still made the most of seeing them from the boat but we were wondering what the hell this tour was exactly. 

After 15 minutes of roaming around the sea the boat starts to head towards an island. The captain tells us that the island is owned by te tour company and that its a really pleasant place to relax with a bar and that we are stopping here for half hour so basically get off the boat...WHAT?? now i feel really stupid for not reading the small print. Cj and i are angry. We did not sign up to buy beers at their island bar, this tour is about dolphins. We guessed that there would be no more looking for dolphins and definitely no swimming as the tour was due to end in an hour. We got off the boat and just sat on their island beach feeling a little peeved and disappointed. More because of the let down of the tour, how unprofessional it was and the misleading of marketing then because there wasn't much dolphin activity involved. 

We got back on the boat and we could sense the atmosphere was pretty low. There was a lot of unhappy faces. 

Once we arrived back on land we decided to google the reviews (something we wish we'd done before) the tour had a good 5 star rating (as you do see wild dolphins) but everyone said that they disnt swim an that it was a misleading tour. So now we know why the tour guides don't look like swimmers, its because they don't. 

It was a bit annoying ending New Zealand with a tour that was our worst as all of the tours here have been amazing experiences. It was also annoying knowing how amazing swimming with wild dolphins would be and its still on Cj and mines bucket list. We are going to see if it can be done in USA and if not, we're coning back (but doing it in Kaikoura as apparently is better)

We were not planning to eat out but as it was Valentine's day we thought we'd go back to the cheap Italian restaurant. Cj even splashed out on a glass of wine for himself. I decided to splash out on the famous Kiwi Tip Top ice cream. My flavour of choice was marshmallow and coconut. 

The next day we got up in time for lunch and grabbed some food at the rib shack. It was market day so we had a look at the craft stools. One stool  belonged to the cutest old lady, she was making paper beads. She had a little chat with us, telling us all about her beads. 

We spent the rest of the day exploring Paihia, chilling on the beach. In the evening, we decided to not cook again (the kitchen in the hostel was tiny and always busy) so we found a nice thai restaurant. 

Our last day in Paihia was a travel day so after our favourite Hansen breakfast we got the bus to Auckland. 

Dizzy heights of Lake Taupo

So with a bit of a hangover we finally made ourselves out of bed to catch our early morning bus and start our 6hr journey to Lake Taupo.

After several bus changes, and a couple of dead arms from Sam using me as a pillow we made our way to Rainbow Lodge Hostel. Decent little place, although its at the top of a gigantic hill. I've never heard Sam swear so much in such a short space of time!

On arrival we checked in and got a weather check for the next few days. It's here that we are taking on our adrenaline activites. We are booked in for a sky dive and a canyon swing!

Our first days comes to an end and we are shattered from travelling and the rugby. An early night is needed in preperation for our sky dive at 0900hrs tomorrow morning! 

At least that was our booked time. Turns out the clouds had decended on Taupo and looked like they wouldn't budge until early afternoon! After waking up early with adrenaline pumping we did our first weather check..."Come back in an hour they said"...5hrs later and we are still waiting. The nerves are really kicking in now!

With nerves comes the hunger and I'm starving now! So we crack open some lunch expecting to be delayed till late afternoon.

"Are you ready to go in 15mins" came a shout from reception. With a face full of pasta I replied "yesh" as we packed up our lunch and headed out to the hummer that had come to pick us up!

We travelled in style to the local aiport with a bus full of German virgins (first time divers). We arrived and signed our lives away and picked our video package. We were suited and booted and met our dive masters who would be pushing us out at 12,000ft.

After some brief intros an opening in the cloud emerged, next thing I know we are being bundled into the plane and started our accent up to our dive zone.

As we reached altitude the first few Germans jumped out,  expecting to go next I get ready, only to be tapped on the shoulder to say we are going to go to 15,000ft! Result! More freefall time for no extra coat. Sam wasn't so happy jumping 15,000. she was adamant she wanted to do 12,000 from the begining. Now she had no choice!

Up we went on Oxygen masks. As sam shuffled forward  I blinked and she was gone. Hurterling to the ground at terminal velocity. I soon join her as the cold wind whips my face and the fresh air fills my lungs!

The next 60seconds are indescribable. So here is a video that shows what happened next..

Sam's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znu45br3bM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Cj's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291z8VgWPrw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

After pulling various faces my feet touch the ground and its over. My third sky dive and Sams debut.  Right whats next...

The next day we got up early for our next challenge. Here we were going to be throwing ourselves off a cliff face into the crystal clear waters below!

We are kitted out and tied to a huge bungee rope that hovers over the cayon
We are then strung out several meters before we here a count down begin. 3...2...ahhhhhhhhh

We hurtle towards the water below free falling 50ft before we are scooped up to nealry 180degrees. We swing back towards the rock face the wind hurterling through our hair and lungs, as we slow down we mange to take in the amazing views of the canyon and the river below. Breath taking. Litterally.

To calm the heart rate we took a scenic walk to the Huka falls. Finally a manly waterfall to take some photos of! We return to the hostel feeling like we have accomplished a lot in technically just a few minutes! A busy few days as we hit the hay.

The Maori village and Geothermal pool

We drove an hour away to Rotorua. The first thing that hit us when we got off the bus was a horrid smell. I thought someone had cracked open a bag of rice snacks. 

We walked to our hostel, Rock solid backpackers. It was an old sports centre converted but still had the climbing wall. We checked in and started walking towards Sala Street where we had booked ourselves onto the living Moari village tour. It was about a 45minute walk and we soon figured out that the horrid smell following us around was this place. It's full of geo thermal pools as it's placed next to an in-active volcano (its already exploded).

We arrived at the Moari village and started to walk around. First of all we had a look at the mud pool. The smell was so strong in this village. Cj actually felt a bit queazy. I can only describe the smell as rotten eggs. Thevmud pool was bubbling from the thermal ground. 

The Moari village was really interesting. We watched a show where they did their traditional dancing and the Hakka. One of the dances was with Poi's. I really like it so i bought a pair for $10. I'm not that good...yet! 

We joined our tour at 3pm and we learnt that the earth's crust is only 13 metres thick in Rotorua. The water in-between the layers of the earths crust is being heated bu the mantel and causing stream to erupt and mud to solidify and boil. This is the cause of the horrid smell which is the break down of sulphur within the Earths crust. And the only way for this smell to be vented is cracks in the Earths crust. 

The water is actually really good for dry skin and psoriasis as its natural minerals and boiling hot. The Moari traditionally bathe in the thermal water as they can take the high temperatures. 

The Maori also make holes with grills in the ground and use the steam to cook their food. It's very healthy but takes all day. They were also cooking corn on a cobs in one of the hot pools. It only took 5 minutes for him to cook it. 

It was a very educating day out. A bit of a Geography lesson. 

After our tour we trekked back into town to make our dinner and move into our dorm room. 

The next day we visited the local thermal park. Again, a very smelly place. We looked in a few of the souvenir shops and just chilled out...kind of. We decided to start booking up America which was quite stressful. Cj hates booking accommodation. 

Our bus the next day set of at 7:30am so we had an early start. 

(the hot pool where they boil corn on a cobs)

The Wellington Rugby Sevens

We set off on our naked bus (its the name of the bus company) from Nelson to Picton where we were catching a 5 hour ferry to the north island. 

The ferry ride over was actually a nice ride to the north. The boat had a cinema like room so we just watched 2 movies and then we were in Wellington. Luckily we could see our hostel/hotel from the port so we didn't have to walk far. We stayed in a place called Down Town Backpackers which was a converted hotel. It was huge. A lot of dorm rooms and cafe and a pub. As we were mainly in Wellington to cheer on the England boys we decided to upgrade from a dorm to a budget private room (again, only $3 more then the dorm rooms) we guessed that the hostel was going to be full of drunken kiwi kids in fancy dress for the rugby sevens so we thought we'd avoid dorms. 

We had a total of 5 days in Wellington (New Zealand's capital). For the first 3 we explored the very small city. One thing that we did learn about Wellington is that its called windy wellington for a reason. Literally, hat losing, knicker showing wind...if you are wearing a skirt. It happened all the time and Cj looked like Sonic with his wind swept hair style. 

Overall we weren't too impressed with Wellington. It was a bit boring and we felt 3 days was too long. We took part in a free tour of the parliament building. That was quite interesting, England (especially the Queen) is still very involved with New Zealand's parliament. 

We wondered around the shops. It was a Tuesday so we took advantage of the cinema's cheap tuesday deal and finally watched Wild for like £4. We have been loving our exchange rate.

On our third day exploring we saw signs saying 'rugby sevens parade' it looked like it had been and gone so we thought we'd missed it until we heard roaring whilst in Burger King. We sat upstairs and actually got a good view to the high street. We saw our English boys on their parade float. We gave them a cheer and they waved back. Whilst we were buzzing for the rugby we decided to visit the fancy dress shop to get our patriotic flags. 

But before this, Cj decided he wanted his haircut so he went to the barbers whilst i stayed in Burger king (it has free wifi). He came back about an hour later with rage and shock on his face. He just told me we've got to go back to the hostel, so i just followed confused. 

Cooking dinner in the hostel- Before Cj's chop!

I looked a bit closer when back in our room and noticed that his beard was half the length with a lil goaty style and he had no eye brows. The barber went to town with his scissors. Cj was not happy. 

After some more trimming of the beard Cj managed to make it look more fashionable but he was so upset he'd lost his 2 month growth. So i learnt, never to get on the wrong side of Cj's beard, and exactly how attached he got to a bushy hairball. 

After this drama we eventually managed to sort out a fancy dress outfit for the sevens, just with a moody Cj. This turned out to be a lot more effort then imagined as the fancy dress shop was rammed. Everyone was clearly last minute outfit planning. 

That night, the night before day 1 of the Wellington rugby sevens our plan of staying in a private room to avoid the drunken kiwis back fired. Our room was next to a dorm as we Shared a bathroom and the dorm full of lads was pretty loud at 2am. We missed the memo of a sevens night out before the first game. Anyway, we grabbed a fry up in the cafe, painted our faces and joined everyone else in the pub for our first rugby pints (before midday). I say pints, i only managed 1 but Cj had 3. 

We made our way to the westpac stadium where the sevens was taking place. We knew England was competing and we knew USA, New Zealand, Fiji, France, South Africa, Scotland and Wales were playing for sure. (there were loads of other teams too).

I bought these tickets as a birthday present for Cj. He is mad about the famous NZ All Blacks Hakka so i originally wanted to try and get tickets to an All blacks game. I knew this may be hard as they are the best rugby team in the world. My second best option was the sevens as the All Blacks (2nd ranked rugby sevens team in the world, south Africa are 1st) were playing. 

We were surprised that the stadium was only half full. Compared to the sevens in Twickenham filling 80,000 seats every year. Westpac was a lot smaller with only 30,000 seats. This did have one advantage as it meant we could sit anywhere we wanted. So, we sat on the front row in the sun. The atmosphere on both days was actually pretty buzzing considering the empty seats. 

England beat Canada but lost to New Zealand on their first day but they did ok as they came second in their group. Cj got a lot of attention on the first day due to his patriotic make up. He may even make the local paper. 

England played New Zealand at 9pm so it was a long day. We should have gone out along with everyone else but we were knackered. We could not handle day drinking along with 8 hours of rugby. It didn't sound like the  kids next door made it out either. 

Day 2 of sevens. We woke for round 2 knackered but we painted our faces ready for England v Fiji. 

We strategically sat away from any Fijians. Fiji had been playing very well, they are beasts and were looking like they were going to win the tournament. They had a huge fan base, pretty much half the spectators were waving a Fiji flag. 

So we watched quietly not expecting to win, we then started to cheer a bit louder and we waved our flags turning heads as England knocked Fiji out the games. We made it to the semi finals. Whooo!

Walking around the stadium showing off our England flags we were loving day 2 of rugby. 

Our next game was against Scotland. When this game started at around 5:30pm we faced the reality of everyone chanting Scotland. No one liked England. There was even a few 'freedom' chants. There was surprisingly lots of scottish flags waving about as they had quite a crowd compared to the 3 England flags waving about. Thankfully we sat right behind an english family so we were not alone. It was actually one of the most heated/entertaining games throughout the whole 2 days. Even for the rest of the supporters. Thats how much everyone dislikes England. Scotland was definitely very popular (mostly because we knocked Fiji out and half the spectators were Fijian). The score was pretty much neck and neck for 6 minutes of the game (the games only last 7 minutes) until Scotland scored a try with only 30 seconds to go. So whilst everyone in the crowd was celebrating Scotland's win, the english sat intensely watching the games last 30 seconds and booomm...we jumped for joy (all 10 of us) as we scored a try to bring the game to a draw then another straight away in over time. Sit down Scotland you are out! The crowd went silent. It was a good moment waving our flags as we made it to the final. 

The final wasn't until the end, about 9pm so we had a while to wait. We decided to walk about and get a hot dog. By this time the crowd were a bit tipsy and we had some banter towards us. Mostly people still cheering Scotland on in front of us. It was funny though. Our final was against New Zealand. It was pretty obvious the All blacks would win, they are very good. We decided to sit away from a big group of Kiwis as the beers were fuelling and supporting England may not go down well. 

We lost by quite a few points. The All Blacks are too good. At the finale ceremony the All Blacks took their tops off and performed the Hakka. I was so glad we got to see it performed as thats what i wanted Cj to see. If you hang around until the very end the rugby players walk around the arena shaking your hand. So we stayed and we got to meet the English boys and some of the All blacks. That was pretty cool. 

All Blacks player

All Blacks captain with the cup.

We ended the rugby weekend by hitting the street party. Wellington installed big marquees on the harbour and made them into outdoor clubs. Cj got refused entry for one, apparently he was too drunk (or just had the english flag painted on his forehead), we went to the next tent. It was a pretty good night out. We ended in McDonalds (we got a photo with the best fancy dress costume at the sevens) and passed out ready for an 8am alarm. 

Overall, i think Cj enjoyed his birthday present.