The North Island!
On 15th June 2017 by HelenWe departed Auckland at 8:35am on Friday morning and made our way out of town to Hot Water Beach. Our new driver is (another) Jared, once again a cool guy full of banter. The drive was a pretty short and snappy 3 hours. We arrived early afternoon in time for low tide and headed straight to the beach with shovels and dug our little pits full of steaming hot water to lie in or paddle in. In some points the water was almost boiling.
Once we’d been to the beach we went to Cathedral Cove which is where Macklemore filmed one of their music videos. It’s a beautiful little cove spoilt into two sections and the Bay has loads of islands to look at.
The following day we departed for Waitomo. Waitomo is a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere with a population of 80, a coach of 40 people therefore gave them a 50% population increase for one night. The only thing at Waitomo is the caves where you can see the glow worms. I chose to take the guided walk and boat ride which was beautiful. The caves were absolutely stunning and vast in size, the boat ride was short and sweet but you could just see thousands and thousands of glow worms covering the ceiling, it was magical! There were a range of other options to see the glow works where you go caving and there’s zip wires and absailing in the dark, however it was over double the coast of mine and I saw exactly what I wanted. (No pictures were allowed in the caves so this postcard sums it up perfectly).
On to the next destination…Rotorua. This’s town has a lot of volcanic activity and has a lot of sulphur in the air so it’s a pretty smelly place. We had two hours to explore the town. It’s a very pretty town with a big lake which kind of reminded me of Anecey in France, there’s a lovely church which plays host to a window with Jesus dressed in a Mauori cloack. The town is pretty small but it was the first town we have been in since Auckland smit was nice to be somewhere which had a bit more happening.
We were picked up around 3:30pm and taken to Tamaki Maori Village for a fantastic evening of learning about the Maori culture. We were greeted in a traditional way and had our feet blessed before entering the village, then we were sung a traditional welcoming song and we had to sing one in return which was Don’t Stop Believing (we weren’t winning any competitions). After the song we had afternoon tea before being taken to the tradition welcoming with other guests. This was performed by the Maori worriers and the Chief, it was incredible. Following this we were welcomed into the village to learn about the Maori culture and we went to a number of different stations to learn about tattoos, games, worrier fighting, music and of course the Hakka – though sadly only the boy were doing this. We were then told how our dinner was cooked in underground pits before we had a show with traditional music, fighting and the Hakka dome the right way! Then it was dinner time and we ate so well! Lamb, chicken, vegetables, there was also fish, stuffing, bread (obviously some of these I couldn’t eat). We then had to sing an alphabet song in the Maori languages to the rest of the guest (again…interesting). The other guests left the village after dinner but we stayed the night. We stayed in huts decorated in the traditional way with wall paintings and carvings, we learnt about all the Gods and then we were allowed to ask any questions we had about the Maori culture. Later in the evening we played tradition Maori games which warriors use for training then the bar and hot tubs were open and we just spent the evening partying! It was a brilliant night.
We left early the next day and after another shorts stop in Rotorua we went to Taupo. I was absolutely gutted as I wanted to do the Tongariro crossing which was cancelled the whole time we were there due to snow, minus 10 temperatures and avalanche warnings. However we all had a pretty heavy and late night in the hostel bar that evening to make up for it. Elise and I had a look around the town which is small but full of lovely shops, I even managed a gym session one day. The following morning as we left Taupo Jared took us to the National Park to do an optional walk if we wanted but it was so cold that myself and one of the other girls went to the hotel we stopped near and had a coffee and lunch overlooking mount doom.
On we went to the next location River Valley. It was so beautiful here we stayed in cabins in the middle of a valley. We had amazing homemade (gluten free!!) food including roast dinner, breakfast and cottage pie for lunch before we left. The evening was another late one and we all hung out in vey common room by the fire until 2:30am just chatting and drinking. The activities were either white-water rafting or horse ridding both were expensive so another chilled out couple of days suited me. None of us though were too happy as the fire alarm went off at 4am and we all had to evacuate.
We left at mid day and travelled to Wellington. The drive was over 4 hours so we passed the time watching films. We got to Wellington in the evening so most places other than bars were closed. It seems a great city and reminds me a lot of a mini London in the way it’s set out. Although not able to see much of the city as we only have a night before we move to the South Island the sunset on the way in was amazing!
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