End Of New Zealand
Travel Location: Auckland,New-Zealand
Hello,
It has been about 3 weeks since i wrote one of these blogs, which is partly due to a lack of time (and effort). The past 3 weeks have flown by and i am obviously not going to mention every place I have been to or explain every activity I have done.
Anyway I last wrote to you all in Queesntown which is one of my favourite places I have visited on this trip. I am now in Auckland which is the largest city in New Zeland (although Wellington is the capital). We handed back the campervan in one piece (with a slight scratch from some dodgy reversing at the Cathedral Cove car park) on Friday. Hiring the van and touring this beautiful country was fantastic although having spent a whole month living in a van we are now glad to have our own room in a hostel!
After Queenstown we visited Wanaka which is a pretty little town on the shores of a pretty big lake. Here the weather was fantastic and we went horse riding in the codorona valley. After Wanaka we headed over to the West Coast of the South Island to the Franz Josef township. Along the west coast of the south island there are 2 massive galciers. The fox galcier and the Franz Josef galcier. We opted to spend half a day taking a guided tour around the glacier which also involved 3 hours of climbing the galcier. This was a really incredible thing to do especially seeing how the ice was blue in some parts as it was so cold, however it was spoilt slightly by the pouring rain which soaked us throughout!
After Franz Josef we headed north and back towards the east coast where we stopped off at Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura. Hanmer is a small town which bases itself around a naturally heated spa and we both enjoyed realaxing in the pools here. Before leaving the South Island we still had time to visit Nelson which is the oldest city in new Zealand and is also meant to be the sunniest palce in NZ…so ofcourse it was raining when we arrived but true to form it did brighten up!
We then left the South Island on Novemeber 30th we left the South Island and headed to Wellignton on a ferry. The ferry journey took around 3 hours across the Cook Straight (everything in Australia and New Zealand seems to have some reference to Captain Cook). When we arrived in Wellington it was pouring with rain again and infact for the first 5 days we spent in the North Island it rained for some part of the day. Wellington seemed a very nice city although we only spent one full day in the capital. In Wellington we visited the Te Papa musuem, which is the national museum of NZ, I didnt expect much from the museum and we only visited it to escape the rain but it had some very good exhibitons and well worth visitng.
After Wellington we visited Taupo. Taupo is set on lake Taupo unsurprsingly, which is the biggest lake in NZ. From Taupo we went to Tongariro National Park, which is the setting fro Mordor and Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. The day we went though it didn’t seem too intimidating, although we couldnt see the top of the Volcano as it was too cloudy. Following Taupo we headed an hour north to Rotorua. We both loved Rotorua! The town does smell of Rotten Eggs slightly due to all the sulphur in the air, but after an hour or 2 you get used to it. The smell is due to all of the sulphur coming our of the ground from the thermal pools and geysers which surrond the town. Even in the city center you can see part of parks sectioned off due to the steam rising straight out of the ground. We visited a couple of the thermal parks around Rotorua which were fascianting. It was great to see pools of boiling mud exposed to the air. Some of the pools we visited had a temperature of over 100 degrees. Whilst here we also went to a Maori cultural evening, we watched a performance of cultural dances including the haka and had some good food which was cooked using the traditional methid of a ‘hangi’. After we sat drinking hot chocolate watching geysers spurt water high into the air.
The following day was a real highlight as i finally got to do a sky dive! I had tried to do one the previosu couple of days but they had been cancelled due to it being too cloudy. The instructor who would be diving with me was from Bolton so we had quite a bit to chat about already. Anyway doing a skydive was fantastic!! I jumped from 15,000ft which is the highest you do a tandem skydive from in the world. The free fall lasted around 60 seconds before we opened the parachute, the scary moment was when the parachute opened and it was slightly tangled, but luckily the instructor managed to sort it out and we floated to the groudn safely. Below are a couple of photos which show me doing the dive.
After Rotorua we visited Commendel Peninsula and Cathedral Cove which was a lovely beach. However we then returned to Rotorua as Libby now wanted to do a sky dive as well…partly due to me not being able to shut up about it. After Libbys skydive we left Rotorua for the final time and headed to the Bay of Islands which is very near the top of the North Island. The weather here was fantastic and it was a lovely spot to relax on the beach. After 2 days in the Bay of Islands we headed south to Auckland where we returned the campervan. We are currently staying in a hostel in the city center. Today is our final day in New Zealand. The temperature is about 26 degrees and the sun is shining. Tomorrow we fly to San Fransisco where i’m sure it will be alot colder! I dont know if i will be able to write another blog before i return home, so if not i hope you have enjoyed reading them.
See you soon!
Chris x
