North Island, Full Trip,....aaaaand here we go!

Overall, the north island was a successful trip, we got to do a bunch of really neat and really fun things, I will break it down and share per day, feel free to skim, I will not be offended :D

FRIDAY SEPT 22nd
Jason was arriving back in Christchurch from his south island adventures. We had a bit of confusion and never really met up until quite late in the night. My friends and I had a party to celebrate the end of term.

SATURDAY SEPT 23rd
Jason left early in the morning to pick up our campervan, it took a VERY long time as it was VERY busy. We finally met back up for noon, got some groceries and we were on our way north!

We stopped in Kaikoura and I took Jason to the spot where you can walk out and see the seals, unfortunately they were very far away and we couldnt see much of them. Nonetheless it was a nice stop to relax and take in the scenery.

After this we continued on driving until we got into Picton (the northern tip of the south island).

We had dinner there and then met up with one of Jasons friends, just south of the city. She lives on a farm with her husband and adorable daughter. Its the cutest life, a little house on a beautiful hilly property. We camped out in their driveway and spend the following morning with them before boarding our Ferry to the north island.


SUNDAY SEPT 24th
Jason and I took the ferry over to Wellington. It was a nice ride, quite windy at some parts, but pretty enough.

I felt a little seasick when were were inside only because its set up completely like a hotel, or any other full on building but its MOVING! I was fine out on the decks. That evening we basically just checked into a holiday part outside of the city and cooked dinner and watched fraggle rock.




MONDAY SEPT 25th
We went to Te Papa national museum. It was large and we got tired part-way through so we went back to the campervan to fuel up before heading back in for more. Nicole, Shannon and Amber arrived in Wellington this day as well.

Jason needed to do a little shopping/wandering around the city so I went off with them and we went up the tram. We had a blast at the top when we went playing on some of the most unique playground equipment I have seen since being in New Zealand. It was hillarious and I have no clue how to explain the fun of this moment. Take a look at the contraption:

The group of us met up with another friend of Shannons and we all went out for dinner and drinks. We slept in the museum parking lot that night.

TUESDAY SEPT 26th
Today we drove up to Lake Taupo. Along the way we drove around the national park to the east and went through complete desert and saw some out of place enormous snow-capped mountains. It was neat to see such different landscape. Then we circled back to travel the highway on the west through/around the national park. Jason had heard it was beautiful, and it was pretty neat, we drove up a ski mountain/volcanic cone.
After arriving in Taupo we tried to find the holiday park we'd heard good things about, after many attempts, we realized that it was closed down for renovations.. so we found a nice parking lot alongside the lake, it was a perfect location actually. Nicole, Shannon and Amber were all staying at the hostel right near by and I was able to use their shower (hehe shhh dont tell). I believe we just hung out at a bar and had an early night. Lake Taupo is famous for its trout, I think its funny how much the town worships them, see this lit-up giant statue:


WEDNESDAY SEPT 27th
SKYDIVING DAY!!!!
This was our craziest day. We had a jump scheduled for 11am but unfortunately it got cloudy and it was delayed/cancelled/delayed. We finally got the chance to jump when it cleared up momentarily around 3pm. IT WAS CRAZY!! Such an unusual experience. A lot of pics are on my flickr site. That evening we went to the Taupo Hot Springs, it was nice and relaxing. just sat around the lake and drank and told jokes and talked about how we had jumped out of a plane earlier that day.




THURSDAY SEPT 28th
On the drive out we decided on a whime to check out Craters of the Moon. It was really cool, the funniest part of the whole stop was that we happend to see Nicole, Amber and Shannon there, just by pure coincidence! ha! Today we also stopped off at the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, it was full of the most amazing sights. The natural thermal avtivity of the volcaniz zone cause boiling springs and volcanic gases that mess with the minerals and somehow, create the most amazing bright coloured pools and rocks. There was the most amazing green pool outlined in a thick layer of bright orange rock. The mold on all the tress and plants is orange. There is a bright green crater pool. I have no clue how to explain this all, but lets just say its friggen AMAZING! We saw a geyser go off (it was induced, but still.. it was cool) I could go on about this place, it really made me think I was on another planet, I have never seen anything like this before, EVER.


I totally forgot to mention the ZORB until I was just reading Jason's blog. Ha, I assume not many people will re-read this long account of our trip, but for the new reader, BONUS MATERIAL!! I forgot that we stopped off at the Zorb place. We got into a giant bouncy ball, with a bit of hot water sitting at the bottom, and proceeded to roll down a hill. We could not see ANYTHING and simply tumbled around like two socks in a washing machine. It was hillarious and we could not stop laughing the whole trip down. Eventually we were stopped and they took some silly photos of us (which they later tried to charge $25 for - we didnt get them). All in all, it was a fun experience, happened very quickly.

Later that evening we found ourselves to our holiday park at blue lake in Rotorua and shortly after were surprised by a visit from Shannon, Amber and Nicole. It was great, they took us out to Hell Pizza for dinner
and then we all went bowling at the Roto-Vegas Bowling Joint. At first I was doing pretty bad but all a sudden I started getting strike after strike after spare, it was INSANE, check out the scores: (I'm JDOG)




FRIDAY SEPT 29th
Our drive to Waitomo Caves took us right up until the time we had our black water rafting through the caves booked for, 12 noon. The group of us were rushed in and briefed on the attire and safety information. We had to suit up in full wetsuit (socks, overall pants, under sweater, long sleeve jacket). This was quite difficult, especially to do in a rush, but we finally got dressed. The group was taken up to the river. Here we practised a variety of formations and skills for the upcoming trip. Everyone had their own tube, individual, not a group raft, as the name would suggest. Once we got in the caves the water was cold on the parts of our body which were not covered in wet suit (hands, neck, face). At one point we were all latched up with each other and floating through this beautiful cave lined with glow worms in formations which resembled star formations. I think I would have really enjoyed it, had it not been for the fact that my butt was hanging in mysterious black cold water.
All in all, it was a fun excursion but I dont think its the kind of thing I'd like to repeat. When it was finished, it was very difficult to remove my 'second layer of skin' in fact, the guides had to hold me down and pull pieces off of me, ha.

We were all exhausted and could not handle to do the second part of our adventure which was ATV 4x4 exploring. Jason and I rescheduled for the next day, the others opted out. We spend the remainder of the day relaxing and going into town to get some ingredients for a BBQ at the holiday park. Jason made a yummy veggie dish, as a side note. It was a nice evening. We also spent some time in the hot tub, but playing on the trampoline was definately a highlight for me!
I love trampolines, I really want to own one someday!

After all this fun we decided to go out on a small hike to show Shannon some glow worms, as he was unable to join us on our black water rafting trip due to his lower water confidence. We found some, pretty much right at the beginning of the trail and decided not to bother finishing it up.







SATURDAY SEPT 30th
This morning we cleaned up our campervan, emptied the grey water and toilet etc etc. After we'd checked out we headed to our meeting point for the "Big Red" 4x4 ATV adventure. We were met by Sarah, who Jason had met down in his south island trip, they were on the same helihike. Sarah was such a nice woman, she has her primary teaching diploma and still often does some relief teaching, but has found a more prosperous career in leading 4x4 tours. She made a special tour just for us, because we were unable to make the ones later on in the day. This experience was pretty neat. I was a little tense on the downhill driving because it made me feel as though I might just tip over, but after some practise I learned to trust my faithful big red. I didnt have any eye protection so I often found myself crying patches of dirt out of the poor eyes. We got to drive up and all around a large farm. There were sheep and new-born lambs, literally hours old, all over. I saw a beautiful black lamb, I had never actually seen one before. Everyone knows the old rhyme but they arent all that common. At one point we got to drive through a giant mud puddle, hehe it was fun, we got video of it, I'll try to post it on youtube. Jason and I camped out in the parking lot and cooked our lunch there before heading off for Auckland. We headed straight past Auckland to Devonport which overlooks the city. Here we had a nice walk around. We purchased some fancy hot drinks from a local cafe (soy chai latte for me of course) and since it was closing we had to get it 'to go'. We started walking aorund a bit more and decided to climb Mt. Victoria (just 85 meters or so up) to catch the sunset. The funniest part of it all was that we didnt take the path we just started climbing the side, with fancy drinks in hand and I was wearing Crocs... not good for grip. We made it and it was a beautiful view and well worth the efforts.

After arriving in Auckland city downtown, the difficult part was finding parking for a campervan, its quite large, I have some pictures of it from the outside, but we completely forgot to get ones of the inside, on a complete tangent:

it had enough space in the back for a double bed, a closet which housed the toilet and shower, a stovetop, kitchen sink, counter space, and storage for dishes and food. Anyhow, we finally found parking in this ghetto lot connected to some apartment buildings and a grocery store (this picture is not from Auckland) The real seller on this parking lot was the fact that there was another campervan there. We headed to the Auckland Comedy Club and after finding out that its the ONLY comedy club in all of New Zealand, decided we must check out the late show (since the early one was just beginning and we hadnt eaten dinner yet, it was 8pm) The host recommended a Japanese restaurant down the road and hesitantly on my behalf, we decided to check it out. As Jason has lived in Japan for a year, he knows the food quite well and was intent that he could find dishes I would enjoy. Well, guess what? He was RIGHT! I loved it, it was really yummy and different food. I basically ended up having every vegan dish on the menu (roasted garlic, fried tofu, corn, - all on skewers) We also had a delicious soy bean appetizer and I tried Saka - although I didnt like it much. Jason had a bunch of dead things which had once been living, I'm not sure what, but he seemed to enjoy it. With full tummies we ventured back to the comedy club to catch the 'pro stand-up commedians' late show. There were three comics and a host who also did a bit to introduce and small bits in between the others. Two of the three were American, and had a bit of humour to share, but for the most part, not overly capturing. The third kiwi comic did his entire piece with a guitar and had many, many low points to be honest, the only thing I did find remotely funny in his act was his parody on Emo musicians. The kiwi host was the only guy who really made us laugh, and really think about his jokes later and share them with others, I think thats probably a sign of a good comedian. Jason shared a similar opinion and may soon pursue a career headlining in Auckland =P
Although this was a bit of a bust, it was nothing in comparison to the night we had ahead of ourselves.
Throw your memory back and think about the parking lot I spoke of earlier, now imagine coming back to the campervan at 12:15am to find you are the only parked vehicle left in the dead center of the abandoned parking lot. Now you have to picture the teenage punks hanging out at their cars in the respective corners of the lot listening to 90's rap and wearing their hats sideways. This was to be our home for the evening. It seemed a bit uncomfortable to me, but nonetheless I knew we'd be fine. The biggest kicker was when Jason suddenly remembered his desperate need for internet at 12:30am. Its understandable as he needed to send a speech for his best friends wedding to get read in the immediate future, but still, I was a little uneasy about hanging out in the van alone. In the end, it was a short and uneasy night. Jason was out quite late getting this all done and even when he returend the sounds of the city and constant flow of people left for little sleep. That morning, Sunday morning, when the time changed and we lost an hour, we were lucky enough to then also get a parking ticket just 30mins after our time had expired. I'd say, overall, this was our worst night of the trip.



SUNDAY OCT 1st
Sunday morning we drove out to Paiha, Bay of Islands. We took the east coast and it took us significantly longer than it needed to, but it was a beautiful drive and in the end, I am happy we went that way. It was just pouring rain anyhow, so we werent missing out on doing anything. We went straight to the visitors center upon arriving to plan our next full day. We ended up getting this package which had only just begun October 1st. It included swimming with the dolphins, stopping over at an island, and a cruise out to the hole in the rock, Cape Brett, and stops to the other islands. Shannon met up with us and we took the ferry to Russel Island to climb up and see the famous flagpole cut down by a Maori chief. None of us had battery juice left in our cameras so it went undocumented. We got to the top and the weather seemed ok, until we turned our heads and saw a huge storm coming in. We hurried to the bottom, with a few adventures along the way, and of course in the pouring rain, we finally made it to the ferry and got back into Paiha. We met up with the others and decided after our horrible nights sleep in Auckland, we deserved to get a room in the hostel too, so we did. All of us had a large spaghetti dinner together and stayed warm and dry inside while the largest thunderstorm, and infact only thunderstorm I have seen since being in New Zealand occured outside.
MONDAY OCT 2nd
Today was our big Bay of Islands explore day. It started with a little rough weather and the instructors being unsure as to how choppy the water would be for the dolphin swim, but we marched on and did it anyhow. In the end, it was an absolutely beautiful morning. The sun was shinning and the although the water was choppy, our boat seemed to handle it pretty well, it just felt like a fun rollercoaster really. We found a group of dolphins and I got to be one of the six people who got to hang over on the front of the boat and see the dolphins right in my face.

Shortly after, the instructors started to throw us into gear for jumping in the water with them. We were rushed into wetsuits, snorkels, masks and flippers. Jason and I were put at each of the two tips off the back of the boat and as we drove the dophins actually swam right between us jumping in the wake, it was AMAZING! Then.. all a sudden we were told to jump in and swim as fast we could 10 meters straight behind the boat. It was kinda crazy, no prep, no instruction on how to use the snorkel etc, and we really had no idea was was going on. We were in the middle of the ocean with bottlenose dolphins swimming around us and the instructors just kept yelling at us to stick our faces in the water, to do dives, to sing and be more entertaining for the dolphins. It was kinda stupid how they were yelling at us, they told us if we didnt start doing more we might as well just get back in the boat. The problem was that we were all tired from the rush and swim out, plus it was a freaky, bizarre feeling to stick your face in the water and still be breather through the snorkel - and I've even used a mask and snorkle on several occasions. Despite the ridiculous instructors, it was an amazing experience to see a three meter dophin swim right by you, I saw a few in the mask as they swam under and past me. Jason actually saw one eye to eye above the water.

I lost a flipper, and the instructor was trying to yell to me where it was but there were so many waves and I couldnt see it. I felt kinda like a child in trouble, and got back in the boat for them to help me find it. The only person in our group who did a good job with the dolphins (in the eyes of the instructors) was a fellow Canadian from Brantford, Norm, and he was exhausted but they wouldnt let him back in the boat, it was entertaining, poor guy.

We finally arrived at the island, had showers and some lunch. The boat that was supposed to take Norm and Kelly (our Canadian friends) left without them. It was funny, but they ended up getting to join us on the remainder of our days activities. Another small storm came in while we had our island time but we went on a little submarine ride during that time. I could go on, this was quite a funny ride but we saw lots of fish, and they created some mock submarine drama for us including a fake mine strung beside our window with a huge blue rope, HA!

The weater cleared again for our tour out to Cape Brett, but there were some big waves, or swells as they call them, which made the cruise quite exciting. We saw the infamous 'hole in the rock' of course Jason asked if they had plans of fixing it =D

That evening we reheated leftovers for dinner and met up with Nicole, Shannon, Amber, Norm and Kelly for drinks. We ended up heading to another bars' happy hour and karaoke. Good times were had here, most people did a little song, Jason was pretty funny with his acts, Nicole and I were horrible but had a great time, I was sung to by Shannon,
and we basically took over the bar for the first half of the night.

TUESDAY OCT 3rd
The drive back to Auckland was quite a bit faster taking the other choice motorway. We found our way to the rental place to return our campervan. This drive, stop for lunch, cleaning out the vehicle and getting a taxi back into the downtown to our hotel, actually took the entire day. By the time we got to the Crowne Plaza that Jason had booked for us, it was 6 or 7 pm. Nicole and Shannon met up with us and we headed up to Sky Tower
(unfortunately all the good pictures from this are on Jason's camera and I'm not sure then I will be able to get them off him. Then we headed to this buffet that was recommended by Norm and Kelly (who although they are from Brantford are currently living in Auckland, i think I forgot to mention) It was a bit of a bust, it was just about to close and the food was kinda below average. I had some veggie and chickpea curry, it wasnt sooo bad but definately among the lower end of the scale. We had plans to get some drinks with everyone again but it was already kinda late and we were all just exhausted from the drive etc and decided against it.

WEDNESDAY OCT 4th
Wednesday morning, we had a continental breakfast included at our hotel. It was lovely, we were treated like celebrities. They had a table set out for us and made us our hot drinks. There were all different kinds of cut up fresh fruit, yummy breads, and other things like Salmon that I wouldnt eat but certainly look fancy!
Jason and I basically camped out for the morning in the hotel lobby in order to sort, choose and burn pictures to CD for him to take back to Afghanistan. I ran us some erronds, getting hot drinks, and a T-shirt and socks for Jason's long journey, then we went to get some lunch from the food court. We had a taxi ordered for 2:15pm for Jason to head off to the airport. We got back to the lobby from lunch at 2:05pm and the consierge was waiting for us with his taxi. All a sudden luggage was being transfered, I had to fight to keep mine as they wanted to send it off to the airport with him, we were surrounded by hotel workers and the taxi driver, before i knew it, Jason was looking out the window of a disappearing taxi and he was gone. I had a little cry but the consierge insisted on making conversation with me as I waited the 25 minutes for my friends to meet me. I guess this was a good thing in the end, it allowed me to keep my mind elsewhere until I could get a good hug from my friends. They showed up, we all went out for lunch, and then back to the hotel they were staying in on the other side of the city. We decided to take advantage of the nice weather and try to find a beach. After much lost driving we ended up at the "beach" we'd been trying to navigate our way to... it turned out to be a small parking lot at the end of the water, no sand, no children playing, no sun umbrellas or icecream stands, just a slab of concrete and some dirty water.

That evening we had different preferences for dinner, Shannon and I wanted Indian and Nicole and Amber wanted breakfast food. Luckily, we happened to find an Indian place with a Denny's above it, can you believe it? well, we split up for dinner, but we met back up for hot drinks. We decided to hit the Auckland Casino, we texted Norm and Kelly and met them there. It was good times. Nicole and I both lost $10 within the first 5 minutes, we decided to watch Shannon, who was playing poker. Then we found a $2 coin and thought, we might as well lose it. We went to the 1cent machines. And guess what? We won! $6 so we pocketed the $4 and played the other $2. We went back to watching Shannon and decided to play another $2 from our winnings. This time was crazy! we kept getting free spins/turns and in the end we made back both of our $10's and the original $2. Then we played the winnings and ended up playing for a while, winning and losing. Finally we quit and each took $4 winnings away! Wahoo!! Walked back to the hotel and sleeeeeeept.
THURSDAY OCT 5th
Our last day in Auckland we decided to take the volcanoe hike on Rangitoto Island. Amber had already done it so she opted out and found her own adventures. The three of us took the ferry over and started the hike. It was pretty neat, we were walking all through volcanic rocks.
The hike got a little difficult near the end when it was very steep but it was well worth it when we got to the top and saw the view.
We also explored some lava caves, it was tight but we made it through.

After the ferry ride back to the city, we all met up for a nice lunch in the food court. We decided to check out the Victoria Park Market. It was a bit of a walk away, and we were taking it slow after all that hiking, but it was a nice enough market. It was a across the street from a Victoria park, and since we were all so tired, we ended up going over and finding a patch of grass to nap on before we needed to head to the airport.
We returned the rental car and went to the airport, Christchurch bound. The funny thing is that when my friends booked their flight they neglected to notice that the flight we booked, which had a stopover in Wellington, was only $5 less than the direct flight straight to Christchurch. Wellington was freezing cold and windy. We took a plane that you load by stairs not a tunnel from the airport so we got to feel that weather one last time. The flights were great, I did miss my complimentary cookie, ON BOTH FLIGHTS because I had my eyes closed, but no worries, I was just glad to be back 'home' Carly picked us up and brought us back to Sonoda. Thats it folks! Vacation over!