Part 4: The Road trip (Part 2)

On the way to Taupo we stopped at the Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland and spent just over an hour walking around the park, the first thing we did was take a seat at the front of an amphitheatre full of excited tourists waiting to see the parks geyser erupt, it started slowly, bubbling and trickling before suddenly spurting powerfully upwards in quite a spectacular fashion, after taking plenty of photos of the views and many wonders within the park we continued on to Taupo.

The next day was one which we had both looked forward to very much as we were both due to do a skydive, it would be my second and Amy’s third. We were amazed at how long they spent trying to sell us extras and then no time at all talking about the safety aspects or techniques involved in what were about to do, we literally signed some forms, decided what altitude we wanted to jump from (12000ft or 15000ft) put our suits and straps on and got straight onto the plane. During the climb up to 15000ft Amy made the mistake of telling the tandem instructor she was strapped to that this would be her third skydive, he then got quite excited and decided that they would spin, back flip and do some tracking during freefall. Tracking, Amy informed me, is when you plummet towards the earth head first at high speed by getting into a certain position with your arms to your sides, the combination of all of these techniques left her feeling a little queasy but with no regrets.

I was the last to jump, the feeling of freefall was just as exilherating as it had been the first time I did it, once the chute was open I had the opportunity to see the view of the enormous Lake Taupo, the lake is actually a crater filled with water and was formed by a volcanic eruption a long time ago. As we floated towards the ground my instructor gave me control of the parachute, he asked me to pull hard to the right, I did as he asked and we swung out to an angle and spun around and around, we did the same in the opposite direction and then, in keeping with the typical laid back kiwi attitude he said ‘See that building over there bro?’ pointing out the base which we had taken off from, ‘Take us home, any way you want!’ he then gave me full control, I guided us in the general direction of the base and once we were floating directly over it I pulled hard on the controls to turn around and set us up for the landing, the opportunity to do this made the experience all the more special and I felt the same as I did after my rafting experience, I wanted to go straight back up and do it again and I was sure it would not be the last time I would jump out of a plane.

Next on our itinerary was Napier, a town which was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1931 and was subsequently rebuilt during the art deco era. While we were there we saw our first kiwis at the aquariums kiwi house and later on walked down to a stage by the beach where there was a man preaching but not a single person around to hear what he had to say, except me and Amy. Later in the day a jazz band took to the stage, I’ve never heard such a cacophony in my life, I thought perhaps they were trying to be experimental but no, they were actually just the worst band in the world. After fleeing from the jazz we found another lone star restaurant and once again ate until we could eat no more and were entertained by a bizarre dancing hippy outside who seemed to have a fixation with rope.

In the morning it was time for one of the longest drives of the trip which would take us to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. A couple of days prior to this I had spoken to a contact of ours ‘Peter Brown’ recommended by my sister Heather, we emailed him asking for advice about what to see and do in Wellington and got more than we bargained when he replied with an offer of a place to stay for the night which we gratefully accepted. With some difficulty we had already booked one night in Wellington so Peters offer allowed us to spend two nights there, we had been wondering why it was so difficult to find somewhere to stay and were duly informed that it was because the rugby sevens were on, being a football fan, this meant nothing to me. Upon arrival in Wellington we discovered that the sevens tournament is a big deal and that almost every single person attending the matches dresses up in outlandish fancy dress costumes, we saw people dressed as teenage mutant ninja turtles, danger mouse, men dressed as women, Mario & Luigi, Scrabble letters spelling ‘Kiwis’, lions, Susan Boyle, Superheroes, Avatar characters, Elvis and many more, it was the perfect time to visit the city as the atmosphere was amazing and the weather couldn’t have been better. The first thing we did in the city was visit Wellington zoo and we arrived just in time to see Tahi, a kiwi who had got his foot caught in a trap and had to have his leg amputated, he has been living at the zoo ever since and is brought out once a day. The rest of the zoo was great and really quiet as it was a week day, Amy was happy that she got to see some monkey sex and I was happy to see some red pandas. Later that day after checking in at the hostel we rode the cable car to the picturesque botanical gardens.

On our second day in the capital we visited the famous Te Papa museum, home of the ‘colossal squid’ and many other amazing things. We went into an earthquake simulator (too tame I thought), the ‘High ride’ a movie that you watched while sitting in moving hydraulic seats which jerked around in time with what was happening on the screen (rougher than I expected, but fun), walked through a mock up of a glow worm cave and a ‘bush walk’, we were both really impressed and spent a lot of time in there looking at the various exhibits. In the evening we made our way to Peter Browns house and met him and his lovely wife Carol for the first time, they looked after us really well, gave us lots of advice about the city and country and lots of lovely food, beer and wine. Peter had emigrated to New Zealand in the 1970’s and Carol is Wellington born and bred so they were both very knowledgeable about the area, the next morning Peter and Carol took us out for a scenic tour of the city after which we thanked them for all their help and hospitality and set off for our next destination the Tongariro national park, on the way there we found the worlds largest model carrot, it really was quite impressive.

We didn’t do any sight seeing in the national park area as it was getting late when we arrived, it was just somewhere to stop and break up the drive a bit, everyone that we encountered was there for one thing, hiking, not our cup of tea…

Our next destination was Waitomo, we were heading there for one thing only, ‘Black water rafting’ at the glow worm cave. For those not familiar with the concept, ‘Black water rafting’ involves descending underground into a cave while using a giant tyre inner tube to float through some of the deeper water, it also involves jumping off of the occasional waterfall which is a lot of fun. After getting our wetsuits, boots and helmets on and practicing some important techniques such as paddling, the waterfall jump and the eel which involves everybody holding onto each other to form a chain so you don’t get lost in the darkness, we climbed down into the cave. Some of the rocks were wet and covered in moss and you had to be very careful not to slip and fall, we were soon floating through the caves stream and had left the daylight behind, the only light available now was from the torches mounted to our helmets and the glow worms themselves. We found a suitable place to stop and all turned off our lights, as we looked up at the cave ceiling in the pitch black darkness the glow worms were clearly visible, it was a beautiful sight, very much like a star filled sky. We did this at various points and each time the guides gave us all sorts of facts about the glow worms and their home accompanied by oohs and aahs from our group, on one of these occasions one of the guides produced a bucket of what she explained were chocolate covered crickets and then picked on an innocent member of our group and told him he had to eat it, as we stared expectantly he psyched himself up and bit its head clean off only to discover that it was actually a Cadburys chocolate fish, a popular kiwi treat, the rest of them were distributed and quickly gobbled down and we floated onwards in high spirits.

Towards the end of the trip we were all instructed to turn our lights off one more and find our way out of the cave by following the trail of glow worms with minimal help from the guides, we made it out safely but only just as right near the end Amy nearly got her head taken off by a stalagmite as she floated backwards. After a hot shower and a free bagel and mug of soup we were ready to head to Otorohanga where we stayed in a holiday park for the night, we had a great time staying there, I was particularly pleased to find that they had a gym and then later to discover the ‘Jumping pillow’ an enormous trampoline type platform which was extremely bouncy, we must have jumped on the damn thing for at least an hour and it was not the first time during the trip that we felt like big kids as we larked around with not a care in the world.

Sadly, the next day it was time to drive back to Beach Haven to drop the car off as Phil and Fees friends were visiting from the UK and needed the car for a few weeks, we took a detour on the way to visit something that is unknown by most tourists and as we discovered most kiwis too, ‘The toothbrush fence’. I don’t know why or how it started, the whole thing really is quite a mystery, it was a fence a few 100 metres long with many toothbrushes hanging from it, donated by passers by, at least a thousand toothbrushes of all shapes and colours, it was quite a site to behold and it was in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, the only sign of life was a lonely bearded goat who watched over us as Amy laid her toothbrush to rest.

And that is how our first big road trip came to an end, however it would not be long at all until we were off on another big adventure but that’s a story for another blog.

Part 3: The Road trip (Part 1)

We got up early in preparation for our north island road trip and set off for our first stop, Pakiri Beach. On arrival we made our way to a small ranch which Amy had been looking forward to going to, while Amy went out on a horse with one of the guides from the ranch I headed to the beach, Amy and her guide rode along the beautiful beach, up and down sand dunes, through wooded areas and saw some amazing views. I found my way to the beach and thought how lucky I was that I had it all to myself, the water was as blue as can be and the sand almost pure white. As it was so incredibly hot I decided to go for a swim in the sea, I say swim but actually I just got battered around by the waves and soon gave up.

Later on we drove north to Paihia in the bay of islands region, the weather was perfect and there was only one other guest at the motel we stayed in, meaning that we got the pool and communal cooking facilities to ourselves for our two night stay, this was good as it meant that there was no one around to witness me attempting to dive into the pool only to belly flop and hit the water face first, no one except Amy anyway who has probably uploaded the photos to facebook so the whole world can laugh at me!


The next day we went out on the ‘Hole in the rock’ boat tour to get a closer look at the areas many islands, we were expecting a gentle cruise but were surprised to find that the boat was very fast indeed, the sea was rough and choppy at times and we had to cling on to the rails to avoid being thrown overboard. We could have just sat inside but that would have been boring and it was worth getting wet for the amazing views. The boat slowed to a halt as we were lucky enough to spot some dolphins swimming side by side in front of the boat and a little later when we stopped at the town of Russell to pick up some more passengers we got to watch some local kids perform the haka.

The conditions at sea had worsened by the time we arrived at the hole in the rock, a large island with a hole right through the middle big enough for a boat to go through, the captain wasn’t sure whether to go through or not but after some hesitation he went for it, it was a rough ride as we travelled straight through the island and out the other side, people all around us were screaming but ourselves and the boat made it through unscathed, later on we saw another boat approach the hole and then decide not to go through, our captain joked that whoever was in control of that boat obviously hadn’t been drinking as much as he had. After a short stop at the beautiful island of Urapukapuka with its green hills and clear water it was time to head back to Paihia, by the time we got back we both had some pretty crazy hairstyles due to the force of the wind as we rode at the front of the boat.

We headed down to the wharf the next day to try parasailing, we paid for a tandem ride so that we could go up together, all the way up to 1200ft we chatted away as if it was a perfectly normal everyday thing that we were doing, the view from that height was amazing and we both really enjoyed the experience. We were soon back in the car heading back to Beach Haven for the night, we drove along the west coast, through a huge forest and around steep and winding roads along the way and eventually came across ‘Café Eutopia’ an ongoing project which was an organic café shaped like a boat from the outside. Inside it had themed rooms, art and books to buy and looked unlike anything we had seen before.

Rotorua was a place we had both been looking forward to visiting for a long time, as we walked into the town centre in search of something to eat we noticed that it was very quiet indeed, almost like a ghost town in places, there was hardly anyone around in the streets and then we noticed the notorious Rotorua aroma, due to the geothermal activity in the area you would now and again catch a whiff of a rotten egg smell which took some getting used to. One of the first things we did was try out some Segway machines on an outdoor circuit, we had loads of fun zipping around the track, weaving in and out of cones and even more fun when the owner turned the speed restriction off. Next it was time for my first zorbing experience, something that I had wanted to do for a long time, Amy didn’t fancy it so she took photos as I was strapped into a huge rubber ball and rolled down a hill, it was disorientating and over pretty quickly but was a lot of fun and one more thing I could tick off my list of things to do in New Zealand.

The previous days activities were good fun but one of the main reasons we had come to Rotorua was to do some white water rafting at the Kaitiaki river with its 7 metre waterfall, the highest commercially raftable waterfall in the world. We were picked up in the morning by one of the rafting guides, he explained that due to some heavy rainfall the river had risen to its maximum level, when we got to the waterfall there would be nearly twice as much water going over it than usual and the water would be moving faster. Upon arrival at the rafting base we put on our helmets, boots and life jackets and made our way to the top of the river, after a brief speech and a maori prayer from one of the guides it was time to get in the raft. We were introduced to our guide Corey who realised that me and Amy were the only people in the raft who spoke fluent English so he put us up front, later on he got quite strict with the rest of our crew, one of them didn’t know the difference between forwards and backwards and they all seemed oblivious to the danger we could potentially be facing, they just smiled and nodded at everything he said. Somehow we made it over all three of the waterfalls safely, rafting over the 7m waterfall was a real thrill but we were all a little nervous about falling out of the raft as we went over, we got a good face full of water as we were enveloped by the raging white water at the bottom but as we emerged everyone was still in the raft. The whole experience was amazing but over to soon and I wanted to go straight back up the river and do it all again, I’m sure it won’t be my last time.

Later that day we discovered our favourite restaurant so far, ‘Lone star’ a cowboy / western themed bar / restaurant which gives you huge portions, we left full to bursting and went and watched a local band for a while, out of sympathy more than anything as there was only one person watching them when we arrived, once some more people arrived we walked to the local park, Rotoruas geothermal nature caused the pools of water and mud there to bubble and steam, once we had taken advantage of a naturally heated public bathing pool it was time to return to the hostel and catch some sleep before setting off for Taupo the next day.