New Zealand - Kiwi Experience

Hi,

We have just begun the Kiwi Experience which is a kind of hop-on hop-off tour bus which takes you around the north and south islands in NZ. We had to be on the bus this morning for 7.10am so another pretty early start. Still recovering from our night out on Tuesday in Auckland but we had a chilled out day yesterday. They were giving out free Domino's pizza in the hostel which was pretty cool.

Still havent mastered the art of early starts in hostels. I was pretty sure I'd packed my bags properly the night before but come 6am I was still looking around for stuff and packing in the dark! Don't think I've left anything so far!

The trip today was to the northernmost area of NZ, called Waitomo. It was about 3 hours drive. Our hostel is pretty cool, and we're sharing with some guys, Jamie and Luke who we met in Fiji. Seem to have been following them around a bit, and they're on the same bus tour as us so might bump into them a bit more.

The drive was cool. The weather and the scenery looks very similar to the UK. Its around 16C today and raining on and off, so reminds me of home. NZ is a really green place, and the city Auckland, which is supposidly their most populated city (around 25% population), is pretty small. So I expect the other places we are visiting are going to be pretty quiet. This place is by the sea and is very nice.

No real plans for this afternoon. I spotted a sign for a poker game at the hostel so might check that out. Tomorrow we have booked in to do some fishing in the sea. Hopefully catch some good fish. We will probably leave for the next town in 2 days.

New Zealand is a great place for activities. We are probably going to do a hike as well here. In the next few weeks we want to try Zorbing, a bit of mountain-biking and we are booked in to do Black Water rafting soon as well. Also, there is an area called Franz-Joseph where we will check out the glacier and maybe hike around that a bit. I might have to put off doing my parachute jump until Australia just to make sure my shoulder is up to it. Looking forward to all the stuff in NZ thought! Will try not to do any damage again, I think I've had my fair share.

Well that's all for now, will post more soon.

Take it easy