Hi,
So we are currently in a place called Rotorua just south of Auckland. The Kiwi bus so far has been really cool. The staff are friendly and offer you a load of stuff to do on the bus (altho its pretty costly to say yes to everything, so we are trying to be pretty careful about what we book). At the bay of islands we did the fishing trip. 8.30 at the docks we set off into the sea getting a pretty good tour of the scenery. My bad luck at fishing continued and I didn't catch a sausage but Steve caught 2 snapper fish and a barracuda. The barracuda was huge! But we had to throw it back as you cant eat them. Steve has some good photos of that trip so check out his next post. The fish made a really nice lunch with some local chip shop chips!
That afternoon Steve went for a wander. I took part in the poker tournament at the hostel which was pretty cool. Came 4th out of 10 so missed out on a prize but it was a nice was to spend the afternoon. Then a few drinks at the bar in the evening time. And some UNO!!
The day after we headed back onto the Kiwi bus and headed back south to Auckland. We had planned to stay there for 2 nights so we could hop on the free tour bus of the city but it turned out it was full up. We still stayed for the extra night tho and just used the next day to shop for a few essential bits. My toothpaste exploded in my bag so I will have to replace that, but it does make things smell minty fresh so its not all bad!
The trip carried on south to Rotorua, an area which is quite famous here for its volcanic activity. The volcanoes are extinct but there is alot of thermal activity in the area so there are hot pools all over the place. The smell is pretty bad when you get close to them, kind of eggy. They look pretty cool tho.
On our way down to Rotorua we stopped at some caves which had previously been used for mining. The caves were pitch black and we had no torches so that was pretty hard work getting through. Fun tho and some cool scenery.
On the bus trip south we got to choose two activities, zorbing or downhill luge, which the bus group get discounts on. We chose to do the luge. It was pretty cheap and definitely alot of fun. We took a kind of ski lift up to the top of a mountain and rode go-kart type racers down the hill. There were three courses, a scenic one, intermediate and advance. We did all three and the
advanced one was great. Even got a bit of air at one point! At the finish there are conveyor belts to put the carts on. Being clever I rode right to the edge of one. Steve came in fast behind me and shunted me onto the belt. So I had to clamber out of the kart whilst I was getting sucked up the conveyor belt. Fun times! In the evening we went for a kebab, and found a local kids park. Being children we spent a good hour there and managed to catch a good sunset.
We chose to stay in Rotorua an extra day which means we pick up the trip with the next bus coming along tomorrow. Since we had a free day today we decided to organise some more activities ourselves, so this morning we arranged to get picked up to go Zorbing. I did the dry zorb where you get harnessed in and pushed down the hill solo. It was a really great experience rolling down the hill. It went surprisingly fast as well, would definitely do it again. Then from there we were picked up and taken to whats called off road NZ.
I chose to do the speed circuit and raced around a time-trial track with Steve riding shotgun. On the journey up there were some pretty heavy showers so the track was very wet. The lap time's were not going to break any records (I blame the water!), but we got some pretty cool aqua-planing and skids. To finish off the day we went to a local hot-pool/spa place which we were told was pretty good. It was fun sitting in the different pools, some were really hot! Some were acidic and some alkaline. They're suppose to all have different healing properties and that kind of thing.
We have some new Irish lads who have just checked into our hostel room. They seem pretty cool. They're on the trip so we will probably have a few drinks tonight with them. Next stop is a place called Waitomo which is famous for black water rafting. We either get to do that tomorrow afternoon or the day after. Will try and upload some photo's of that once its done.
Very hungry now, so going to look for some dinner in a while. Hope everyone is well.
Will post again soon. :)
So we are currently in a place called Rotorua just south of Auckland. The Kiwi bus so far has been really cool. The staff are friendly and offer you a load of stuff to do on the bus (altho its pretty costly to say yes to everything, so we are trying to be pretty careful about what we book). At the bay of islands we did the fishing trip. 8.30 at the docks we set off into the sea getting a pretty good tour of the scenery. My bad luck at fishing continued and I didn't catch a sausage but Steve caught 2 snapper fish and a barracuda. The barracuda was huge! But we had to throw it back as you cant eat them. Steve has some good photos of that trip so check out his next post. The fish made a really nice lunch with some local chip shop chips!
That afternoon Steve went for a wander. I took part in the poker tournament at the hostel which was pretty cool. Came 4th out of 10 so missed out on a prize but it was a nice was to spend the afternoon. Then a few drinks at the bar in the evening time. And some UNO!!
The day after we headed back onto the Kiwi bus and headed back south to Auckland. We had planned to stay there for 2 nights so we could hop on the free tour bus of the city but it turned out it was full up. We still stayed for the extra night tho and just used the next day to shop for a few essential bits. My toothpaste exploded in my bag so I will have to replace that, but it does make things smell minty fresh so its not all bad!
The trip carried on south to Rotorua, an area which is quite famous here for its volcanic activity. The volcanoes are extinct but there is alot of thermal activity in the area so there are hot pools all over the place. The smell is pretty bad when you get close to them, kind of eggy. They look pretty cool tho.On our way down to Rotorua we stopped at some caves which had previously been used for mining. The caves were pitch black and we had no torches so that was pretty hard work getting through. Fun tho and some cool scenery.
On the bus trip south we got to choose two activities, zorbing or downhill luge, which the bus group get discounts on. We chose to do the luge. It was pretty cheap and definitely alot of fun. We took a kind of ski lift up to the top of a mountain and rode go-kart type racers down the hill. There were three courses, a scenic one, intermediate and advance. We did all three and the
advanced one was great. Even got a bit of air at one point! At the finish there are conveyor belts to put the carts on. Being clever I rode right to the edge of one. Steve came in fast behind me and shunted me onto the belt. So I had to clamber out of the kart whilst I was getting sucked up the conveyor belt. Fun times! In the evening we went for a kebab, and found a local kids park. Being children we spent a good hour there and managed to catch a good sunset.We chose to stay in Rotorua an extra day which means we pick up the trip with the next bus coming along tomorrow. Since we had a free day today we decided to organise some more activities ourselves, so this morning we arranged to get picked up to go Zorbing. I did the dry zorb where you get harnessed in and pushed down the hill solo. It was a really great experience rolling down the hill. It went surprisingly fast as well, would definitely do it again. Then from there we were picked up and taken to whats called off road NZ.
I chose to do the speed circuit and raced around a time-trial track with Steve riding shotgun. On the journey up there were some pretty heavy showers so the track was very wet. The lap time's were not going to break any records (I blame the water!), but we got some pretty cool aqua-planing and skids. To finish off the day we went to a local hot-pool/spa place which we were told was pretty good. It was fun sitting in the different pools, some were really hot! Some were acidic and some alkaline. They're suppose to all have different healing properties and that kind of thing.We have some new Irish lads who have just checked into our hostel room. They seem pretty cool. They're on the trip so we will probably have a few drinks tonight with them. Next stop is a place called Waitomo which is famous for black water rafting. We either get to do that tomorrow afternoon or the day after. Will try and upload some photo's of that once its done.
Very hungry now, so going to look for some dinner in a while. Hope everyone is well.
Will post again soon. :)
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