Waitomo Caves and Mount DOOM!!!

Another busy day today - yesterday we hopped in Hyacinth and drove from Rotorua to Whakapapa village (and ski resort). We had a battery problem with Hyacinth so we had to go to a garage for an hour or two so our fridge would work for more than a day - it all worked out fine though and it seems to be functioning properly. Waitomo caves is the home of glow worms in New Zealand. To be honest I had reservation about how interested I would be about seeing Glow worms in their natural habitat but I must admit they were spectacular - like seeing the night sky right up close (that's about as lyrical as I wax I'm afraid). Su wasn't impressed with the post-larval stage of the glow worms which looked like big spiders but at least I got a good laugh at her being at the edge of the boat cringing at the sight of them. We couldn't take any photographs of them so no photos for this part unfortunately.

Next we drove to Tongariro National Park as I had a bee in my bonnet that we were in New Zealand and I still hadn't seen one Lord of the Rings site. We made our way to Whakapapa Village, which is a big skiing area, to see Mount Ngauruhoe which is Mount Doom for all you Lord Of the Rings fans. The clouds were pretty low so it's barely recognisable but if I get a better photo tomorrow I will update:

 

On our way to our campsite for the night (more steak and spuds!) we saw a sign for a trek - being the energetic sorts that we are we decided that after a lunch of noodles (25 cents!) we would hike out to Tawhai falls. It nearly killed us - I wouldn't advice mere mortals to take this walk but myself and Su managed it and it was well worth it in the end:

I tell you - 20 minutes hike is far too much. We were in need of a stiff drink afterwards.

Great!

Triple By-Pass and afterwards a big Fry-Up

A lot of photos here folks so it could take a while to download! Today was a day of activities so we went to the Agrodome just outside of Rotorua and took a few years off our collective lives. First we went Zorbing - for those who don't know what Zorbing is - it's basically jumping into a rubber ball within another rubber ball and being fecked down a hill with a load of water thrown in. Both myself and Su decided to do our Zorbing separately - I though I'd kill Su with my weight and general bigness and Su thought her sharp elbows and knees would render me half the man I used to be. So after a long enough wait we Zorbed! Su's Zorb ball wasn't too transparent so you couldn't see here through it but here's a photo of her afterwards. She's so cute:

I should just mention that the title of this blog is called "Triple By-Pass" because we decided to do a 3 in 1 deal which got us a Zorb, a Swoop, and an Agrojet in one package - all will be explained. With Zorbing, there are three ways you can do it - one being strapped in with a harness (which we couldn't do that day), one going as a couple going straight down the hill (which we decided against for reasons explained above), and one which is a single Zorb on a zig-zag track down the hill. We waited for a lot of people doing it before us and not one had gone off the track. Then steps up McGrath:

I wasn't suppose to go over the hump. It turned out ok though - I was perfectly in control...

Zorbing is great!

Believe it or not, Zorbing was the least terrifying part of the TRIPLE BY-PASS!

Next we moved on to the Swoop. Sounds innocuous but it's not. You are put in a sleeping bag together (don't worry - we were fully clothed) and raised over 40 meters into the air by a cable and then swung at over 130 kilometres an hour over and back. I hope these photos do it justice - looking a Su's face in these crack me up every time.

Someone has to pull the cord to begin the Swoop - if Su had to do it we'd still be up there:

Terror!

Good craic!

We went on the Agrojet after that - which I think is a jet powered boat. The pictures don't really do it justice but it reached up to 100km per hour in 4 seconds. Here's a photo anyway. We are going to do it in Queenstown when we get there which is supposed to be even better (so we hear):

After all that we decided it was time to relax so we went to to Waikite thermal baths for some sun and relaxation. These springs come out of the ground at around boiling point and are cooled by being sprinkled up in the air and collecting in a pool before trickling down into baths at around 38 degrees. I knew it wasn't time for my 6 bi-annual bath but I went anyway. Here's a picture of the boiling stream and waterfall leading down to the baths:

Right - enough was enough. Time to get our grub on so we went back to the D.O.C site and after getting our lake-side camping site we cooked up a storm on the free-to-use public barbecue. We had steak - we had spuds - we had carrot wrapped in tinfoil cooked with balsamic.... heaven!

I mean, with a view like that out your kitchen, could you go wrong?

Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach

We took a bus tour today to Cape Reinga, on the northern tip of the North Island, and what a trip it was! We started off way too early in the morning (7:30am for Gods sake!) and stopped off at Puketi Kauri Forest to view the giant kauri trees - not the tallest trees in the world but the biggest in terms of timber (according to the tour guide). The ones we saw weren't massive but back in the day they were bigger. Here's a photo of a tree!

We then hopped back on the bus and worked our way up to Cape Reinga with our tour guide giving us snippets of information about the region and New Zealand in general - most of which I can't remember. At Cape Reinga we took a short walk to the cliff top underneath a nice little lighthouse (automated - looks a bit like Valentia) and we saw where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific ocean.

The Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean are an hour out of sync (so I'm told) and cause the meeting place to churn up, as you will see in this photo at the top:

We then hopped on the tour bus again and drove along a quicksand stream at Te Paki to see the giant (and I mean giant) sand dunes. Everyone grabbed a toboggan and began the long climb up to the top of the nearest dune and pelted down on our stomachs. You can go up to 80 miles an hour if you don't put on the brakes (i.e. dragging your feet). I decided to give it one more go and I was so knackered afterwards that that was that. It was hard work. The shutter speed in my camera is so quick that the following photo of me and Su barreling down the sand dune makes it look like we are stationary.

Remember kids, speed kills.

Anyway, covered in sand we hopped on the bus again and took a short journey to 90 Mile beach. Funny story - 90 Mile beach is actually more like 60 miles in length - the person who named it often mixed up his 9's and 6's and hence 60 became 90.

Actually I don't know why it's called 90 Mile beach but it is in fact more like 60 miles in length. You can see another rock with a hole in it but it's a different hole in a different rock to the one we saw in the last report.

We then heading homewards and stopped off at Mangonui for something they call Fush n Chups in New Zealand. Not sure exactly what it was but it seemed like some type of small marine creature battered in... ehhh.. batter and serves with thinly sliced potato sticks fried in oil. Yum! Actually not a patch on Burdocks chipper in Dublin but it did the job!

We got home to our car park after a busy day and open a nice box of wine (so much better from a box) and chatted til the early hours (around 11pm). A day of driving ahead of us as we are leaving Paihia and the Bay of Islands and off to Rotorua, roughly 500 miles away! Woohoo!

DOC Holiday

Woohoo! After roughly 500 miles of driving we arrived in Rotorua in the evening. Our initial plan was foolproof - we'd hit Rotorua in the evening, find a car park like we did in Paihia and camp out for the night and save some money. For those of you who don't know, the camper van has two batteries - one for the automotive part of the camper (like a car) and one for the fridge, indoor lights, water pump etc. This battery only lasts for about 2 or 3 days (or so we were told) so it needs to be recharged as a camper van site - which costs money - roughly 30 - 40 dollars a night. These sites have running water, showers, kitchens etc so even though our battery had run out while we were in Paihia, we thought there'd be no point in booking into a campsite in Rotorua in the evening as we wouldn't get the full benefit of the facilities unless we got there early. So, the plan was to find free parking. We stopped into the local i-Site which is the tourist information office in Rotorua and I asked the young girl behind the counter if there was anywhere we could park up for the night. She told me that it was illegal to park within the city overnight and that we'd have to find somewhere outside the city. Hmmm. "Well, ok, can you tell me where we can go outside the city then?" I asked hopefully. "No." she said. I then noticed a certain slackness of jaw on this young girl that I hadn't noticed before. "No?" I asked. "No." she said flatly again. I'm nearly sure I noticed a perceptible blob of drool seeping from the corner of her mouth as the blank look in her eyes got more and more unfocused. Right - so, you've been very informative Ms. Information Office worker. Thanks.

We were in a dilly of a pickle at this time as it was starting to get dark and we thought we might have to bite the bullet and pay for a camp site (can you imagine!). We had heard that the Department of Conservation in New Zealand had camping sites littered around New Zealand and we were under the assumption that these would be very basic and would cost money but would at least be cheaper than a powered campsite so we went to an internet cafe and got a list of them in the area (not sure why the i-Site didn't have this info???). The nearest one was around 40 kilometres away and the light was fading so we hightailed it out of there and went in search. We weren't expecting much. This place was on Brett Road outside of Rotorua - no offence to Brett but the name doesn't inspire visions of lake-side beauty!! We thought we would be in a car park in the middle of a forest with maybe a tap for water. After driving down back roads for about half an hour with the light fading extremely fast we pull in to the D.O.C site. For 6 dollars a night, this is what you wake up to:

New Zealand rocks!

Around Bay Of Islands and Dolphins

We got up early today (well, 8am is early to backpackers) and took a tour on a catamaran around the Bay of Islands. First off we encountered a pod of Bottlenose dolphins which was pretty cool. Normally we could have swam with them but there was a new born dolphin there and it's illegal to swim with them if that's the case. Nevertheless, it was great to see them do their thing - although it was difficult to get a good photo with the digital camera with the delay. However, Su managed this one which was pretty good:

I then discovered the video option on my camera so ended up taking a good bit of video footage - once I get hooked up to a decent internet connection I will post it up.

We went around the different islands around the Bay of Islands - the day was a bit overcast so we didn't get too many good photos but the ones we took of the Hole in the Rock (which is a hole in a rock) came out ok. The first one is from outside and the second is from inside:

We off on another trip to Cape Reinga and 90 mile beach tomorrow so hopefully there'll be another update soon!

Hyacinth Bucket Goes to Takapuna Beach

Well, we got our camper van two days ago - our home for the next 40 days or so while we tour around the rest of New Zealand. We said a sad goodbye to Hastings and our excellent hosts Martin, Catherine, Sam and Bodhi (the dog), aswell as my parents (hi guys!), and heading off to Auckland to pick up the cheapest camper van we could find. We decided to give the van a name as it's supposed to be good luck and seems to be the done thing these days (we need all the luck we can get with this van, that's for sure). Anyway, we decided on the name Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet), a) because it's a Toyota HIACE (hence HIACE-cinth) and Bucket because it's a heap of junk with something like 350,000 miles on the clock. It seems to work fairly well though so fingers crossed.

We drove northwards from Auckland to Takapuna beach for our first night. Takapuna beach is near lake Pupuke (I'm not making these names up) and Pupuke is not pronounced Poo Puke (as in crap and vomit) as we found out. The campsite was right by the beach and quite relaxing but not mad exciting really. The view was nice but the weather was a bit overcast. Anyway, here's a photo of Su sitting outside with Hyacinth:

We stayed two nights in Takapuna to get ourselves sorted with food and essentials for Hyacinth and then drove early this morning to Paihia which is on the Bay of Islands. Poor Hyacinth struggled with some of the hills on the way - scary stuff. We've booked two tours over the next couple of days (one that brings us around some of the islands and lets us go swimming with dolphins and one that brings us along 90 mile beach and we can go sand tobogganing). We plan to take loads of photos over the next few days so I'll update the blog as soon as I can. Cheers!!

New Years night and New Years day

DRINK! It's a terrible thing. However, tradition is tradition so we thought we'd go out for New Years night and get hammered. We decided on a quaint little Irish pub in Havelock North called The Rose and Shamrock. They had a "Pimps 'n' Hoes" fancy dress night on and all the bar staff were dressed either as a Pimp or a Hoe naturally. I was asked by the manager to take my baseball cap off as they were not allowed on the premises - while the nice Playboy Bunny and S&M bar girls pulled beer. Seemingly dressing like a gimp is one thing but baseball caps are just a step too far. Anyway, undeterred we got down to the job in hand and drank Pilsner and wine like it was going out of fashion. As you see by the photos it was a good laugh (excuse the redness of the eyes in the photos - I think my camera is fecked...):

Thanks to Dad for coming to our aide at 3am when there wasn't a taxi to be found. We were gibbering messes by that stage so I can't imagine how we would have got home if he didn't give us a lift.

The next day the sun was splitting the stones and just in case we didn't have enough of beer, a decision was made to have a dinner of beer can chicken. Basically, you get a chicken and a can of beer. Drink half the beer and shove the can up the chickens arse, rub marinade on the outside of the chicken and cook in the barbecue on a lowish heat for 2 hours. Sounds mad (is mad) but tastes great!

You can see the can sticking out of the bottom of the chicken if you look closely.

We hope everyone has a great New Year!