We had met an Irish girl, Emma, in the hostel in Santiago who had an intinerary similar to ours and who was heading to New Zealand. After a couple of days in Auckland the three of us rented a car and began to explore the North Island. We got a Nissan Sunny that had 253,000 kilometres on the clock! And it showed. The roads in New Zealand are quite windy and everytime we went up a hill, we had to hold our breaths and push the accelerator to the floor. And still only after awhile did it hum into action. The Kiwi drivers are known to be agressive drivers and 100km/h is the minimum speed they travel at, even if the speed limit is less. Our Nissan Sunny can barely hit the speed limit and we are causing alot of traffic lines as we make our way across the country.
Well what a beautiful country it is. Our first stop was in the Bay of Islands, a seaside town on the north coast. There are all sorts of sailing tours offered to see the bay. We just wanted short jaunt out onto the water. Chatting to the girl in the tourist office we managed to catch a bargain. There was a Tall ship, the ' R Tucker Thompson' that did daily trips around the bay but included showing you how to sail the boat. The evening sail had been booked by a school to bring 30kids out. But half of them had gotten in trouble earlier in the day and were punished by not being allowed on the boat. So the three of us got tickets onto the evening sail at a bargain price!! The ship sailed the bay for an hour and a half and we all had to coil the ropes, open the sails, climb the mast etc. It was great fun.
From there we drove down to Hot Water Beach. So named because there is a fault line that runs through New Zealand. And on this particular beach there is couple of metres of sand that sits on top of hot thermal water that rises to the top from the rock beneath. When the tide is out, you can dig a hole and sit in the thermal waters. What a nice way to start the morning!! The local shop rents spades but we were lucky and managed to get find a hole that had already been dug and was full of really hot water.
To date the best experience i have had was the black water rafting we did in Waitomo Caves. These caves are home to countless numbers of gloworms and have even been featured in David Attenboroughs Planet Earth. There are a number of options to see them but we picked on of the more extreme. A 27m repel down into the cave, followed cave hiking, floating on inflatable tyres led us in to gloworms. Living in the darkness these creatures use their light to attract prey. It is like watching the stars on a really clear night. As well as the gloworms the caves have some fantastic stalagmite and stalagtite formations. We got a taste for caving as there were plenty of options to squeeze through tiny cave holes. It is amazing how small a hole the human body can actually fit through!! The icing on the cake was the 30m rock climb to get back out of the cave. What an adrenalin rush that tour was.
Well what a beautiful country it is. Our first stop was in the Bay of Islands, a seaside town on the north coast. There are all sorts of sailing tours offered to see the bay. We just wanted short jaunt out onto the water. Chatting to the girl in the tourist office we managed to catch a bargain. There was a Tall ship, the ' R Tucker Thompson' that did daily trips around the bay but included showing you how to sail the boat. The evening sail had been booked by a school to bring 30kids out. But half of them had gotten in trouble earlier in the day and were punished by not being allowed on the boat. So the three of us got tickets onto the evening sail at a bargain price!! The ship sailed the bay for an hour and a half and we all had to coil the ropes, open the sails, climb the mast etc. It was great fun.
From there we drove down to Hot Water Beach. So named because there is a fault line that runs through New Zealand. And on this particular beach there is couple of metres of sand that sits on top of hot thermal water that rises to the top from the rock beneath. When the tide is out, you can dig a hole and sit in the thermal waters. What a nice way to start the morning!! The local shop rents spades but we were lucky and managed to get find a hole that had already been dug and was full of really hot water.
To date the best experience i have had was the black water rafting we did in Waitomo Caves. These caves are home to countless numbers of gloworms and have even been featured in David Attenboroughs Planet Earth. There are a number of options to see them but we picked on of the more extreme. A 27m repel down into the cave, followed cave hiking, floating on inflatable tyres led us in to gloworms. Living in the darkness these creatures use their light to attract prey. It is like watching the stars on a really clear night. As well as the gloworms the caves have some fantastic stalagmite and stalagtite formations. We got a taste for caving as there were plenty of options to squeeze through tiny cave holes. It is amazing how small a hole the human body can actually fit through!! The icing on the cake was the 30m rock climb to get back out of the cave. What an adrenalin rush that tour was.
1 comment:
Glad you enjoyed yourself Jen! I wondered how you 3 would get on with the kids.... Please free to link to our website on http://www.tucker.co.nz
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