So that takes me up to the start of my trip down south... I got picked up at 8 in the morning and we went up to Mt Eden again, before heading out of Auckland. The bus I booked my ticket through was a hop on-hop off bus so I could stay longer or shorter anywhere I liked, and the bus rides weren't just like getting a standard bus, we did a few visits and excursions to places on the way so it was a good way to see a bit more of the country.
anyway, the first stop was the Coromandel Region. On the way there, we got a taste of our drivers music taste and it was great! Cheesy music including lots of 5ive and S club seven :) I got talking to a girl on the bus and she said she'd bumped into Richie from Five in Sydney showed me his autograph that she asked him for! The Coromandel's a beautiful place, I'd like to go back in the summerso I could enjoy the beaches more, but we had a lovely afternoon at Cathederal Cove. We had a half hour walk to get down to the bach, as its surrounded by cliffs, but it was a lovely walk and the views were amazing.
The next day we headed down to Rotorua via Karangahake gorge to go and see some glow-worms. The glow worms live in the old mining tunnels - it used to be a popular place to find gold in the old days. We stopped off for lunch at a place called Matamata which is near whey they filmed Hobbiton in the Lord of the Rings. We didnt go to the farm that they used, but there was a little hobbiton sign with a statue of gollum next to it on the main road.
When we got to Rotorua, we went to Te Puia which is a geothermal reserve and has the highest geyser in NZ there I think. We saw it erupt, but it was such cold day, it was hard to see through all the steam to actually see the water, but it was impressive none the less! They also had a kiwi house which was nice, they'd changed the kiwi's body clocks to think it was night in the day time (they're nocturnal) so we could see them moving around - they're so cute! Big round balls of feathery fluff! We had a look round the rest of the reserve, seeing the mud pools and geysers, and smelling the sulphur - smelly stuff, that. After that, we went Lugeing. I'd not heard of this before, but it was great fun. Basically you're in a plastic sledge with wheels and handlebars and you race down a hill - great fun! and the track was up a hill so you had to go up there in a gondola and got nice views of lake Rotorua as we went up there.
I stayed a couple of extra days in Rotorua, but the weather wasn't that great so I didn't go and see everything I was planning to, but it was still nice. Our hostel was lovely - the Funky Green voyager, and it had a lovely log fire and lots of board games so we played mastermind (haven't played that for years!), pictionary and scrabble. I also discovered the Fat Dog Cafe while i was there which is a great cafe with LOADS of food available and nice cakes and coffee. i went there a couple of times during my time there! But other than eat, I did go on a little walk around the lake and some of the free thermal reserves that you can walk around. The walk was interesting and hd lots of information boards on the way round with local maori legends and geological information. There were some hot pools that the europeans used to come over and sit in for health reasons, but one of the pools emitted a gas similar to laughing gas, but it also rendered people unconscious and occasionally drowned in there when they passed out!
The next day was rainy again and I didnt want to do anything too expensive, so I went to the Rotorua museum. This is a very pretty elizabethan style building (apparantly!) with lots of beams and stuff. It was built as a thermal spa, used as a place that Europeans visited in the 1900s. The waters around the area were supposed to be able to cure ant number of complaints. Some of the treatments were pretty diabolical and such like. The rest of the museum had lots about Maori culture and loads of carvings which were really lovely and so intricate. Amazing that some of them were carved with stone tools and stuff. That evening was the all blacks vs ireland match so we got a few beers in and watched that for the evening.
The next day I went to the Agrodome farmshow in Rotorua - that was so funny, it's basically a sheep show, where they've got lots of different breeds and tell you all about them. Very funny and cheesy! There were other farm stuff on show as well and I learnt how to milk a cow and got a certificate to prove my new skill! after that we headed off to Waitomo. I didnt go into the caves as I'm dong that later in the year so I had a chilled out afternoon reading.
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