I'm in Wellington!

I'm five days into the kiwi experience and I've made it down to Wellington. On my way I have seen many hills, many sheep and bucket loads of rain. In fact bucket loads may be a gross understatement. The tap has been constantly on pretty much. Despite that the country is still looking beautiful and I'm enjoying the journey.

Day 1 we headed out to Coromandel Peninsula. We got off the bus to take a walk down to a secluded beach by Cathederal Cove.

We were blessed that there was no rain while we were off the bus. After trekking all the way back up to the bus, we headed over to Hot Water Beach.

Here you can dig your own hot pools. Unfortunately the tides weren't working for us so it wasn't possible. Plus it had begun raining so I enjoyed the view mostly from the bus. We went for another walk through an old gold mining area.

I don't know how or why but we ended up taking a walk through one of these mines despite not having any torches. It was actually worse than the caves in Vietnam. It was worth it though as we got to see some glow worms. It looked like there was a starry sky inside the cave. We made it to Mercury Bay that evening. After a big meal and watching ANTM, I headed to bed as we had an early start the next day.

From Mercury Bay we headed over to Waitomo. Waitomo is the place where you can go Black Water Rafting in the glow worm caves. I signed up to do the Black Labirynth which was tubing and climbing in the caves. On our way there we were told that the black water rafting had been rained off and that the caves were now flooded. I has half glad and half disappointed. As we had time to kill we went for a bush walk and our driver, Bods, taught us a load of stuff I've forgotten about the plants and caves there. As there was pretty much nothing else in Waitomo, we headed to Curley's Bar that night. It was a nice warm pub and a couple of us left to go to bed before the rest of the group decided to go and check out the 'haunted' hotel.

We were awoken at 7am by Bods who let us know that the Black Water Rafting was back on. Natascha and I were picked up from the hostel and taken to the rafting centre. The driver (who was also our instructor) told us that they still didn't know whether the rafting would go ahead or not yet. I got all dressed up in my lovely wetsuit and I can tell you that I looked rather attractive in all the gear.

Once the whole group was dressed up and ready to go we headed down to the river. As we had to jump down a waterfall when in the cave we had to practise in the river how to jump with our tube. One by one we jumped in. I can tell you now that the water was freezing and I have no idea how I managed to grin like that for the camera.

We got to the cave enterance and I began to wonder whether I actually wanted to do this. I decided that actually, I valued my life a bit too much but I'd paid 95 dollars for this so I was gonna get my money's worth.

The enterance was tiny and the water was gushing in pretty fast. Once in there and walking through I began to feel more comfortable. My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light ( we only had the torches on our helmets) and I'd got used to the small space inside the cave.

I got to a bit where we tubed down a bit. I got in my tube and started rushing down the cave. It was so cool. Until of course I went flying out of the tube and got a mouth full of water. Luckily, I saw the funny side and couldn't stop laughing. By the time I joined the group, we'd stopped moving. The instructor comes rushing back and says that we all have to get out the way we came as the next bit of the cave was flooded up to the ceiling.

We had to turn back and climb out the way we came. Problem was that the water was coming in pretty quickly and fighting the urge to rush out of the cave was not the best idea. It wasn't easy, but we eventually made our way out of the cave. Once back at the center, it was great to be able to get a hot shower and free hot soup and bagel. Thankfully I got a full refund on the trip so I got my little adventure free of charge!

I'm going to finish this off here as I'm running out of time and it's dinner time and I'm, well, starving.

Day 1 of Kiwi Experience

I'm currently in Whitianga at this small family run hostel. It's lovely but paying $2 for 18 minutes of internet. Rip off much?

As I've only got 7 minutes remaining I won't be able to write all about my day. But so far, so good. New Zealand is quite different out of Auckland.

This is what I'm going to be doing tomorrow. I think I'm as scared as I am excited....

Conversations with my Grandad.

Grandad: I did something silly this week.
Me: Oh yeah?
Grandad: I was at the allotment the other day and hung my coat up. It was over this barrel of water.
Me: Did your coat fall in?
Grandad: And well my coat fell in!
Me: Oh no!
Grandad: And my phone was in my pocket! It's not working now! Apparently, someone told me, if you get it wet it stops working. I can't believe it. That's not really useful is it?
Me: No, no it's not Grandad.

Three Months.

It's been three months since I left the UK. 

Three months since I saw this happy face.

Three months since I witnessed this.

This past week.

I've got exactly two and half days left here in Ellerslie. On Saturday I will be boarding the bus for my Kiwi Experience. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. I'm dreading heading back to hostel life. And it's gonna be COLD down south but I've just gotta grin and bear it. Despite this I can't wait to see what New Zealand has to offer outside of Auckland. Need to pack me some thermals.

I've got this plan to visit every volcanic area thingy in Auckland before I leave. A full list can be found at this wiki article. So far I've made it to 7. Seven out of 51 ain't bad. I need to go through the list properly and find out if I've accidentally stumble to one. Like Little Rangitoto, that's just known as 'Skate Board Park' in this household. Turns out I've been sitting by a volcano all those times I took the kids to the park.

Sarah helped me check two places off the list this weekend. We ventured up to One Tree Hill, braved the freezing winds and beheld the lack of tree. Read about the lack of trees here. FYI, "I don't wanna be" by Gavin DeGraw is the perfect length song for driving into One Tree Hill all the way to the top. That's right, Sarah and I played that full blast and sang along the whole way up. And yes, we didn't walk up because it was getting dark and it was just waaay too cold.

See, no tree! Anyway, from there we went over to Mount Wellington. And we actually had to walk up to the summit and there was just enough light! In the car park we met some drunk hobo. He probably wasn't a hobo, as he had a car. Or with someone with a car. But he was definitely a shady character. He tried to direct us into the crater and as we were walking away he asked us whether our mum was a terrorist. Confused, I told him no. His response "'Cause you da bomb!" That's right, half way up a volcano, getting chatted up by some dodgy fella. We got up to the top in time to take a load of silhouette photos with the sunset.

Today I went to Auckland Zoo with the kids. The family has an annual pass so we can go whenever. Naturally, I only found out about the pass last night so I doubt I'll be putting it to much use. Unfortunately we only had an hour at the zoo because Toby decided to see how the board marker worked on every surface in sight. Luckily, the marker came off quite easily off the kitchen counter, chairs and glass living room table. It didn't not come as easily off the carpet, bean bag, walls or sofa. Today I learnt the best way to get felt tip off the wall is with an eraser. Thanks Wiki how! Thanks to the wonder that is carpet cleaner and Napisan (that's Vanish Oxi Action to us Brits) I managed to get it out of the carpet and less noticeable on the faux-suede couch. The bean bag however was a lost cause. This whole activity took me about 45 minutes (I kid you not) and then I had to finish my morning chores. And by this point the kids were going wild and getting ready to leave the house was not on their agenda. By the time we got to the zoo we saw a couple of birds before we stumbled across the playground (Harrison planned it, I'm pretty sure) and wasted 20 minutes of our zoo time there. By the time we made it to the red pandas, Toby was so groggy that we needed to leave so he could have his nap. So we didn't really see all that many animals. But I went for free so I can't really complain.

I saw tigers!

Toby got up close to an Emu in the Australian walkabout. I also saw Kangaroos.

There were meerkats being compared.

And the red panda came to say hello. I then had to coax the kids out with the promise of treats.

A long way down.

This is the view down from the Sky Tower Observation level.

I've finally bought a memory card reader which means I can now finally upload pictures from my camera and phone. 

About time.

Who run the world?

Today I was teaching Emily a very important lesson. I like to call it Beyonce 101.

In this lesson I taught her things such as who run the world? (Girls) When should he put a ring on it? (If he likes it) What direction should you go? (To the left) and how are you looking? (So crazy right now) You get my drift.

She seemed to enjoy it. Although I think it had more to do with the dancing and shouting the answers back rather than developing a love for Lady B. Unfortunately the only lesson that actually stuck was the 'Who run the world?' I sang it to her while she was sat for dinner and she shouted 'GIRLS' back, much to Harrison's annoyance. He proceeded to tell us, it was in fact boys who run the world because girls smell. He realised he was losing the battle when I asked the question again and Toby joined in saying girls.

In other news I got the hair cut and coloured. It was nice to get out and get a little bit of pampering but it was so cold in the hair dressers (they don't seem to believe in central heating here in NZ) and I had to park miles away.

I don't know why I bother taking pictures with my webcam. The quality is shocking. But here is the hair. Bye bye ginger. I know it will be back as the colour fades, it's inevitable it takes years to get rid of red dye. Farewell fringe. The fringe will probably make a come back, I miss it already...