My few days in Wellington were lovely and I really enjoyed wandering around the city. Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum was beyond doubt the best museum I’ve ever been to and you literally got lost in there for hours! I took a trip up on the Wellington cable car to the botanical gardens which also gave a great view of the city. The following day I walked around Cuba street with its quirky shops and cafes and the bucket fountain I’d heard so much about! In the afternoon we went on a Lord of the Rings tour as Wellington was the 1st place they used for filming and the production studio was based. It was very cool to see some of the places they used as sets (even if you really did have to use your imagination!) and recreate some of the scenes. Watching the boys pretend to be a black rider on his horse was very amusing!
The next day I embarked on the 12 hr bus trip up to Auckland before catching my bus to start the North island tour. Our 1st stop was Raglan on the west coast which was beautiful! We stayed right up in the rainforest with a view of the sea and spent the afternoon on the beach trying to avoid the sandflies. The following day we headed to the Waitomo caves, a huge network of caves under what looks like regular fields and hills. Most of our bus and I opted for the Tooma Tooma blackwater tubing where you combine climbing and crawling through the caves in some very sexy wetsuits and wellies with tubing through certain sections staring up at the glow worms that live on the roof of the cave. Great fun if a little claustrophobic at times!
Our stop that night was at Uncle Boy’s Marae, a traditional Maori house where we had a traditional Hangi meal and then watched children from the village performing traditional songs and the haka! We then got split in girls and boys and the girls learnt to dance with the poi (they look a bit like onions on strings!) and the boys learnt to do the haka. They definitely made it look easier than it was but we all gave it our best shot! The following day the bus stopped in Rotorua where we walked around the geothermal pools and dipped our feet in one of the swimming baths (holding our noses against the lovely smell!) On the way to Taupo we stopped to swim in a stream heated by the geothermal activity which was pretty toasty before walking to another huge waterfall. At Taupo we found out the weather would be too bad the next day to do the Tongariro crossing which was a huge shame as I’d heard it was amazing! It seems to be really 50/50 with people I’ve met whether they’ve been able to do it or not though and some people have come back 3 or 4 times before they’ve been able too! Because we then didn’t have to get up at 5am we went out to some of the local bars including an Irish bar with a very enthusiastic live band which was great fun!
The next day on the way into the national park we stopped in some more geothermal areas and our driver cooked us lunch of sausages and kumara (a bit like a sweet potato) in a hole in the ground which was definitely interesting! We were then determined to do a bit of walking so set off on a 2 hr walk in the pouring rain to a waterfall and all ended up getting entirely soaked!! Luckily at our lovely accommodation that night we had a hot tub so could warm up in that! It was back on the bus heading north the next day back up to Auckland.
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