New Zealand- North Island

Leaving South America was really quite sad for me. I really enjoyed my time spent there, but relieved too that I will be having a break from speaking Spanish. I love speaking Spanish but it can get a bit tiring at times.

When I was at the airport a Mexican guy started chatting to me whilst we were waiting for flights, so right up until I was in the air I was speaking Spanish. It was a nice way to leave Chile.

On the plane I started to think about all the places I had seen and just how much I had done in South America. I could not sleep at all on the flight.

We succesfully got to Auckland. The pilot was not very good at taking off or landing. I was concerned I might not make it to New Zealand. I arrived at 5am, so the sun was rising and reveling its self to me.

Check in to the hostel, slept for a bit then went out for a wonder. Gemma was not due to arrive until the afternoon. Auckland is tiny, I think I had looked around the shops in about 10 minutes. Its a very pretty city.

Once I met up with Gemma we had another look around, made dinner and we went to bed really early. We were both a bit jet lagged and had come from two different time zones. It was a bit confusing.

The next day we went out on a city tour, which was fun, though the rain clouds chased us all around the city. We would get out and take some pictures, then seconds later it would rain. I am sure the rain drops in New Zealand are bigger then anywhere else. We both got soaked in seconds. We did not do much more in Auckland.

We both were still falling asleep by 9pm. Fortunately we were waking at 6am. We booked ourselves on to a hop on hop off bus, and had to be on it by 7am that morning. Our first stop that day was the Watama Caves, we went to see glow worms here. They are really pretty, a blue green colour. We were unable to get too close as there had been a lot of rain and caused the water in the cave to rise. They are really pretty, and they have silk threads which hang from the cave roof.

We then went off to Rotorua. We got there quite late, so there was not much to do, but in the morning we treated ourselves to the thermal bath that was at the hostel. This totally revived us for the day. We headed out in to town and had a look around the lake and the steaming mud. The lake here has a lot of sulpher in it. The water colour changes to a milky blue. The birds like the heat,but it boils their feet off. When you walk close you can feel the head coming off of the lake. In Rotorua the earth's crust is very thin, which is why all the steam is coming through. Itis a very interesting place, and is also very smelly.

We headed down to Taupo the next day. We had hoped to stay here two nights, but I had got confused about what day of the week it was, so we could only stay for one night, as we would have missed our ferry crossing. Taupo was pretty, but a tad boring. We all went out in the evening. It was the first time Gemma and I had been out for a drink in the evening as our sleeping patterns were still a bit strange. It was good to get out and chat to everyone in the group. We still headed back earlier than everyone else. I think we had made it past 10pm before heading back.

Heading to Wellington was a bit of a trek, but worth it. We went to see hot boiling mud and they geysers. When we arrived at Wellington there was beautiful sunshine the entire time we were there. We went for a walk up Mount Victoria and could see the entire city of Wellington and out across the ocean and we went on the gondala. We had an early start the next day, as usual and caught the ferry to Picton. The crossing was fine. I think we were really lucky with the weather as Wellington and the crossing are supposed to be really windy and awful. We had calm and peaceful weather.

The North Island of New Zealand is really beautiful and interesting. The volcanoes and greenery are spectacular. It does look a lot like the North of England. Everyone is really friendly and helpful. We were both recovering still from the flights and time difference. We ad a very calm and relaxed time there.