New Zealand Part 1: The North Island

Auckland sucks and Wellington blows! 

Hey guys, 

Going to start this blog off by apologising for making you all wait so long for the latest instalment of #chollyontour... I know how you all just sit around waiting to hear what we’ve been up to! New Zealand to date has been ridiculously hectic so I took the decision early on to just do a North Island and South Island blog - as it would be physically impossible for me to do one after each of the places we've visited, especially with the poor/non-existent Wi-Fi we've had!

 

We've now completed the North Island and are currently on the interislander ferry from Wellington to Picton to start our South Island adventure. The ferry takes around three hours so there's no better time to fill you in on what we've been up to – although it is freezing on here so hopefully my fingers don’t give up on me as I type!

We've been in New Zealand for just over two weeks and in that time we’ve visited eight different places, so as you can imagine we’re a little bit tired. I've been writing notes on my phone as we’ve moved around so hopefully I won't forget anything in this blog... strap yourselves in, it's probably going to be a monster blog – bare with me! 

Arriving into New Zealand

So, who knew New Zealand were so hot on not letting people bring apples into their country?! Answer: Not me! I had an apple in my bag thinking it was a brilliant move in case I needed a snack once in New Zealand... that was until the tannoy on the plane went on stating we could not take certain things into the country including apples, so I decided to just leave mine in the seat pocket before we got off. Turns out the cute little Labrador police dog I purposely walked closer to through security (crazy animal lady) could still smell said apple, clever thing... so this resulted in me being taken to one side and having my bag searched! When I turned around it turns out another security man must of thought Chris was a dodgy looking guy as he was having his bags searched too. It wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have backpacks and packing cubes... trying to get everything back in was a little annoying! 

 

Settling in and finding our feet 

We spent three nights in Auckland before we started our Kiwi Experience. They were nice in the fact that we got to do some of our favourite things, which include eating and sleeping... Chris also managed to bag us an upgrade to a double room with an en-suite – every travellers dream! (We stayed at Base Auckland, nice hostel in terms of location and staff, CJ and TJ in particular who helped us book some onward accommodation and activities, but if you go be prepared for the temperamental lifts!)

 

To be honest, to date Auckland has been and I think will stay as being our least favourite place in New Zealand. We took a mooch around the city but there isn’t a whole lot going on there. Main highlights were climbing Mt. Eden to see the city lit up after sunset, and buying a much needed coat - it cost the equivalent of £20 and even though it’s from the men’s section and is slightly too big, it keeps me warm so I love it. My mum however doesn’t, which she reminds me of every few days when I send her new pictures and she responds with things such as ‘could you take nice photos without your coat on’... haha! 

 

Random piece of information: It turns out that Domino’s in New Zealand is ridiculously cheap! We ended up getting a medium sized pizza, garlic bread baguette and a can of Pepsi all for $8 - which is just under £5!!

 

 

 

 The start of our Kiwi Experience 

 

Exciting times getting on the infamous green bus to start our kiwi experience and make our way to our first stop... Paihia in the Bay of Islands – one of our highlights of the North Island. We stayed at Haka Lodge which we’d pre-booked so we ended up staying in a different hostel to the people we met on our bus, but it was a great choice – fantastic double en-suite and the hostel had some great views out onto the bay, it was more like a hotel than a hostel. 

Top tip: Don’t buy chips to eat whilst walking to get on a boat trip... giant seagulls will attack! 

Our boat trip on the first day was supposed to take us to the famous ‘hole in the rock’ but it was really windy so we couldn’t get to it, however we had a great time seeing some of the different islands and even dolphins! One of the guys from our bus, Reece, even got in to the freezing sea to swim with them - although they didn’t stick around long! The sea got really choppy at times and in my hypochondriac ways I did think we were going to die a few times. But we made it back to land safe and sound. That night we went to the hostel bar where everyone else was staying and played some beer pong and had a few drinks.

The next day Chris and I took ourselves off to walk to Haruru Falls which involved walking through the Mangrove Forest - it was amazing although Chris had a few near death experiences (slipping on mud and being on ‘cliff’ edges). That night we had pre-drinks with some of our new friends from our bus, then went to catch the last half of the All Blacks vs. South Africa (All Blacks won of course), and then had some more drinks. Unfortunately Andy (one of our new friends) had one too many and we got a Facebook video call from Ed (another of our new friends) once we got back to our hostel showing Andy lying in his own vomit having spewed everywhere in their dorm room. So Sarah (another new friend... basically every new person I mention in this blog is probably going to be a new friend) and Ed came and slept on our floor as they couldn’t bare the smell! (he had to pay a $40 fine when he left the next day!)

 

 

We left Paihia to go back to Auckland (urgh) for one night at 2pm the next day so in the morning me and Chris just laid on a bed at a restaurant/bar on the sea front which was really nice although a little windy! On the bus on the way back to Auckland we made it within sight of the city before Andy shouted ‘trash bag, trash bag!!’ (he’s American!) and he vommed. We were all wetting ourselves and haven’t let him live it down since! 

We were only in Auckland from around 6pm to 8am the next day so we all went down to the hostel bar to take part in a pool tournament, which Chris really wanted to win of course. Unfortunately for him, I was playing the best pool of my life and I beat him in the semi’s. Sadly, I didn’t win in the final for the $50 bar tab, and had Chris saying ‘I’d of beaten him you should of let me win!’ haha. 

From Auckland the second time round we headed to Hot Water Beach for the night where we had our first dorm experience (we shared with five other people). We’d planned on doing the kayaking at Cathedral Cove but due to the weather it was cancelled so we all ended up doing the walk down to the cove. Although the weather wasn’t great it was beautiful and as we were leaving the sun came out and there was a rainbow over the sea. Chris thought it would be a good idea to go for a dip... which I think he regretted after he got in and it started raining – not to mention he ended up with sand everywhere!

Unfortunately it ended up raining for most of the day and we were all contemplating whether or not to actually go to the beach at 10pm which is when low tide was! But despite it being freezing the rain did stop so we all headed down to the beach at 10pm to dig a hole in the sand – well mainly the boys dug. It was amazing when we got down there, seeing all of the steam coming up from the different pools people had dug and even though people tell you the water is hot, it’s crazy to see it in real life as it is actually scolding hot! It was amazing laying in the little pool looking up at the stars. After it started to get colder we headed back... I ended up going back in my coat and bikini bottoms, I didn’t feel cold at the time but it was freezing! We even got to see some glow worms in the rocks on our walk to and from the beach which was an added bonus. 

 

Our next stop was Waitomo for the night. Our dorm life was short-lived as we ended up back in a double room (minus en-suite) but only because we had pre-booked it! We’d also pre-booked our tickets for the boat ride in the glow worm caves as we didn’t want to do the black water rafting but we ended up wangling our way onto the Rouatoki walking tour for 1 and a half hours and supposed to be more expensive (our tour was only supposed to be 45 minutes). I’m not sure if it was actually better than the one we would have gone on as we ended up having a guy in training take us around so he wasn’t the best bless him, his mentor was just laughing at him at the back, but we still enjoyed going in and having a looking around!

 

 

The next day we headed to Rotorua (which stinks by the way due to the geothermal activity... thought it was just Chris at first!). En-route we took a detour to Hobbiton! Chris was really excited to go having seen all of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. Confession time... I actually haven’t seen any of them (I’m Harry Potter 4 lyf), but I thought I’d still go along to see what all the fuss was about. It was actually a really good tour, it’s always interesting hearing how films were made and to actually be standing on real life sets. I’ll definitely be watching the films when I finish my travels, promise! (even if it’s just so I can say, ‘I’ve stood in that exact spot!’. We spent our one and only night in Rotorua at the Tamaki Maori Village. We had originally pre-booked to just go for the evening and stay at the hostel but once we found out all of our new bus friends were doing the overnight stay we decided to upgrade. Best decision, this was another of our highlights so far in New Zealand. It was amazing to experience the Maori culture. We got to learn songs, the boys got to learn the haka (very jealous), and even games (we played a stick game which I won out of about 30 people woo, knew my reaction times and co-ordination were good!). It was amazing to see the hakka performed live, I got goosebumps. We also had an amazing ‘hangi’ meal (roast dinner) which was cooked in the ground – very cool. We finished off the night with a soak in the hot tubs, perfecto.

 

 

 

 

The next day we spent the morning taking a wet walk and look around Te Kapu Geothermal Park which was really interesting, and again smelly, before making our way to Taupo.

Lake Taupo was another of our highlights in the North Island. We decided against doing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which turned out to be a good choice as those that did it couldn’t go all the way across and had to go back on themselves, and instead we hired a tandem bike to go around the lake. We were so happy with our decision, it was great to see the views around the lake. We survived with just one domestic (Chris nearly steered us into an oncoming car) and one near death experience... we cycled past two geese with their babies and one of them lunged at us! I ended up jumping off the bike and nearly ending up in the lake. We laughed about it after but at the time it was pretty scary!

On our first night it was ladies night in the hostel bar, which meant girls got free punch... and if boys wanted free punch too, they had to dress up as women... I don’t think I need to say any more! Haha the pictures do all the talking.

 

After two nights in Taupo our next stop was River Valley. It really was one of a kind. On our way there we stopped off to do the Taranaki Falls Track to the waterfall which was great. We had some amazing views of the Tongariro crossing and the volcano. We got to River Valley around tea time and had to leave the bus at the top of the hill and walk down to the lodge. It was a really unique experience on our trip because it was completely in the middle of nowhere, no wifi/phone signal, and we stayed in a 30-bed dorm room where four people shared a ‘bunk’ – probably explains why we are currently feeling run down with colds! Whilst we waited for our roast chicken dinner to be made (which included Yorkshire puddings and was amazing!!) I watched Chris challenge Matilda, a French girl, to a game of French Boulles... let’s just say it didn’t end well for Chris... haha. After our dinner we all started to play games and drink – one of the games involved seeing who could move over and under a table and back on top again without touching the floor... check out my bruises! It was a fab night! The next day some people went horse riding and white water rafting. We just chilled around the lodge until it was time to leave. It was raining outside so we got on one of the sofas with a blanket and had a nap! Oh, I almost forgot to mention the toilets were outside in little huts and you had to go outside to get to the showers too!

Our final stop in the North Island was windy Wellington and let me tell you... it really does live up to it’s name! Not only was it ridiculously windy, it was also really wet the majority of our 3 nights we spent there, so it tainted our views on it. That being said, whilst it meant we didn’t end up doing much whilst we were there, it gave us a chance to have some much needed downtime (lay ins and laundry!)

 

Highlights included: Charlie and Ryan winning the beer pong competition meaning we all got to enjoy free drinks from their $50 free bar tab and Chris winning the pool competition so another $50 bar tab and free drinks! (I’d just like to point out that I went after Chris this time during the killer pool round and after beating him in Auckland, he took no prisoners and stitched me up so I went out early on, boo!)

 

 

Te Papa – New Zealand’s national museum – is a great thing to do when it’s wet and windy and it’s free! I would definitely recommend people visiting Wellington to check the museum out, it’s amazing and we couldn’t believe it was free once we were inside. We especially loved the Gallipoli exhibition which tells the story of the Gallipoli campaign in World War 1 through the eyes and words of eight extraordinary New Zealanders who were there.

Our final day in Wellington was really chilled. In the afternoon Chris went with Ryan to Weta, a studio tour of all of the props that were made and used in films such as Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Hobbit and some of the Marvel films, and I just chilled at the hostel with some of the others. We were going to go up to the viewpoint at the top of Mt. Victoria but the wind and rain put us off from venturing out! Our bus driver had told us about a great indian takeaway next to our hostel and because it was closed our first night, we all went and got one... it did not disappoint!

 

Another interesting fact: The cinema is really cheap in New Zealand. We ended up going twice in Wellington. Once to see IT with some of our friends, and another time to see Kingsman 2. Both were great. It only cost us $20 each time for the two of us, which is about £10.80.

 

I’d read a few reviews about Kiwi Experience before we came out and was a little dubious but I can honestly say I would recommend it to anyone. We’ve met people from their teens up to people in their 30’s. It’s a great way to get around and see the whole country, do activities and meet people. All I would say is that it is very full on and if you are restricted for time like us and can only generally speaking spend the minimal amount of time in each place, it does get very tiring moving around every one or two days! But, we will have time to rest and recuperate when we go back to Australia and over to South East Asia.

Also, to break up the bus journeys you end up going on a lot of hikes (nearly 1 a day), which is actually really good because A. It means you get to see more places and B. It gives you a bit of exercise and keeps you fit.

Everyone we've spoken to has said how much better the South Island is compared to the North so we’re very excited to see what the next week and a half brings as we travel around!

We fly out of Christchurch to go to Sydney on the 9^th October so look out for my next blog post somewhere around that date... Wi-Fi dependant of course! 

Lots of love, #chollyontour xxx