The Final Stretch

Australia Round 3 - Days 150-178

So this is my final stretch of my travels and boy has it been a great month! You might think I’d be able to pick one thing that tops my entire trip, but I really can’t. Everything was absolutely amazing and all the experiences were so different. NZ was definitely my favourite country to travel in, and the one where I spent the most time, but Oz definitely gave it a run for its money this final month.

I was quite sad to leave NZ and was pretty bummed out when I flew into Surfers Paradise so I just took a day off to myself and flew up the next morning to Cairns where my adventures really started. I spent a day out on the Great Barrier Reef doing my first ever scuba dive and it was just unbelievable. We had terrible weather, and within minutes people were losing their lunch over the side of the boat but everything changed once you slid under the surface and checked out all the amazing marine life living on the reef. The weather while I was in Cairns wasn’t the greatest, but it was so hot and humid that even when it rained you almost didn’t mind it. I spent another day headed up to Cape Tribulation, one of the only places in the world where rain forest meets the ocean (very Jurassic Parkish). Two German girls and I rented a car and went on a grand adventure. We didn’t get to see any wild crocodiles or cassowaries but we saw a bunch of great signs telling us to beware of crocs and stingers while swimming. I assume everything in Australia is poisonous and will kill me.

I chilled out a few more days in Cairns and happened to win a Castaway Island trip using my superb (Ha!) air guitar skills. It was a pretty ridiculous thing but totally worth the pricey trip! After Cairns I headed down to Magnetic Island just outside Townsville (near where Cyclone Yasi hit in January). You could still see a lot of damage left by the cyclone, lots of buildings still in pieces and places being restored. Magnetic Island is part of a large World Heritage Site and is just off the mainland where World War II Forts were built. I spent two days on the island in a really cool hostel (felt a bit like Fiji) and spent both nights at the hostel bar playing some fun bar games and having a great time. I also managed to snag another 10 night Base hostel card for free! I checked out the old forts and came across a really cool set of small waterfalls I could climb up and swing into on a rope swing. Definitely a place I would recommend anyone to visit if they got the chance!

After Maggie Island I continued my way down the coast to Airlie Beach, probably one of my favourite places on the East Coast and the gateway to the unbelievably beautiful Whitsunday Islands – a collection of 74 islands off the coast. I spent two days in Airlie Beach and lucked out after weeks of rain to have absolute pristine weather. The first night there I headed out to the bar and happened to catch up with five girls I had previously met along my travels and we had a great ladies night out together, capping it off with the backpackers favourite meal: Mickey D’s! I spent a mellow afternoon chilling out the next day and that night ended up chatting with two Ozzie’s planning to hit up the UK and the US in a few weeks. They wanted some advice on the US and we ended up sitting up chatting until 6 in the morning. So random how you meet people while traveling! The next day I grabbed my gear and hopped aboard the boat the Tongarra – my home away from home for two nights on the Whitsundays. I had an epic three days as we had a great crew of British, French, and Irish, and also another Canadian! We spent the time chilling on the boat deck, sunning ourselves, snorkeling, drinking ridiculous amounts of goon (cheap box wine) and watching the stars as we slept on the deck. We also made a stop at Whitehaven Beach which has sand like icing sugar, and turquoise water that matched how amazing Fiji was. If you haven’t yet, take a look at some of my photos – the water was just amazing! The night we got off the boat we all spent one last hurrah together in the bar as several of us were moving on the next day. We had a great night with free pizza and lots of dancing! I even somewhat learnt a French two step!

I headed out on the bus down to Agnes Water and the town of 1770. A place that’s not given a lot of attention down the coast but somewhere I wish I had a few days more to spend. It’s a laid back, chilled out surftown, with the very popular Scooteroo and where I also did my Castaway Island trip. The flight out to the island was almost better than the trip itself! How it works is that a four-seater prop plane flies 12 people out to an island and leaves them there till the next day. I was hoping it’d be really rough and tough but they do have a camp kitchen and tents already set up for us. They also have some walks you can do, a place to snorkel and some water toys to play with. The flight there and back was amazing – the pilot did everything short of a barrel roll! We did climbs and dives and really steep turns. We weren’t aware of it and the pilot surprised the two of us in the backseat when he started diving towards the Earth. Such a rush! I had a great time on the island, just relaxing and enjoying the nice weather. We even built a massive fire on the beach that night and had a great beef stew for supper. I hilariously (although some would disagree) had a little mishap with my camera. When I was using the outdoor toilet… my camera managed to slide out of my pocket… and down the outhouse toilet! I couldn’t believe it haha. I made one of the guys get me a massive stick (turned out to be a fishing rod) and I fished it out of the outhouse. I took it down to the ocean (thankfully it’s water proof) and spent the next ten minutes washing and scrubbing it in the sand and surf. Don’t worry guys, I also hand sanitized the crap (no pun intended) out of it! Hahaha How ridiculous things are sometimes!!

The next day we ventured down the island and picked ourselves some raw oysters… fun to do, but not very fun to eat raw! (especially for a prairie girl – but cool to try nonetheless). We did a little photo shoot on and around the plane and then headed back to Agnes Water. I had my Scooteroo that afternoon – a great time where you get to ride choppers around the two towns and then watch the sunset over the water. They hook you up with flaming helmets, tattoos and leather jackets. I must admit I felt pretty badass! I met two Canadians on the trip and we hit it off. I also think I embarrassed some guys by passing them on my bike, definitely not gonna let the guys lead the whole time ;). One guy especially took it personally that a girl passed him and things got fairly competitive but I thought it was all quite amusing! After Scooteroo, the two Canucks and I hit up the bottle shop, grabbed some beer and wine and spent the evening on the beach chatting and climbing massive trees pushed up onto shore by the surf. Was a pretty fun evening on the beach!

The next day I was off to my next destination: Rainbow Beach! This is the gateway to Fraser Island – the world’s largest sand island which surprisingly supports a lush vegetation of tropical rainforest and a large population of wild dingos! I spent my first night there hanging with the Canadian I met on the Whitsundays and celebrated his birthday with him. Interestingly enough he’s moving to SK in a couple weeks (no one out here knows where SK is unless they’ve been there or know someone who lives there) so it can be a pretty small world sometimes. I geared up for my trip to Fraser with a great crew of Brits & Swedes and an American. We got to drive 4x4 trucks down the beach and throughout the island. We started out with some really rainy weather but after a few hours the skies cleared for our entire three days on the island. We spent the afternoon at Lake Wobby and then set up camp a little bit down the road… err… the beach where we cooked our supper of delicious steak and got cranked on goon. I met a crew of hilarious Irish lads as well. The next morning I was feeling pretty rough and we headed out to a place aptly named Hangover Creek where I was able to rid myself of my hangover – thank goodness it worked or I wouldn’t have been a happy camper. We stopped for a quick look at a shipwreck on the beach and grabbed lunch and then headed to the champagne pools and Indian Head for the afternoon. We got some amazing views and enjoyed hanging out in the beautiful pools formed in the rocks which the surf crashes over at high tide. We headed back to camp (the sun sets just after 5 so we headed back fairly early) to make another amazing meal. I also managed to score some clams off the Irish crew that they had found on the beach somewhere, as well as my own supper. I have no idea what they cooked them in, but they were extremely good! (So much better than the oysters I had). We spent another night on the goon train, chilling out under the full moon on the sand dunes by the ocean. Pretty sweet evening spent on an island.

We headed back to Rainbow Beach the next day but not before we spent a few hours chilling out at beautiful Lake MacKenzie which also has icing sugar sand and turquoise water. I also worked on my skills at hurling (a super aggressive Irish game that’s similar to a mix-up between lacrosse and field hockey). After cleaning out our vehicles, a few of us purchased another box of goon and chilled on the beach watching the sunset. I managed to score some sweet Chinese food before the shop closed then caught up with the Irish lads where we headed over to another hostel to chill out for the night. The next morning I was up early and on my way to Brisbane. Cities aren’t really my thing so I hung out on the banks of the river and just spent time chilling out. The Irish lads were making their way out to Brisbane as well so I had some company. I spent the next day using some internet then met up with the boys and hit up a few pubs and bars in town. Not a crazy night but a good one nonetheless. Before I caught my bus out of town the next day I was able to catch up with an old Aussie high school friend. We grabbed a short but sweet coffee in her neck of the woods and it really was good to see her again after almost 7 years!

That afternoon I headed down to Byron Bay where I was crashing at a Canadians place I had met on Fraser Island. There was a big Blues Festival just outside of town (names like Bob Dylan and Ben Harper – so everything was booked out) so we chilled out grabbing some drinks with him and his two Canadian friends. The next day we dropped them off at the airport and chilled out on the beach and hiked up to the lighthouse which had spectacular views of the ocean and the beach. That night I caught up for supper with a girl I had met down the coast and drank with the Irish lads I met on the Whitsundays. One of the greatest things about going down the East Coast is that you keep running into people you know everywhere! We hopped on the goon train again and partied at Cheeky Monkeys. I had met an Australian through a mutual friend who had a surfboard he was willing to lend me the next morning and so we headed out to hit some waves before lunch. After some time in the water we went to the Beachside hotel and drank the afternoon away – the perfect way to spend a drizzly Tuesday afternoon. That night a few of us bar hopped and ended up at the Cheeky Monkey’s again where I ran into another girl I had met down the East Coast. Another good night!

Sadly this is where my trip comes to an end. The next day I hopped on a 12 hour bus ride down to Sydney. I’ve already done and seen the city so I got in, unpacked and repacked my entire bag to get ready to fly out the next day. It was a lovely evening with 30 minutes of free beer and wine, and then a quick trip to the pizza shop and, of course, McD’s! The next morning I caught my shuttle to the airport and said goodbye to Australia and the laid back, chilled out six month adventure I’ve been on. I caught my plane no worries and lucked out with getting an exit row seat – next best place to be on a 14 hour ride aside from first class. After that I spent two hours in passport control and another half hour waiting to be screened at security – my patience was running fairly thin, especially after a lack of proper sleep. Luckily I had a long layover and was one of the few people who didn’t miss my plane. I made it to Denver no worries and actually ended up giving up my spot on the plane as they had overbooked it. They were looking for a volunteer and I figured why not! I’m traveling alone with no specific deadline to be at home, so I grabbed some free accommodation at a grand hotel in Denver, a free meal and $400 in travel vouchers. What a great way to end my six month long adventure down under by a spontaneous stay in the US. So tomorrow I finally head home where I get to finally see my friends and family… and go back to work… Boo ;)

Haha as a fairly funny side note - I diligently kept a budget of every single penny I spent… and at the end of it all (hahah mom you might not be so proud of this…) I looked at how much I spent on alcohol… and it came out to $750.00… so that works out (at roughly 12.50AUD for a box of 4.4L of goon) to about 60 boxes of goon – or 264 liters of wine. Roughly 1.5L a day lol! However, it wasn’t all spent on cheap goon, but on bottles of wine and beer as well so I doubt I actually drank that much over the last six months. And if I did, well… my liver’s got to be in rough shape and it’s a good thing I am coming home!

Back in NZ

Back in NZ - Days 109-150

So…. What have I been up to lately?? ….. good question! Apparently “Fiji Time” really affected me as when I flew back into Auckland (just can’t stay away from NZ!). I ended up chilling out for a whole month and a half with Stu – doing absolutely nothing! We got into Auckland and I faced up to the truth and bought myself a new camera. Auckland is just another city so we wanted to head out as soon as we could but we did managed to catch a Chinese new year festival in the park and enjoyed a couple picnics before we caught the ferry across to the Coromandel. Our first stop was Coromandel Town where we spent a couple days just hanging out and watching movies and several episodes of The Office. Then we set off towards Whitianga on our first ever adventure hitchhiking. We got a lift out of town with the woman who ran the hostel and within ten minutes we had our first lift in the back of a work truck with a super nice Maori guy who even took us sightseeing along the way and offered to stop for pictures. He also took us to his place for some coffee then decided he had nothing better to do and drove us all the way to our destination. Pretty good luck for our first hitch!

We spent the next five days hanging out in Whitianga body boarding in the ocean, going for walks and watching as many movies as we could. People would shake their heads at us while we sat inside on a sunny afternoon just watching movies. The one day we hitched down to Hot Water Beach – probably the only place in the world where you can hitchhike holding a shovel and no one bats an eyelash. Hot Water Beach has thermal pockets where you can dig a hole in the sand at low tide and make yourself a little hot tub. You have to be careful though as the water is so hot you can burn yourself. There were a lot of people on the beach and not enough space to make our own little hot tub so we just stood in the hot water and enjoyed the sunny day then hitched back to Whitianga later that afternoon.

Our next stop was Taupo – almost 400km away. We had to wait an hour to get picked up (our longest wait while hitchhiking) but we lucked out and got a guy who was headed all the way down to Tauraunga, a major portion of the distance we had to cover. We also got treated to lunch on his business card which was really cool. My first time trying a kebab in New Zealand! He also stopped at a gold mine and a couple scenic views along the way so we could grab some pictures –Kiwi’s have the most generous hearts! We caught a ride with two girls to Rotorua, with another woman through the city and then one more girl dropped us about 20km out of town. We then got picked up by a mom with two teenage girls and they were one of my favourites to hitchhike with. The girls were so excited to pick up two strangers as I guess their mom never stops to get hitchhikers. One last car (an air conditioning van) dropped us at Stu’s friends place in Taupo where we stayed 2 nights.

We ended up staying in Taupo for an entire week, moving to a hostel just outside of town and we hung out watching movies again. In all fairness, the weather was pretty shoddy outside so there wasn’t much more we could do. We hit up the botanical gardens and enjoyed a sunny afternoon one day. This is also where we started a several week long junk food binge. Nothing better than gross candy [thanks Anna ;)], chocolate, chips, honey roasted peanuts, and apple juice.

After Taupo we headed back down to Raglan where I had spent an entire week right before Christmas. We wanted to do some surfing together and had two perfect days to do it (minus the fact that the waves really weren’t that great). We got a lift to Hamilton with a really nice couple headed down to Christchurch to help with the earthquake relief and lucked out again and had them shout us lunch at a very nice and expensive café. We got dropped off at our hostel by another driver and spent the evening going for a walk and chilling in the hostels hot tub. The next day we grabbed some boards and spent the entire afternoon surfing in the beautiful weather. I also managed to catch up with my Portuguese friend Diogo who had moved to Raglan. The next day the waves were terrible but we decided to go out anyway and just goofed around in the water, doing press ups on the surfboards, and laughing the afternoon away. Not a good day for surfing but we made the best of it.

Our next day was spent hitching all the way back up to Auckland as we were catching a flight down to the South Island for the remainder of my stay in NZ. We had a great flight down to Queenstown and walked out of the airport to hitch down to Wanaka for the next four days. We spent four nights in Wanaka and lucked out and got our room upgraded for free. We had a TV in it with a movie channel and may have spent more than a day or two chilling out watching every movie that came on and eating more junk food. Such an active, healthy lifestyle! Even though it was the equivalent to September in NZ we still had some nice weather and I managed to snag a sunburn on the lake front. We headed back to Queenstown after Wanaka but only spent a day or two there running errands and chilling out. We did get really motivated and actually baked some brownies in the hostel kitchen though – I’m sure we made everyone jealous!

Next stop for us was Dunedin – finally somewhere I hadn’t been before. We hitched all the way to Cromwell before we realized it was Saturday night with a rugby match in town in Dunedin and we couldn’t find an available hostel anywhere. So we decided to stay in Cromwell (nice town, not nice accommodation) where we napped the afternoon away and played trivial pursuit in the evening. The next day we got out of town as soon as we could and caught a ride all the way to Dunedin with a really cool guy who works for World Vision in areas where natural disasters or crises have occurred. He had some really cool stories to tell and also bought us lunch (for the third time!!) at a great outdoor café. Dunedin is a cool little college town and we had managed to snag some cheap coupons online for the Cadbury chocolate factory (an actual factory tour) and a big kids playground place. We spent one afternoon at Speight’s brewery drinking as much free beer as we could in 30 minutes and then spent the rest of the afternoon eating junk food, hot tubbing, and playing scrabble. The next day we switched hostels and did the chocolate factory tour which was really cool. We watched them dump 1 tonne of melted chocolate down a silo and we got tonnes of free chocolate! We shopped the rest of the afternoon and watched more movies in the evening (I wasn’t kidding when I said we didn’t do much). The next day we headed down to a place called Bigups where Stu and I got to wrestle each other in sumo suits, battle gladiator style, box with giant boxing gloves, and climb an inflatable rock wall. Definitely a big kids playground! We spent the evening playing scrabble and went for a long walk the next day to the world’s steepest street. I don’t know what this means but they say the gradient at the steepest point is 1 in 2.86.

The next day we hitched back to Queenstown and checked in at Base for the next (and my last) seven nights in NZ. We spent the rest of our time hanging out at the water front, going out a couple nights (I completed my first centurion: drinking 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes), playing Frisbee golf, going for walks, having picnics, watching movies, and hiking up to the top of the hill overlooking Queenstown. It was a great last week and we celebrated my last night and our time together with a bottle of wine and a couple of movies. New Zealand is such an amazing country and it made me extremely sad to leave to head back to Australia for the final leg of this amazing journey and adventure I am on.

Fiji

Fiji - Days 96-109
Bula!

So somehow Stu and I had decided to head to Fiji as it was a place both of us wanted to go to but hadn’t made plans for during our travels. We headed to STA travel when we were in Queenstown and booked a two week “holiday in a holiday” in Fiji! I headed back to Australia with mom and dad for two and a half weeks after that then flew out the day they flew up to Brisbane. So I headed out from Australia super excited for my two weeks in Paradise. I had no problems on the way there and managed to even grab several glasses of free wine and the air stewards phone number lol. I landed and was greeted in the airport by Fijians playing their traditional welcome song (something I would get used to over the next two weeks). I caught a shuttle to my hostel and was greeted by Stu in our 35 bed dorm room: the dormitories here are just massive. We met two other English people and ended up having some duty free vodka drinks on the hammock outside during the evening. The mosquitoes are really bad and everyone ended up with massive bites except for me.

Embarrassingly I woke the entire dorm up that night at 4am when the alarm on my phone went off. It was locked in a locker and Stu couldn’t find the key so he spent twenty minutes on the beach looking for it while several pretty angry people came to see why the alarm wasn’t being shut off. It turns out the key was on the top bunk the whole time… whoop!. Not exactly a great start to our first morning in Fiji. We got up for an early breakfast and grabbed the free shuttle to the wharf where we were to catch the ferry to our first island. However, I managed to realize that I had forgotten both my iPod and cellphone back at the hostel so we had to cab back to get it and miss our ferry. We went back to bed and chilled out eating some fresh coconut from a tree and waiting for the next ferry out that day. Finally we were aboard the ferry and on our way to our very first Fijian island, South Sea. We pulled up on the ferry and Stu and I looked at each other super excited as this island was tiny! You can circumnavigate the whole island in four minutes and stand in the middle and see the beach all around it. We disembarked and were pretty much giddy with excitement. We were met by a group of Fijians playing the welcome song and enjoyed a delicious meal watching their performance. After that we spent the entire afternoon in the extremely warm, turquoise waters snorkeling and swimming. We were lucky enough to even see a reef shark! Later we chilled in some hammocks and enjoyed some wine and beer watching the sunset.

The next day we enjoyed the Sea Spray Sailing Adventure included in our holiday package. We caught the ferry to another island then hopped aboard our boat where we would enjoy a bit of champagne at 1030 in the morning and free booze all day. We spent a bit of time sailing until we came to Rangitiki island – the island where they filmed the movie Castaway. We hopped off with our snorkel gear and spent the rest of the morning snorkeling until we swam back aboard the boat and enjoyed an extremely good barbeque. Unfortunately this is where my camera broke so pictures after my second day in Fiji are fairly limited. I think water got into it. Stu’s camera also broke the same day but luckily sort of came back to life a few days later so we could at least get scenery pictures. We stopped at another nearby island and enjoyed our very first Kava ceremony. Kava is a pepper herb of which the crushed roots are mixed with water to form a drink with a mild sedative effect (and it also makes your tongue go numb). Kava is used in Fiji in ceremonial and social custom generally performed by the chief of the village. The Kava is mixed together in a large hardwood bowl and when it’s ready, the chief claps with cupped hands and guests are offered a drink from a small bowl made from half a coconut. The drink isn’t to be sipped but consumed all at once which represents the guest’s acceptance into the village. After we toured the village we had a chance to shop and purchase some cool jewelry made by the women in the village. After that we spent a couple more hours on the sailing boat and then headed back to South Sea for an evening of drinking games with Jamie and Amy.

The next day we moved onto our next island, Waya lailai. This island was much bigger than South Sea and you couldn’t walk around it. The two days we spent on the island aren’t very exciting as we chilled out with lots of swimming, sleeping, relaxing in hammocks, and enjoying the sun. The second day in Waya lailai we had a snorkel trip that we went out on. We caught the boat out into the middle of the ocean and hopped out to snorkel around an amazing reef. Two Fijian’s came with us and they can free dive down as deep as 20 meters for up to two minutes at a time (this is one reason they are so successful at spear fishing) but the two with us just chilled out on the bottom, feeding fish and petting reef sharks. It was pretty awesome and I wish I had been able to take some pictures of it. Later that afternoon I taught Stu and Jamie how to shotgun a beer as they had never done it before. We also met Kat & B, two girls from Australia (and Germany). We spent the late afternoon and evening drinking and enjoying some Fijian entertainment.

The next morning we woke up about 430am to do a summit walk on the island. It was still pitch black out and we had to carry a torch with us. The hike took about an hour and a half up to the top of the rocky summit but we had lots of stops as it was incredibly humid through the rainforest. When we got to the top we got to watch the sunrise. It wasn’t very amazing as it was cloudy but it was still really cool to watch it come up as it’s one of the very first places in the world (along with Samoa) to see the sunrise

We were catching the ferry that late morning to our next island, Korovu, and it wasn’t until I had boarded the ferry that I realized that they hadn’t packed my backpack for me (thankfully just my little one) so I got a woman on board to call the island and they would send my backpack along to me the next day on Korovu… Haha sometimes I feel like I’m so unlucky. But otherwise we got to Korovu with no problems. Korovu is a really nice resort on the island with an actual fresh water swimming pool to chill out in. The weather was fairly nice as often there are short bursts of thundershowers or rain throughout the day which is a great way to cool down from the heat. It’s really cool as most of the day you can see storm clouds brewing on the horizon yet it’s beautifully sunny where you are and you may or may not get some rain (often accompanied by rainbows). Stu and I spent most of our time swimming in the pool, chilling in the hammock outside our room and napping. It was a pretty tough life on the island.

After two days of complete relaxation and no activities to keep us busy we headed to our next island, Nabua Lodge which was the furthest North we were going. We actually lucked out and had our room upgraded for us for free as there was no room available in the dorms. We didn’t do much on this island either. The first morning we had a cave trip which was really neat. We hopped on a water taxi and headed to another island where we got to swim in some really neat caves. At one point you had to swim underwater to get into the next cave system. Again, another place which would have been nice to have a working camera…Stu got sick after this so I spent the entire time swimming, sleeping and reading a book in a hammock. One afternoon we hopped in the water in beautiful sunshine to have it pour rain down on us two minutes later. It was really neat though as the water was completely calm and still except for the raindrops hitting it. Odd to see such calm water in the ocean. I also made a friend with one of the cats who liked to sneak into our room and sleep on the bed. She actually woke us up one morning when we heard her munching on some food left on a plate.

After Nabua Lodge we spent one night on Manta Ray Island which was owned by Australians. Definitely a different vibe than the other islands. We had some amazing food there and relaxed on the beach sipping Pina Coladas. We left the next afternoon for our final destination: Beachcomber (Party) Island. We stayed in a huge, 110 bed dorm and spent the afternoon going on a snorkel trip and hanging out. We had some drinks that night and watched the entertainment and spent the next afternoon relaxing and partied it up for our last night with the English & Australian crew. Needless to say it was an epic way to end our holiday out on the islands. The next day we caught the ferry back to Denaru and made it to our last destination in Fiji. We cabbed to one of only two McDonalds on the island so I could eat my traditional Big-Mac-in-another-country and spent the night watching movies. The next day we headed to the airport and actually almost missed our flight because we were goofing around in the airport and didn’t realize our plane was boarding until we looked around and saw absolutely no one left in the airport. Stu and I are always the last ones to get anywhere. Next stop for me: back to NZ for another month and a half!

The Kiwi Experience - Part 1 - Days 56-61

Alright, so I started the Kiwi experience the 28th and finished it up in Christchurch on the 21 of January - the day I'm headed to the airport to meet my parents as they head over here for a three week vacation! I (was) literally sitting and waiting for them to arrive while I wr[o]te up this post and (was) extremely excited to see them

So I hopped on the giant, bright green Kiwi bus excited about where the next month was going to take me. The bus is a hop on/hop off travel bus where you can get on and off where ever you like (although most people have tight timetables and everyone usually likes to stick together). The bus wasn't completely packed that first day so it was kind of nice to have a bit of room. We headed from Auckland up to the Coromandel where we did a hike down to Cathedral Cove. It was slow going as there was lots of Christmas traffic and it was a rainy day so even though it was a nice hike it was wet and we couldn't snorkel or spend time on the beach. I felt like I didn't have enough time in the Coromandel so if I can swing it, I'm gonna head back there later in February when I head back to NZ.

The next day we left Whitianga and headed back down to Rotorua - the geothermal city that reeks of sulphur. This time round I hit up the luge track up on the hill just outside the town. Luging is like soap box derby's except you're not supposed to race... but everyone does anyway. There were about half a dozen of us who went and did this and it was SO much fun. You sit in little carts (just like Mario Kart minus banana peels) and zip down a pavement track. If you're unlucky (like Ellis was) you can wipe out and get some nasty road rash. This was the kick off to one of the most intense and adrenaline filled weeks of my life. By then end of it nothing really impressed me.

The next morning we left Rotorua but on our way out we stopped to Zorb. Zorbing is climbing inside giant plastic bouncy balls filled a bit with water. Then you roll down a hill inside of it. How could I go to NZ and NOT do this?? So I did a Zorb then jumped across the road to do the Swoop which is a swing lifted 37m high by a crane. You're tucked inside a sleeping bag type contraption and when you get to the top, the guy on the bottom counts you down and you pull the chord. The guy I did it with pulled the chord for us and I took a video as I screamed my way to the bottom. It was pretty amazing - what an adrenaline rush.

Right after that we hopped on the bus to head down to Waitomo for an extreme day of black water rafting in caves 60m below ground. I had no idea what I was really in for but I was excited. The rafting people picked us up around 4pm and we headed to their office to get geared up. 5mm thick wetsuits with accompanying jacket over top plus socks and boots – it was gonna be cold and damp in the caves. We headed down to the cave entrance and practiced some basic abseiling techniques. I had no idea what this was but it's when you are hooked up to a harness and rope and lower yourself down using your hands and clips. We got to lower ourselves 35meters down in the dark through a tiny tiny tiny opening with just a headlamp. We got to the bottom then got to zipline in pitch black to a lower part of the caves. It's really cold and damp below so we had a cup of hot chocolate and some baking and then cliff jumped with an innertube into the cold river water. From there we tubed down the river checking out the amazing glow worms sparkling like stars on the roof of the cave system. It's actually the glowworms waste that bioluminesces but it is so cool to see in the dark. After that we got pulled back up the river and went for a little swim. Anything that wasn't covered in wet suit was quite chilly so it was great to keep moving. We stopped for another hot juice and chocolate break and took some fun pictures with our headlamps in the dark. Next we stopped to catch a glimpse of an eel swimming around in a cave and then climbed through a little tunnel and climbed up the walls overtop of waterfalls and out through another cave entrance. In total it took about 5 hours and we were underground for about 3. When we got back we got some hot soup and bagels which was a nice finish to the adventure. That night we headed down to Curly's bar where I attempted and completed the Around the World Challenge which is drinking ten pints of beer (halfway through one of them is water) in a particular order. I was successful at this, and even successful at having no hangover the next morning!

We got up early the next day and headed down to Taupo where we were going to spend New Year’s Eve. We stopped to check out the Huka Falls, a set of waterfalls that drains Lake Taupo (about 220,000 L per second) and then headed to our hostel to unload everything for the next few days. I was skydiving this afternoon so after I got settled in, I got picked up by Taupo Tandem Skydive and headed out to their airport. I did a 4play, which is four extreme adrenaline events in one day (skydive, bungy jump, helicopter ride & Huka Falls jet boat). Since it was New Years day the next day, I had to do my Skydive on NY Eve. So I got to the skydive place and they briefed me on everything that was going to happen. They hooked me up into my coveralls and skydive gear then told me I had to wait for the pilot so I chilled out for almost an hour before they were ready to go. It was almost 5pm at this point and I was literally the last jump of 2010. I was the first on the plane and the last to jump out. There were a few other people jumping as well, but they were all veterans at it and doing it for fun – I was the only one doing a tandem. So I boarded the plane and watched the amazing scenery as we headed up 15,000ft. Taupo is an extraordinary place to jump – and on a clear and sunny day like mine, you can see all the way from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the North Island. I wasn’t nervous at all for my jump – this has been something I’ve wanted to do my entire life so I couldn’t get the huge grin off my face the entire time.

So my tandem buddy, Albert, got me all suited & helmeted up on the flight up and briefed me on how to exit the plane. We got to the edge and before I knew it, we had jumped out and were free falling at 200km/hr for 60seconds. Skydiving is so much different than bungying as you don’t really have a perspective of how fast you’re falling, you just enjoy the wind in your face, the view, and the ultimate freedom of falling. After about a minute he pulled the parachute chord and it opened successfully :D It was more of a jerk up in the air than I expected but it wasn’t too bad. For the next 10 minutes or so we floated gracefully down to the ground, enjoying the view and spinning in circles. We landed fine and I had completed my first ever skydive! I picked up the videos and pictures I bought and headed back to the hostel. What a way to ring out 2010! I grabbed a quick supper then watched the sunset with Chris and then headed back to start getting ready for the evening. We ended up bar hopping a little bit that night and I even got proposed to! It was actually quite hilarious as I played along with it and people believed us and congratulated us all night long. How spectacular to be one of the first places in the world to ring in the new year. We partied till the bars closed around 4am and Richard and I grabbed a delightful hotdog from a late night vendor.

I was up early the next morning as I was doing my bungy jump at 10am. My buddy Ellis came along with me for moral support and we stood in line waiting for a bit. I got all suited up and was actually really nervous. Coming over to NZ I knew I was going to go skydiving, and had assumed if the right opportunity came up I would bungy jump but it isn’t exactly on the top of my list of things to do. I was pretty nervous and when I stood on the edge for a second or two I wondered if I was actually going to go through with it. The guy said the longer I waited the harder it gets to do so I sucked it up, put my arms over my head and buny’d 47m down to the river below me. I had asked to get my arms wet but they can’t guarantee it and I just missed the water below me. Falling wasn’t tooooo bad, but the point at which I bounced up to my highest point and down again I screamed haha. What an intense adrenaline rush! After my jump I headed back to the hostel and desperately wanted to sleep but was getting picked up in an hour for my helicopter ride. I got to the Heli place and hopped in the front of a four-seater helicopter and enjoyed another spectacular aerial view around Taupo. My next stop after that was the Huka Falls Jet Boat and they dropped me off in the helicopter. That was actually pretty cool as I literally arrived by helicopter and had someone run out to meet me – all the people at the prawn farm and the restaurant were looking at me lol. The jet boat is a boat that runs by water propulsion and because of this you can go in shallow water and crank 360s in the water. After the last 24 hours I felt like nothing could impress me but the 30 minute ride was actually pretty fun.

That night I spent a fairly mellow evening hanging out with people as I had to be up at 5am for one of the most amazing hikes I have ever done in my life: The Tongariro Crossing . It’s an 18.5km hike across the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It’s considered one of the greatest days treks in the world and after completing it I can see why! It was an hour’s ride out to the park and we got going around 730am. The first 5km were easy with a breathtaking view of volcanoes around us and by 9am we reached the base of Mount Ngauruhoe (also known as Mount Doom from LOTR). It’s 7500 feet high and last erupted 33 years ago. There was a group of five of us that decided to take on the 3 hour return hike on top of the trek and we started our ascent to the summit. It was such a grueling hike to the top but worth every moment of burning caves and lungs. The slope is about a 45 degree angle and there is no specific pathway to climb up, you blaze your own trail through all the tephra. It was like walking through a larger version of sand and most of the time you had to use your hands to scramble up. It took about an hour and half to two hours to make it to the top – but boy! the view you had when you got up there was indescribable. We could look straight down into the crater of the volcano, or out and across at the rest of the Tongariro crossing. We stopped and had some snacks and ‘gross’ candy at the top and just enjoyed the view. It was also extremely windy up there so you had to be careful where you stood so you didn’t fall down the crater or roll back down the volcano. We slipped, slid, and scrambled down the slope and dumped the dirt out of our shoes at the bottom and continued on with the rest of our hike – another 12km to go. We had to keep to a specific time table or we’d miss our bus back to Taupo and would have to hitchhike so we didn’t get as much time to spend at the emerald lakes as we wanted to but we had some fabulous views and got some incredible pictures. We finished the hike just after 4pm – what a long but amazing day it was! That night back at the hostel we rewarded ourselves with some beer and a dip in the lake as it was our last night in Taupo and we were headed to River Valley the next day…

Gisborne, Raglan, Auckland (and Christmas)

Oooh boy... where do I even begin? I'm over a month behind on updating this blog and I have done so much in this time...

So last I had written about I was headed to Gisborne on the North Island. I caught up with three British blokes on the bus out there and we ended up staying at an old converted nunnery which was kind of cool. The bus ride was beautiful but the weather turned rainy as we got into Gisborne and I had to use some of my rain gear for the first time. I was planning on spending a few days in Gisborne but only spent a day and a half (and didn't get to see the sunrise on the beach as it was really cloudy). I ended up skipping over to Rotorua to check out the hot mud pools and Polynesian spa and then down to Taupo where I hung out for the day. It was kind of a backtrack on my part and didn't really work out so I ended up heading back to Rotorua from Taupo where I did a day tour out to Matamata and got to check out Hobbiton. The cool thing about Hobbiton is they are starting production sometime in early 2011 on the movie The Hobbit so all of the hobbit homes have been fixed up and have grass roofs and flowers on the door. It was really cool to see Bilbo's house and I even got to stand under the party tree. I would love to post photos on facebook but because they will begin filming soon, I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

I spent that night in Rotorua and had a great time meeting some of the river rafting guys that were staying in the same hostel as I was. Since Rotorua has such impressive geothermal activity (it smells extremely sulfur-y) the hostel had a natural hot tub which was great to relax in.

The next morning I was up early and on my way back through Hamilton and onto Raglan where I was planning on spending the entire week up until Christmas surfing and relaxing. The weather wasn't very great and was raining pretty much everyday but I met some really cool people at the hostel and every morning we'd grab a wetsuit and surf board and head out to the beach to catch some waves. It didn't matter if it was raining or not as we were wet anyway. I was planning on taking a surfing lesson but they give you some basic surf tips at the hostel and the others I was headed out with were learning as well so it was just kind of a team effort figuring out what to do. When I caught the bus out to Raglan I met a Portuguese guy named Diogo who had no money, little English, and nowhere to stay but he promised to teach me how to surf. He found me out in the surf and made me go out to the big waves (this was my first day surfing). Somehow I missed the memo that when learning, you should stay in the foamy surf and not try tackle the giant waves pro-surfers hit up. But I was up for the challenge and I did pretty well on the big waves. I was even standing up on my first day! At the end of it Diogo kept telling me "You crazy girl. You like big wave!" Haha... I had no idea! Regardless, the week of surfing was amazing aside from the nasty sunburn I received on a cloudy day across my nose. It blistered up and looked awful (and felt awful too). Thank goodness for giant bottles of aloe vera and hot sauna's to help sooth the pain.

Christmas Eve I left Raglan and headed back into Hamilton to catch a bus up to Auckland to meet up with the McAleese's who were kindly inviting me to spend Christmas with them. How funny that I would be spending Christmas in NZ with them while two of their daughters were spending Christmas in Canada with close family friends. They picked me up at the bus stop and we headed out to their friends place for a delightful German Christmas Eve meal.

This was an odd Christmas for me without any snow - it seems so strange to wear shorts and a tank top and be able to do activities outside and have BBQ's to celebrate it. (I must admit I actually really enjoyed it!) Christmas day we had an amazing dinner of lamb, ham, and turkey and an abundance of wine. Sue made the most amazing Christmas pudding for dessert and we visited with some of John's family until some more friends came over and we played Petanque and had another amazing meal for supper (over here they call it tea which just confuses me haha) and spent the evening exchanging gifts.

The next day was a pretty awesome day spent at the Ellerslie Horse races. I've never been to horse races before but you get to get all dressed up and wear fancy hats and sit and drink and eat while betting on horses. I ended up betting on a few and at the end of the day came out about 10$ ahead (not a lot but I definitely wasn't complaining). The next day Sue & John took me around Auckland and showed me some of the sights. We headed up to Mount Eden and One Tree Hill where you get a fabulous view of the city. Part of Auckland is an isthmus that's only 16km across so you can see both bodies of water on either side of it (and walk all the way across Auckland if you were motivated). We stopped at a pub for some chips and beer (I love the dark beer here) and then headed across the Auckland Bridge and checked out the million dollar yachts in the marina. We stopped and picked Hayden up from home and then headed out to Piha to check out the amazing surfing beach there and eat some ice cream.

The next day I was leaving Auckland on the Kiwi Experience bus tour for the next month or so....