Our flight was only three hours, but air new zealand made it a very good three hours- food AND wine, such a luxury after jet star charging for water!! So basically New Zealand is AMAZING.
We had four weeks in the most gorgeous country in the world. We started in Auckland, the biggest city, where basically a 1/4 of the population lives. Dan met us at the airport and the next day we went for breakfast at Takapuna beach (chai latte and eggs Benedict with salmon- don't mind if I do!) the view was lovely and you can see Rangitoto island. He took us to Muriwai beach with black sand, maori bay (also very pretty), we did some warm clothes shopping and then went for drinks on the harbour. The next day, kiwi experience had a day tour, the weather was rubbish so we couldn't do the walks but we did get to climb half of the harbour bridge, which was cool. Ridiculously windy to the stage you feel like you could get blown off, but cool. We also saw someone do a bungy (they decided to do it at 9 o'clock that morning in the pub!) and it is the most casual thing I have ever seen. 1,2,3 jump off a bridge. Insane. We then had a wonder around the city, we'd planned to have an extra day in Auckland, but because of the bus schedule we had to leave a day early. Me and Dan grabbed some dinner (first pad thai since Asia!) and had a catch up, but I discovered that I am completely incapable of not spilling drinks!

The next day we had our first bus, everyone was lovely! Our first stop was hot water beach, where you dig holes in the sand and make your own hot pools. It's crazy how you can dig in one place and the water is freezing, but digging right next to it the water burns your feet!! It was raining like crazy but it made it a tad more interesting :) Then we went for a walk to cathedral cove which was so pretty and luckily the weather had cleared up just in time!

The next stop was Waitomo, which is home to the glow worm caves and black water rafting. On the way we stopped to do a walk through some ridiculously dark railway tunnels (we got to see glow worms!) and stopped in Paero- home of L&P, a really yummy soft drink, similar to lemonade. They even have a massive L&P bottle, which ofcourse we had to have a photo with! Such tourist! In Waitomo we did a little tour of one of the caves and had a boat trip where we saw all the glow worms- which looked amazing, basically like seeing stars on a really clear night, but a million times better! That evening we went to the pub for a bit, it was someone's birthday and we got our first try of kiwi pavlova (complete with kiwi fruit), very tasty!

Then we went to Rotorua, with a walk in the Ruakuri reserve on the way- lots of limestone rock formations and caves. Rotorua basically smells like rotten eggs everywhere because of the geothermal activity, but it's pretty cool. There are bubbling mud pools and geysers in the ground right next to people's houses and in their gardens! That evening we went to a Maori cultural evening which was so good! The driver there was hilarious! He taught us some words in Maori and on the way back made everyone sing as he drove around a roundabout beeping to 'she'll be coming round the mountain!' We learnt about the culture and traditions and saw the haka and some dances and performances. We also had a hangi- which is basically food cooked in the ground. There was soooo much food, it was like a massive roast and it was so AMAZING!!! If it was easy, I would insist we always cooked our roast dinner that way! There was also pavlova (I will also admit the New Zealand pavlova is the best!), which literally disappeared two seconds after they put a new one out! The morning we left Rotorua, we stopped at Te Puia- a thermal park and Maori Arts and Crafts centre and kiwi bird house. We saw lots of mud pools, we (well the guide) even cooked eggs in one of the thermal pools, and they were pretty good! We also learnt about the wood carving and weaving an how different tribes carve different patterns and how the patterns have different meanings etc. AND THEN WE SAW TWO KIWIS!!! (very feisty) and adorable!!

Next stop Taupo (toe-paw), which was one of my favourite places because it's so unexplainably breathtakingly beautiful!! We stopped to see Huka falls (formed by an earthquake) on the way and they are just ridiculously and unexpectedly powerful! The view from our hostel was fantastic- beautiful snow capped mountains. You could see mount doom (LOTR), and lake Taupo (the largest lake in Australasia- it's big enough to fit Singapore in it!!)- scientists sat it was the scene of one of the worlds largest known volcanic explosions (186 AD). This is where I did my 15000ft skydive and the view was ridiculously awesome, it's probably one of the best things I've ever done! I even got to steer for a bit, and we got a 360 view (the lake, mountains, Tongariro national park), spinning around super fast. The only time I don't mind feeling dizzy!! We then had a bit of a night out to celebrate not dying! Some of the others did the Tongariro crossing the next day, their photos look amazing- something I definitely want to come back and do!

After Taupo, was river valley, with a lovely, picturesque (but icy!) walk in Tongariro national park and a stop at a waterfall where they filmed a bit of LOTR. River valley is an adventure lodge. Adventure first, accommodation second. (This was our introduction when we arrived!) A tad awks when only 6 people in our group were actually doing an activity! It was a nice place to chill out for a bit though, we spent the evening playing cards by the fire. The next day, some of us decided to go for a walk, we had to cross fingertip bridge (named after its ability to slice off people's fingertips if you use it wrong! Encouraging.) it was like a pulley wood platform thing, actually quite fun :) the walk was also pretty good, except it would have been a lot easier if you were a mountain goat!! James actually saved Jenny from the falling down the cliff!!

We then went to Wellington, the capital (located directly on a major fault line). Called windy Welly and it really is very windy! We had a group dominos trip the evening we arrived and went for a few drinks. Most people left the next day :( but we decided to stay a bit longer. The first full day we went to Te Papa. Its a famous museum and it was really interesting, we even saw a colossal squid (and climbed inside a whale heart model meant for kids- too cool ;) ). The next day we went on the tram up to the botanic gardens, which was pretty. Then in the evening we met some of the others and went for a walk by the harbour. The next day was a ridiculously early start to get the ferry across to the south island.