Kiwi Experience III

So yeah its been back on the Big Green Bus of Dreams for the last few days, had a bit of time to kill before flying out of Aucklano on to Sydney so decided to head South a wee bit on the Kiwi again. I reckon I should get some sort of loyalty card or free T-Shirt out of them for the amount of time I've spent on this bus, lol.

Had a lovely few days in Auckland when I got back from the Bay of Islands and got some pretty good news from home. I now have 2 reasons to love HMRC, the fact that they are getting torn into the Huns and the fact that they have decided to send me a nice wee cheque in the form of a tax rebate from a few years ago. Just finish off the Huns in the courts now and there will be much rejoicing.

Got out of Auckland on Friday and headed to Hot Water Beach where we missed the tides for digging a hot pool in the sand again, never mind, had a nice dip in the sea both there and at Cathedral Cove where there was a rather sizeable stingray in the water. Couple of beers back at the hostel and then on to Waitomo the following morning. Quiet time in Waitomo, saved the pennies for Rotorua.

Went luging in Rotorua and this is possibly one of the most fun things that you can do. It's basically a small cart thing that only has two controls, go or brake. Pull the handle back to brake, push it forward to go, oh and dont forget to steer. You basically go haring down a the side of a mountain for a couple of kilometers, check it out on you tube, you can certainly pick up a fair amount of speed, then you just jump on a ski lift back to the top and go again. Had some pretty good races between the 6 of us that were there, should really have something like it at home. Had a decent night out in Rotorua as well, 4 of the guys managed to win $50 bar tab in the bar games and promptly devoured 2 jaegebombs each, the only way to spend a bar tab in NZ.

So yeah, that was a bit of a late night and then it was on to Taupo where for the first two nights it was just carnage. Had another bash at the hole-in-one challenge at Lake Taupo. Hit the platform 5 out of 18 times, poor effort really. Then we went on to play mini-golf, myself, 3 Swedes and an Englishman. So you could say 3 swedes and 2 neeps, weh hey. So agreement was struck at the beginning of the round that the lowest score would get a beer each from the others. 3 Hole-In-Ones in the last 6 holes sealed a come from behind victory for me by one stroke, 4 free beers, happy times.

Entered the pub quiz with the same lads from the mini-golf and I thought that we performed OK, it was a reallly tough quiz and our score of 36/50 I thought was pretty respectable, 44 won, cheats!!!!! Anyway, after the few free beers we stayed on the sauce until kicking out time, amazed that I managed to get up on the following morning to watch the Dandies bt St J on the internet. A goal from the Half-Way line, whats going on, great win though, happy times.

Back to Auckland tomorrow for 4 nights and then that'll be NZ done, on to Oz for the last leg of the journey, so not long until you all have to put up with me again, nae luck min.

Take care all