Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
- Blog
-
Location Date New Zealand 
1224630000 New South Wales 1215558000 Queensland 1207954800
Hey guys,
Okay, we're not actually still in New Zealand, but thought we'd fill you in on the remainder of our adventures after Rotorua. Rotorua was an experience...we stayed in a really dodgy hostel called Cactus Jacks..actually recommended by the Lonely Planet...mmmm for those of you planning to travel make sure to get an UP TO DATE Lonely Planet!!!!! Dodgy people cooking dodgy food, dodgy room with dodgy sheets!!! Say no more!!!! Poor Jo even ended up with bed bugs!!!! Not loads to see in Rotorua, the weather was against us and the smell of eggs became a bit too much! (The egg smell comes from the sulphur pools, which were quite interesting!). Soph did her Zorbing (rolling down a hill in a hamster type ball, with added water! Lots of fun!!!), which took an age to find, as Kiwi's do not sign their roads very frequently!!!!
From Rotorua we heading up to Auckland, where Jo left us to return home for a funeral. Soph and i took Chip (our rental car) and drove up to the Bay of Islands. We first stopped off at Paihia, a very pretty seasidey resort. We spent the time bike riding, walking and stopping at waterfalls. We then moved on to Ahpaira - literally out in the middle of nowhere...we had a cool cabin to ourselves though for the night. Our last stop took us to Whangerai, where the people were really friendly - we spent an hour talking to a local in a second hand book shop! We also visited some glow worms, very cool!!!!
We headed back down to Auckland after three days in the Bay of Islands. Unfortunately disaster struck and poor chip was taken ill...amidst rush hour in Auckland...the clutch decided to go...We were however, lost in the middle of the city and managed to get a free ride to our hostel from the AA and a refund for dear little Chip...We spent our last weekend in Auckland, visited a few bars and the cinema complex. We managed to get ourselves on the free day trip that the Kiwi bus runs...TWICE!!! Loving anything free, they were different trips, the fist was around the surrounding beach areas of Auckland to Piha and the next was to the Auckland bridge where we got to walk along for FREE!!!!! Also had delicious fish and chips on the beach, however this was short lived for me as a bird felt the desperate need to go to the toilet right on my forehead and fish and chips!!! Soph found this hilarious and felt photographic evidence was required...i was told it's apparently good luck...
So, we have now left New Zealand and are in the crazy world of Thailand...so far conning tuks tuks, unbearable heat, overwhelming temples, cheap Louis Vuitton and chaos are what we have discovered...will keep you posted.
Big love
Gem and Soph xxxxx
- comments
Marta Honey I would suggest you check withAir New ZealandUnited AirlinesQauntas Airlinesas they all offer scrviee to New Zealand and often offer last minute or low season sales.Tips on Saving Money on AirfaresThe staff of Airfarewatchdog has gathered tips on how to find low fares using the Internet. The game keeps changing, but here is our best thinking to date: our top ten tips to snag low airfares.Don’t assume that Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, and Sidestep all have the same fares.They don’t. Especially on international fares, one of these online travel agencies could have a fare several hundreds less or higher than another. One summer, Travelocity was selling seats to London on Virgin for $400-$470 round-trip, taxes included, from east and west coast cities, even for peak summer travel. Those fares were only available on Travelocity, not Orbitz or Expedia (they weren’t even available on Virgin’s own site). So check all the online agencies, and use multi-site search engine like Kayak and Booking Buddy.Also, most online travel agencies such as Expedia exclude many of the smaller discount airlines such as Virgin America (which was recently added to Travelocity) and Orbitz only recently added JetBlue.Search airline sites individuallyIncreasingly, airlines have “private” sales, reserving their very best fares for their own sites. With the exception of Southwest, which sells fares on its own site exclusively, most of the airlines that do this are smaller domestic airlines or large international carriers, but we’ve even seen Delta do it, and we’re not talking here just about last minute weekend fares. Alaska, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Jetblue, Malaysia, Frontier, Qantas, Singapore, SAS, Virgin America, and others are using this strategy. Spirit Airlines frequently has one cent, one dollar and other crazy low fares on its site only.Good Luck!