Well i left australia for new zealand the flight was only 3 hours and a time difference of 2 hours, it was another place to start travelling for 7 weeks. The journey from the airport to the city was just like looking at the british countryside then town. The house are very like those at home and it's very green here unlike oz. I stayed at as hostal in the city quiet central which was good but the hostal was crap, very noisy with thin walls between rooms!!

Anyway i did a little sight seeing around the city centre and headed to parnell the posh part of town to find the kiwi experience office to sort out my bus ticket round the country. With that all sorted i headed round the shops and for lunch which was really nice. Auckland was just like anyother city but not a busy asa most. On my second day i went to the auckland museum which was really good lots of history about the maori culture of new zealand, and the potential problem of volcanoes in the future was really eye opening.

My travels started early on sunday morning like most of my other bus journeys. We headed to mount eden an old volcano which over looks auckland the views where amazing. After taking in the views we headed east to the coast to a place called mercury bay, we pasted a township called thames where we stopped for lunch. We visited a place called hahei in the afternoon, here we did a walk to cathedral cove, a cut out of the coast line made over years of wear and tear. The walk took about an hour and we had some time on the beach, some of the group went sea kayaking but due to money i decided to give it a miss. We stayed in a hostel called turtle bay a nice little hostel, little a small house very friendly feeling to it. We had a home cooked meal spag bol my fav and a few drinks then headed to the beach after for a few more drinks.

The next day we travelled to rotorua from mercury bay which is south, on the way we stopped at karangahake scenic reserve, it was once a mining township. We did another walk here along a disused railway into the mines. It was as expected very dark and wet in the mines. Luckly one of the blokes had a good light onhis phone which came in handy. We got to rotorua at 4.30pm and had a quick tour of the town very small justlike towns in oz. In the evening we went to a maori performance and dinner. IT was amazing we got an insight into the maori culture though singing and dancing performances by local people. The men even did the haka which was even better than seeing it at the rugby matches. I have a video check it out. We also had dinner called a hangi - it is cooked under ground over coals and wood and streamed, very health we had meats, fish, mussels and vegetable, followed by streamed pudding and custard. It was a really great night and everyone coming here should see a maori performance.

I stayed in rotorua for an extra day, rotorua is famous for the thermal activity so there are a lots of mineral thermal spa's. i decided to go to the polynesian spa to have a relax in the mineral pools there and then had a massage after which after carrying my basckpack was lovely. The only problem with rotorua is the smell due to the sulphur from the thermal pools the place smells like rotten eggs most of the day and night.

We headed to waitomo the next day west of rotorua. It was a few hours drive to waitomo but the weather was crap lots of rain so i didn't mind being on the bus most of the day. Didn't really do much the afternoon we got to waitomo just sat around talking with people i had met and went for dinner at the local cafe. The next morning i went black water rafting. This was me in a wetsuit, helmet and shoes with a small rubber ring and going though caves in the dark. I was quite scared in the small spaces with high water levels due to the recent rain. We had to jump off rocks backward onto the rubber rings into really cold water. It was really cold also but the guides were really good and looked after all of us really well. I'm so glad i decided to do it was i nearly changed my mind at the last minute. We were in the cave for aboiut 2 hours in toutal and when we got back we had soup and bagels for lunch.

We visited taupo the next day which is the extreme activites capital of the north island. I was going to do a bungy jump here but went out my first night and had afew too many drinks and didn't want to bungy hungover. So instead i walked around the largest lake in new zealand and had lunch with some of the girls i met. Just really had a relaxing time before moving on in a couple of days to the south of the north island wellington.

take all for now

hope everyone is well and looking forward to xmas

love tasha xxxxxxxxxxx