Hey everyone

Today we began our Kiwi adventure!

We were up and out of the hostel early, as we were being picked up from outside another hostel nearby. After a little wait, the huge green coach eventually came round the corner and stopped in front of us. It was already pretty full, but still got seats near each other. Our driver, Spud, gave an introduction to Kiwi Experience and our the trip works (refer to the blog entry for the 23rd for an explanation).

Our first stop was still in Auckland, at the top of Mount Eden. We just stopped long enough to take some photos of the view of Auckland, and of the famous One Tree Hill too. In the centre of the crater there are the remains of some tractor tyres, left over from an Aprils fools day prank. Tyres were thrown down into the crater early in the morning, then lit, producing masses of black smoke to bellow out. Auckland then woke up to Mount Eden smoking, causing lots panic and for many people to try and leave the city.

We got back on the coach and began our journey out of Auckland to Whitianga, or Mercury Bay. To meet some new people on the bus, we did a sort of 'speed dating', where everyone with an aisle seat had to move in a circle forward or backward one seat at a time around the bus. We met some nice people, though many had already been to Australia so we tried to avoid the conversation of "did you go here?" "Yes" "me too! Did you go here?" "Yes" "me too! Did you go..." You get the idea. Fortunately our journey through Asia was a more interesting topic - those who had already been new just how different it is to everywhere else, and those who were yet to go were happy to listen to our advice.

When introducing ourselves, people rarely know where Ipswich or Kidderminster are, so we spent some time working on our introductions. Christina says "I'm from Worcestershire, as in the sauce!" which is good and funny as everyone has heard of the sauce. If, however, they don't know where Ipswich is, Alex has the pleasure of saying "...You know... Ipswich, as in the place where that serial murderer who killed all those prostitutes came from...". Oh great. Everyone has heard of him but it's possibly the worst claim to fame a town can have. Still, it does the job.

Since Christina sat behind Alex, when we moved seats every 5 minutes, she always talked to whoever I had just been talking to. She could then save a lot of time by just saying "I'm Alex's girlfriend and have travelled exactly where he has".

We stopped in a place called Thames for lunch, and then stopped again a little while later for a walk. The walk took us down to Cathedral Cove, a beautiful little beach with a huge archway in the rocks, where a scene from Narnia was filmed. Erosion had caused huge stacks to form along the shoreline, and it was a beautiful place to rest out feet before the walk back to the coach.

A little while further down the road we stopped at Hot Water Beach, which happens to be situated above a thermal outlet. Here we dug holes in the sand and they filled with hot water, sometimes too hot to even stand in. From a distance masses of steam came from all the little pools people had dug.

After a long day of travelling broken up by lots of stops, we finally arrived at our hostel in Mercury Bay, Whitianga. It was a nice, clean little place and feeling tired, we bought the Spaghetti Bolognese that the hostel owners cooked for everyone. We chatted to a few people and then headed off to bed, ready for another day of travelling and sightseeing. Xxx