The first night we arrived in Auckland and the first thing we were told was that if we take a cab it would be about $40 to our hostel, so we decided to do that. Turns our that you had to have a coupon thing and we ended up paying $90 for one cab fair lol. It was honestly ridiculous. We have a very bad habit of getting bad taxi service..as you can tell from past stories and this one! Anyways, we got to our hostel around 7 p.m. on Friday and then just wandered the streets which were completely dead due to it being good Friday. We got pizza and that was about it for that day.
The next morning bright and early we met up with the Stray bus we were traveling with! This day we drove from Auckland to Hahei to Cathedral Cove. We stopped at a beach along the way where due to the earth being thinner there you could literally dig down into the sand and create a hot tub, and the water would be hot. So hot it was steaming! It was very interesting that is for sure. However, it was only a small part of the beach that was like that and so we didn't stay to long. We checked into our hostel and then all of us decided we wanted to see Cathedral Cove. So then Metro (the driver for stray) drove us all down there and told us we would walk home and that dinner would be at 7 O'clock. So then we find out it is a 45 minute walk to cathedral cove and none of us are wearing the correct clothing. We decided to go anyways and I am happy we did because it was absolutely gorgeous!!!
we stayed there for about a half hour and then had to walk about the hour we had walked PLUS the walk from where we got dropped off back to our hostel..all together it was about a 2 hour walk up and down hills lol. The rest of that night all we did was have a barbeque and get to meet everyone on the bus. It was really fun!
We went from Hahei to Raglan which was the day you had an option to take surfing lessons but only 5 people decided to actually do it. Instead we all just went to the beach and hung out for about 3 hours. The sand was like black (naturally) and really weird but at the same time gorgeous. After the beach we went back to our hostel and got ready to go out for dinner. We called a Taxi and then 7 of us went to dinner.
However since it was Easter weekend there weren't really any taxi services running and the one we called had driven an hour form the next town over because they didn't understand where we were going. So the cab driver drops us off really mad and tried charging us 150 for a 20 minute cab fair. We gave her 60 total and got out of the cab, we refused to pay that much ahah. So we went to dinner and then we were completely stranded in town and if we were to walk home it would have taken about 4 hours.... all seven of us ended up getting a ride home from the restaurants cleaning lady haha in the courtesy van that wasn't suppose to be running that day!!! Sad but true!!!
This was also April 11th, the day Rhianna got married and I was thinking about her all day long! CONGRATS RHIANNA! I wish I could have been there!!!!!!!!
Then from Raglan we drove to Waitomo. This day was really interesting! We went caving underground to look at glowwarms! It included abseiling three times (twice under a waterfall) climbing up 30 foot latters, rock climbing (actual rock climbing not the fake easy kind!!) and basically squeezing your body through holes where you couldn't even get your two feet through hahah!!
The very first thing we did was climb down a hole that was 40 meters long by abseiling..and you couldn't see anything because it was so dark! When you turned off your light it was completely dark and all you could see where the glowwarms glowing. It was pretty cool!! We did that for about 4 hours in total...the wetsuits were sssooo hard to get on and off lol I was very surprised any of us could move in them!!After that we just drove from Waitumo to Maketu and had a cultural night. We learned a couple dances and songs and then just played games all night. Then at the end of the night about 40 of us slept in one giant room haha it was really fun but you can't really describe it and make it sound as fun as it actually was!
The next morning we stopped in Rotorua for lunch and then visited more geothermic areas where the ground was literally bowling from how hot the mud was. It was crazy and smelt like rotten eggs!!! From Rotorua we went to Taupo. and in Taupo we went sskkyyddiivvinnnnggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D We went from the highest point possible, 15,000 feet!! It was amazing!! I was the first one to jump out of the plane too. I absolutely loved it and didn't get nervous at all! The ride up there I was right next to do the door which was completely see through and it was the most relaxing thing I have ever done! I think it is because of how much I love heights that I just enjoyed the entire thing and didn't get nervous once!
I surprisingly only screamed twice on it! When we went out of the plane I screamed, I wasn't even necessarily scared just felt like a reasonable time to be screaming so my body naturally did it haha and then the second time I screamed was when the parachute opened because it pulled us back up really fast and surprised me!
I forgot to tell you what we did before skydiving! We went zorbing! Which is you literally get inside of a gaint ball that has some water in it and get pushed down a hill. It was created in New Zealand so I figured I had to do it while I was there.
The next day we went to Tongariro National Park bright and early, we left at 6:50 in the morning!!! We woke up after only getting 3 hours of sleep because we went out the night before. The hike was literally a 7 hours long and I only went for about an hour into it, turned around and walked very slowly by myself back which took 3 hours..so 4 hours in total. I REALLY regret not doing the entire thing but found out it was super hard, they literally hiked a mountain RANGE. I was to dehydrated for it so it was better that I turned back just wish I hadn't. OH and I have never seen lord of the rings but if you have this was a part of what we were hiking. Mount Doom or something like that
Then that night we just stayed in a really nice hostel and relaxed which was nice!!! The next day we went to Wellington (which was another place Lord of the rings was filmed..Hobbitown was filmed there but I didn't actually go and visit because we got there to late). So we spent the day in the wellington museum which had 6 floors of exhibits and was the nicest museum I had been to! After the museum we went back to the hostel and got ready. We all went out to the bar that night because it was our last night with everyone!! It was a really fun night! Sadly, the next morning we had a 13 hour drive back to Auckland and I spent the last two days in Auckland.
I didn't care to much for Auckland honestly. It was a big city, but just wasn't my favorite place out of the entire trip!
So there you have it my week in a nutshell. :)
Can't wait to talk to you all so we can talk about everything I missed in my nine days away! I love you all & will have pictures up on Picasa within the week!
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