North V South

Cuba Street - Wellington

Well so far the South is winning ... a lot more dramatic and heaps more wildlife.. but I guess they are so different thats what makes it interesting !! honestly I want so much !!

Paekahiri beach

So we arrived in the North Island and went straight to the famous Wellington musuem' Te Papa 'which was fabulous - very interactive, there was a floor on geology and you got to go into an earthquake house which shakes and things are thrown around, gives you a real idea of what it would be like... try drinking a glass of wine during that... spillage .. On the 6 th floor was a Maori exhibition... as I wandered around the highly decorated war canoe that is elaborately adorned with curly Albatross feathers , I found one on the floor .... I was so excited I put it in my pocket !!  ( children it is not theft !!) as we exited I told Brian , who kind of was only listening with one ear ( like the swiss fella) anyway we mooched upto Cuba street a great studenty cafe lined pedestian area adorned with buskers .. when I went to retrieve my feather to show him ..... guess what .. it was gone ... I was more distressed than I should have been at which Brian mentioned to me " oh I saw a white feather flutter down back at those traffic lights and it makes me think of Forrest Gump " ..... stupid is as stupid does ..so we went back to look for it .... doooohhhh ! this town is nicknamed 'windy city ' .... There is a message in there somewhere.
We decided to head up the coast for the night to a seaside town of Paekakariki , a lovely sandy dune beach, we took a bottle of wine down the beach and watched the sun go down.

Hot stream ( spot the munter !)

Woke upto a grey old day, arrgh.. and it got windier and windier as the day went on.... the scenery was fairly non descript so we carried on driving through ghost town after ghost town, we stopped of at a great Army Museum which depicted New Zealands commitment to war through the ages, it was very interactive and brilliantly laid out. We ended the night at the bottom of a huge mountain which is a ski resort in the winter and spent the night virtually on our own in a forest..

Get in the hole !

We woke to a beautiful day -  thank the lord , as I am not the best company when the weather is poor and of course it is all Brians fault..... we headed off and followed Lake Taupo , it is huge 18 miles long and 18 miles wide.. being watched over by snow capped mountains and volcanoes, very dramatic, we booked into our site and took a walk with our swimmers and towel down to the river. A boiling stream from a volcano joins the freezing cold river from the lake.. you can swim and lay in the shallow river bed in this unusual pool .. it was like sitting in a faulty mixer tap, or like being in the Camper shower when Brian turns a tap on and you either get scalded or frozen .. brrrr - arrgh .. it was a lovely experience and lots of people just chatting and swirling around in these clear blue spring waters ... We headed back and booked 2 bikes and our floatplane flight for the next day, the plane takes off on the lake and flies over the volcano so that you can see the blue pool in the crater ..

Huka falls . still with tache !! from Movemeber..

Up very early and it is bloody grey .. and very low cloud... I am so pissed off.... we rode down to the lake and realised two things were very wrong about our flight ( apart from the weather) firstly the pilot was female, secondly she looked about twelve... - she then said the clouds were too low to take off ( I mean what would she know ) so we left her to play with her barbie dolls ( other dolls are also available) and we rode off around the lake.

Bad eggs !!

At the top was a golf hole in one , where you hit a ball off of the cliff onto a floating pontoon moored 102m away.. Brian like all other men had only one thing on his mind ( well apart from the obvious) the cash prize of NZ $10,000 for a hole in one . Of course all the men took a club too short ( male ego huh ) some of them were so crap I could have thrown it further !!, Or I know some places in Bangkok where a certain part of the female anatomy could have fired it further.... However my hero , my Brian hit the pontoon on his 2 nd ball, I was so proud of him, he then hit it 3 more times, quite a crowd was forming , largely due to a coach load of Chinese tourists who had got off, but none the less he was firing on all 2 Irish cylinders... I thought at one point he was going to fire me, and confess to numerous affairs.. on national TV ..
We went for a lovely bike ride and fed the ducks then headed back to check on our juvenile pilot who was playing in a sand pit, she reconfirmed the flight was definitely off and to try again the next day. So with our head hung low we decided on a lakeside lunch to drown our sorrows..
Woke up very early again to rain ... I hate this country - the disappointments of never knowing what the weather will be like brings flooding back the frustrations of living in England.. never knowing what clothes to take, too hot too cold.. oh listen to me - so hard done by !! anyway the flight was cancelled, and as we were up so early, packed up and headed off.
First stop Huka falls, they were very impressive, what they lacked in height  they made up for in volume, a narrow gorge plunges over a shelf with a foaming maelstrom of blue glacial water - made one feel quite agoraphobic watching the swirling waters under the footbridge.

Champagne pool -  cheers.. 

we then drove onto Rotorua . Stopping first at Wai - o - Tapu a boiling pot of various bubbling pools.
We had prepared ourselves with boiled eggs and toast for the day( word up, salt and pepper the toast not the egg) as you can smell Wai o Tapu way before you arrive... it was a geothermal extravaganza, like being in a very busy kitchen...bubbling mud, mineral deposits, fluorescent yellow, radioactive looking lakes, - Champagne pool was fabulous, a bottle green cauldron of tiny bubbles on the surface, wreathed in swirling steam with a dusting of burnt orange and sugar around its flute !! very eerie ...I kept encouraging Brian to go in for a paddle, especially the gloopy chocolate mud fountain... I mean , man what is going on beneath us .. I am sure one day the whole thing will just go 'bang' !! someone once said that's how it all started !! Pah !!

Monster in the mist !!

From here we followed our noses all the way to Rotorua but not before visiting the blue and green lake and the buried village.. a village covered in ash from an old volcano explosion... it started raining again, so we headed for our site for some tunes on the Ukelule and chat to Chloe and Mum on skype.

Go on, dip your toe in Honey !!

Lady of the lake.

Chief to Chief !!

The next day was beautiful, we headed into town walking through the beautiful park which has geothermal pools all over it,,, fenced off areas with steam belching out from under the ground... ducks swim in lakes which bubble in area, it is like walking through another planet. We walked along the beautiful lake and onto government gardens, where we were rewarded with a Georgian bath house, croquet lawn, quintessential English gardens and a graduation ceremony from 'University of Canterbury ' no less... they were led around the quadrangle by four wonderfully dressed Maoris doing the haka .. they looked very cheeky , with their tattooed butt cheeks !! a 'w' on one cheek and a ' w' on the other ... only joking .... kids ... naughty Aunty Gab .We headed back to the site to enjoy the sunshine and get ready for our night out ... oh yes we were headed for Mitai Maori Village , our Maori driver picked us up in his bus , his name was nutter !!! and he was , he remembered everyone's names and was great fun, and very humorous, so much so Brian thought he was hilarious and laughed his head off the whole way there... It was no surprise then that Brian was chosen to be our 'chief '!!! to represent us to the warrior chief of this village - a job to be taken very seriously and under no circumstances must you show , fear, humour, or aggression .. oh lord !!

Maori Village

Chief with his warrior

Me and the boys ..

Kia Ora xx

We all gathered around Brian in a circle.. he stood very proud in front of his tribe, like a gladiator, awaiting the warriors coming towards him... It was spine chilling, their chanting and haka and spear wielding , |I was laughing so hard at poor old Brian, looking petrified, it was actually really scary, eye bulging, tongue waggling, scantly clad men threatening my husband were not on my top ten things to do on a world tour as flashpackers !!.. Brian's duty did not end there, whilst I wandered around the village on my 'own' watching the Maori villagers showing me various arts and crafts, my 'chief' was being put through his paces with various warrior games .. running through twigs and twirling sticks.. when the conch shell was blown he scuttled into the 'meeting house' I am telling you life as a chief sucks ... we  were all herded into the meeting house, where the most amazing dances were performed , songs sang and the finale of the Haka ... awesome.. it was then onto dinner, our food had been cooked in the ground on volcanic rocks then covered in ash and soil, Brian had to help to uncover the food, then lead us to the eating area, the food was yummy , if a little bland.. The evening closed to ... oh yes ... Brian having to do the Haka to all of us ... a true warrior... I learnt a lot about my Chief that night .. I did not realise his tongue was quite so long !!!!!