Day 8: Wellington

second day in Wellington and we're really liking the posh city centre apartment. Slightly bigger than my house it turns out.
In the afternoon we met up with dan's friends Fiona and Matt and went to the local nature reserve which was very nice.

In the evening we headed to Cuba street which is where a lot of the good bars are. Had some very good cocktails and then went on to a restaurant called Logan and browns. We had been told that of was very luxurious and also pretty exclusive. When we told people we didn't have a reservation there was much head shaking and sucking of teeth. There was even a piece in the paper today about an Ozzie actor being turned away.

It is in an old bank and so looks very grand and imposing as you head in. Either we give off the air ofbeing very exclusive or ( and I think this is more likely) they were having a bit of a slow night as we got a really good table rightaway. The food was glorious , the service was informal but very efficient with plates whisked away as they were finished and our glasses keptconstantly topped up, including the tap water which we were poured without even being asked which is always a good sign.


we finished and headed back out to cubastreet for a gentle post prandial stroll by the water and to take in the sights. It turns out that this salubrious restaurant in this lively area of town is actually only one street away from a very busy and industrious red light zone, complete with young ladies lining the streets.

Being well travelled young men we of course responded to this with the knowing and world -weary response of putting our hands over our eyes and running down the middle of the street.

Day 7: 'Copter a load of Sulphates

Okay sorry about the lack of pictures guys but NZ is surprisingly stingy when it comes to Internet access, let alone poking things in USB sockets and such like, so above is a 'stock shot' to try and enhance this post.

Yes I know we're a few days behind posting, but then you lot have consistently failed to catch up with New Zealand time so it all works out. In fact I think we get the lottery numbers 12 hours before you do, but I digress.

So day 7 we managed to squeeze in possibly the most amazing activity I have ever done, we booked a helicopter flight over the range of volcanoes that surrounds Rotorua and thanks to my camera I was given the front seat for the journey - not that it would have made much difference I feel. The journey from the sky - narrated by our friendly pilot - took us right over the pictured crater that is 18km long and was created in 4 hours during the regions most violent eruption just over a 100 years ago. In the distance we could see all the other volcanoes that are dotted along the fault line, 7 in total. We were also given a brief landing and guide round Hell's Gate where all the mud and steam bubbles to the surface at extremely high temperatures, the whole experience was awesome and I loved every minute of it.

Unfortunately due to lack of time and my inability to write I can't possibly do the whole journey justice, even the many pictures I took don't seem to capture the scale of what we saw. So we left Rotorua straight after feeling quite humbled by the mornings activity.

A mere 470 km further and we arrived in Wellington via Lake Taupo and the Desert Road, both also spectacular. Anyway got to go but next post tales of fine dining and Slag Alley...

Day 6: Rotorua - Copper load of those sulphates

This morning we headed to the Polynesian Spa. Took a bit of finding, but we knew when we were almost there. As we crossed the street, the wind must have changed and it was like walking into a wall of sulphur. Memories of the science corridor at school when doing the sulphur experiments sprang to mind.


We were met in reception by a woman wearing a mobile phone headset, straight from central-casting for a beauty therapist receptionist. She was very nice but didn't really get "humour'.

We chose our treatments then headed out to the pools for what turned out to be a 10 minute soak - just about time for a hard boiled egg. The hottest pool was about 42deg C which was like a really nice bath, only outside, looking at a lake. Very relaxing, though the water leaves a very slippy soapy feeling on your skin.

Then went for a really nice massage, with quite a lot of painful work on my neck and shoulders but really, really good.

In the evening we went against all better judgment and booked into to the tourist-tastic sensation of a Hangi - which is where innocent foreigners are driven to a tradtional Maori village (conviently just off the bypass). They are then greeted by traditional Maori warriors on their Waka (canoe), there's a bit of back and forth, some dancing and shouting and then we had the meal. This was all sorts of things that had been cooked in a traditional earth oven - chicken, lamb, sweet potatoes and oddly a chocolate roulade and a trifle. Not sure the last bits were done in the oven.
The meal had been helped along by the judicious application of lighter fluid, which did lots for the traditional taste.

It was quite good fun really, but very out of my comfort zone of things I would normally do.

It was nice to meet lots of different people there, and to have a couple of national sterotypes re-inforced (basically Australian: slightly less racist than Hitler).


So far though, Rotorua has been very good to us, and there is even better to come tomorrow.

Day 5: Road to Rotorua

We travelled down a lot of the North island today to reach the volcanic region of Rotorua where we are hopefully going to indulge in lots of things volcanic- spas, mud, geysers, mud, helicopter flights, and mud.

We had initially booked at a good sounding hotel with a view of a mud geyser. It took some finding, being not right by the lake as we had thought, but on the far reaches of town. Turns out that the room we were in 'technically' had a view of the geyser, but was 'actually' blocked by trees.

We 'technically' looked elsewhere and are now actually in a hotel right by the lake.
Smashtastic.

The trip down was quite long - about 7 hours or so of driving. The roads are quite rough, with only about 60Km of the 500Km trip being on anything approaching motorways. Still, we have seen some really interesting out-of-town hinterlands with lots of strip malls and large agricultural equipment depots.

The views here so far are breath taking. The lake is gorgeous and there was a fantastic sun set this evening.

Tomorrow we're going to one of the spas - for mud treatments and general lolling, and we may also take a helicopter trip around a volcano.

Day 4: Mangina and Regina

Okay so that's not exactly what they're called but in my head they are now forever (funnier that way you see) where we actually drove through today was Manginangina en route to Cape Reinga, even typing that I had to think carefully ( and still be corrected).

Was a pretty spectacular location at the northern-most point of New Zealand, where the Tasman Sea and The Pacific Ocean meet in a cacophony of sea and energy, well apart from today, which I was reliably informed by a local was extremely unusual conditions, calm, sunny and between organised tours "you can't get photos of the lighthouse without flipping tourists" er yeah.

Anyway it was worth the 540km return journey for the beautiful vista we were presented with. On the way back we managed a brief stop at the 90 mile beach, which I was saddened to learn is actually about 64miles long, still it was pretty phenomenal and I was extremely jealous of the bastards who didn't have 'terms & conditions' on their vehicles restricting them from driving on beaches. Still watching other cars, coaches and such like hammer it down the beach was pretty impressive.

Day 3: It's a bit obvious

We picked up a car this lunchime, or rather we were picked up from the hotel by the hire company. On our first day we had been given some general advice about car rentals and had headed out along the main road to find a suitable company. We got so far along the and then concluded that we taken a wrong turn, so headed back into town and a glass of sauvignon blanc. Turns out that if we had kept going for another 30 seconds, we would have found ourselves in the car-hire-hot-spot of Auckland.

We then proceeded to have quite some trouble finding a good car, taking quite a lot of time in the travel information centre. In the end we've got a perfectly good car, albeit a bit old and with a fully veloured set of seats, but it does have air conditioning so that's really good!


We've driven north to Paihia (pronounced pay here) in the Bay of Islands. Deciding against the obvious we chose to take Danny's "scenic, it would be really nice to see the coast, and it's really not that much further" route. This had truly stunning views but was really like driving a 90 km roller coaster. Twisty would describe it.

Checking our path towards the hotel, Danny read the first line of the location description which said 'Russell is best reached by ferry' which piqued our interest. Further piquing was achieved when, about ready to turn left and head inland, we saw a large body of water in our way. Almost like an ocean, in fact.

As the concept of having to redo the last 2 hours of our journey sank in, we were relieved to find the ferry across, and that it took cars.

Actually, hotel isn't quite the word. It's a collection a cabins set into the hillside. It's like staying in our own tree house!

Whatever happened to Wednesday 2nd April?

Well, we're here somehow and coping admirably with jet lagggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg\
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..
And a bizarre keyboard with the slash where the enter should be.

The flights were good in the end, although had a slight kerfuffle at Heathrow to do with non-working check in machines, seats that wern't together and snooty bint on the check in desk.

Got to LA and got through the customs/immigration/kidney scan without too much delay; scored some pizza and a budweiser in a very american stylee bar which certainly felt.. the part.

Longish wait then for the connecting flight to New Zealand but the flight was pretty good. Aided somewhat by Dan's suggested approach of two sleeping pills and a glass of champagne.

At some point during the night there was a fantastic thunder and lightning storm somewhere off to starboard (get me with the lingo). You could see the lightning strikes illuminating the middle of the storm. Fab. From a secure distance anyway.


Shuttled into Auckland and rocked up to the swankiest hotel, right in the heart of Auckland, about 2 minutes walk from the skycity tower (tallest structure in the southern hemisphere, apparently). We're now sat in the executive suite on the 7th floor, supping a couple of martoonis.

Tomorrow we should be booking our onward travel up to the north of the island, and then catching the ferry off through the harbour to the island of Waiheke which should have lots of vineyards and probably other stuff too, but mainly the vineyards.


Dan says we will have a 'grape' time.
I think we will!
Dan is never going to say anything like that again.
I will never say anything like that again.
I will never say anything like that again.
I will never say anything like that again.
I will never say anything like that again.
I will never say anything like that again.
I will never say anything like that again.
etc,
etc.

Join us next time for tales of the Bay of Islands, losing my hat on a ferry and an hilarious misunderstanding.