Christmas down under

So, getting back into Australia was a little bit harder than I had anticipated. Customs and immigration in Australia are notoriously strict, so there were a couple of things that caused a slight delay after I got off the plane in Melbourne.

Firstly, Australian customs officers don't take kindly to passports that have been wet. Unfortunately, when I did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, since the weather was so bad, the rain seeped into my bag and got everything wet. Including my passport. This caused important things like stamps, ink, and the photo to become slightly less clear. The woman in New Zealand said that it was fine because the electronic chip could still be read, but did warn me that "Australia won't like that..." She was right.

When I got to customs, I was subject to a lengthy interview where I was required to tell the interviewer exactly where I would be at all times for the rest of the duration of my stay. Since I don't have much of a fully formed plan, I obviously couldn't tell her and managed to fumble my way though by saying I will be in Wollongong between February and July studying. She then asked what subject codes I would be taking and which lecturers would take my classes - as if she would know who they were anyway!

After eventually clearing customs, I was made to then go and wait in line to be checked out by immigration since I was wearing my hiking boots. I decided, to avoid hassle and save time, to not tell them about my week shovelling shit at the Gubb's place, and said that my boots were only dirty because I'd been hiking. I realise that this is naughty, but I was not in the mood to be rejected entry into a country.

A full two and a half hours after landing, I escaped from the airport and was on the bus into Melbourne. After settling down into the hostel room, Charlie came to meet me, and we explored the city's shops to try and find Flic a Christmas present (she was having us over for Christmas day after all!). This proved to be more difficult than we expected - especially when we'd literally just bought her a DVD box set of Misfits (a British TV show) when Charlie received a text saying "I just downloaded all of Misfits! It's so good!" ... At least we knew we'd made a good choice, even if it did then have to be returned!

That evening, the wonderfully generous Sara and her son Dave had me over for tea. Sara lives in Melbourne, but met Charlie's dad while travelling through Peru a long time ago, and so Charlie was staying with her. As well as showering Charlie with gifts and affection, when Charlie mentioned that she had a friend (me) in town, Sara invited me over to enjoy a roast chicken with the three of them. It was delicious, and definitely a welcome break from the pasta and tuna diet I'd been surviving on in New Zealand!

The next day, Charlie got the train to Albury to go to Flic's house, but I stayed in Melbourne for a day longer so that I would have a chance to take in the sights and soak up the atmosphere. I really did enjoy it. I don't know if it's like this all year round, or if it was just because it was Christmas time but there was a really creative atmosphere in the city, with street performers or artists on every street corner. Everywhere I looked, I saw interesting architecture or a statue, and on top of this, everyone seemed friendly and willing to help. At one point, I was obviously looking lost, staring blankly at a map when a business man stopped, asked me where I was going, and even walked me most of the way to where I wanted to go while we had a full on chat about my travels (in the UK, businessmen are notoriously grumpy and in a rush, so I was a little taken aback by his kindness)! I usually say that I would never like to live in the middle of a city, but I think this is the exception to my rule.

After two days, that went by incredibly quickly, I was on my way to Albury to spend Christmas with Flic and the rest of the Treloar family. As I predicted, Flic and Charlie were late picking me up from the station (it turns out that they took a wrong turn and got lost in the bush) so I decided to sit and read my book. It was so hot, that even this was making me break out in a sweat! Eventually they arrived and we were soon back at her house which, thank God, has air conditioning. We lazed by the pool and were later provided with enough food to feed Africa for at least three days! This became a recurring theme for the days running up to Christmas day.

On Christmas, we exchanged gifts, drank beer, and ate enough food to keep us full for a good while, and then some more after that. It was pretty similar to my normal Christmas traditions, with added "shrimps on the barbie" - although whenever we called them shrimps, Nick shouted at us and told us to call them prawns (technically correct). The weather on Christmas day itself was not great - it rained all day - but it could have been a lot worse - I could have been in Stockport!

The next day, Nick drove us all back to Wollongong where, since then, I have been frantically trying to find a fruit picking job. Tomorrow morning I will arrive in Adelaide, regardless of whether or not I have found a job yet, and we shall see what happens from there! My instincts are telling me that this is not a good plan, but I'm sure it will work itself out - it usually does!

Adventure Activities and the Scenic Route

I was in Queentown, at last. The first thing I did after checking into my hostel was to sign up to a bar crawl that was happening that evening. I thought it would be a good way to meet people in the hostel and familiarise myself with the area. It turns out that, while I did get to meet people, I had no idea where I was because they blindfolded us between bars, and we had to do the conga along the streets being led by the hostel staff to make sure we didn't get lost - a surreal but admittedly fun experience, especially when you've had a few beers!

The next day, I decided to face my massive fear of heights and do New Zealand's highest bungy jump - and wow it was amazing! I was terrified though. Especially in the little box that shuttled us over to the ledge (which had a see through floor...) and when they had me sat down doing up my harnesses. Strangely though, my fear completely disappeared when I got to the edge - I just thought "wow, that's a long way down!" but I wasn't scared, and just like that, the man in charge counted down 3... 2... 1... and I (rather inelegantly) threw myself off the platform! I could see the floor coming towards me, and was probably free falling for about ten seconds before I felt the bungy rope lengthen and save me from hitting the rocks below me - what a rush!

Once I was back, and had calmed down from the jump, I decided to go and taste one of the world famous Fergburgers. They are enormous, delicious - and best of all - cheap! Everyone who has been to Queenstown told me to get a Fergburger, and they did not disappoint at all, with layer upon layer of burger, salad, sauce, bread and a whole bunch of optional extras. I had one of these burgers every day of my stay in Queenstown, which meant I actually spent more on Fergburgers than transport on the South Island.

I spent the rest of the day wondering around the town, finding my way around and looking at clothes I knew I couldn't afford, and when I got back to the hostel, predictably, the Kiwi Explorer bus had arrived. I've not yet mentioned the Kiwi bus, and I will now explain why I knew I would bump into them at some point in Queenstown. I first met the passengers of the Kiwi bus in Westport (at the top of the west coast of the south island). The next day, I saw them at the pancake rocks. The next day, we were on the tour of the Franz Joseph glacier. By this point I was thinking that it was silly to keep seeing them everywhere and to not know any of them, so we all got chatting, and they said that they'd noticed me everywhere they went as well! Just like that, friendships blossomed and as we parted ways we said "see you in Queenstown!" - I didn't know they'd be in the same bloody hostel as me! So for the next few days, I kind of latched onto their group - drank with them, ate with them and sat around doing not much else with them...

I did, while in Qtown, also go on one of the 'world famous' jetboat rides on the Shotover river. It was pretty fun, but for the first five minutes of the 45 minute ride it was raining, and when you're going at 80 km/h, you do NOT want it to be raining. After the initial pain of rain splattering into my face though, it was great. The driver obviously knew what he was doing, and took us very close to rocky outcrops and pebble beaches to make us think we were going to crash, but obviously we weren't. In summary, quite a fun experience, but probably would have been more fun if I was with people I knew, instead of a load of Asian tourists that said "iiyyyaaaaa" every time the driver spun us around...

At this point, I was completely broke. I searched everywhere I could, in every bank account I'd ever opened, and I realised that I had almost nothing left. I made a call to my parents, and begged, and they kindly agreed to give me my Christmas money early (THANK YOU!). To stay on the safe side though, I didn't do any more adventure activities while in New Zealand. They might have been worth every penny, but they still costed a lot of pennies!!

I reluctantly moved on from Queenstown after four nights and went to Mt Cook - New Zealand's highest mountain. Apparently it's beautiful. I wouldn't know, there were too many clouds, so I spent the rest of the day watching the Lord of the Rings (which seemed to be playing in every hostel I'd stayed in - how clichéd) and playing scrabble with the other people staying there. The next day was still cloudy, but not as cloudy, so I went for a walk to kea point, hoping to see some kea. Unfortunately they were nowhere to be seen, but I did find some really, really, really blue lakes! I stayed there for a while, taking in the atmosphere, and eventually the clouds did start to clear up and I managed to see the summit of the mighty mountain.

Later that day, I got the bus to lake Tekapo. Wow. It had the bluest water I've ever seen. Properly blue, like when you're a kid and you use a blue crayon to colour in the water. It was so blue that you couldn't even see the bottom when you went and stood next to it - it was opaque because it was saturated with minerals that had been collected as glacial ice ran down the rocky mountain. It was stunning, and almost enchanting. I was told that there was no other civilisation around the lake within a 30 mile radius, meaning that there was no light pollution or any other kind of pollution, so on a clear night, it was the perfect place to do some star gazing. Because of it's ideal location, the'd built a large telescope there, and it was available for public use. At midnight, me and some other tourists went up to the telescopes and had a "tour" of the night sky, where they pointed out constalations, galaxies, nebulas and stars. We even got to get a close look at Jupiter, and saw its rings and three of its moons! A truly humbling experience.

Me in front of lake Tekapo

The next day I made my way to Christchurch. I didn't really know what to expect. Most of the travellers I'd met had told me not to even go there because the Earthquake damage had been so extensive. There's not even anything left - they'd tell me - but since I was flying out of Christchurch airport, I thought I'd at least have a look around. What I found was that it wasn't actually that bad. I was expecting some kind of apocalyptic wasteland, where you couldn't walk down the streets for fear of building collapsing on top of you. In reality, most of the destruction had been cleared and I felt very safe as I roamed the streets. In saying this, only one street was open for business, and the shops here had been made out of shipping containers, so that when the city has been properly rebuilt, the containers can be removed easily.

By the way, I don't mean to belittle the devastation that has obviously been felt in that city, but by the time I'd got there, almost all of the collapsing buildings have been demolished. I think they've made a lot of progress since the initial quakes, and it won't be long (a few years) before the city is back to normal again - although personally I feel like it would be a better idea to move the city away from the major fault line...

After a long night in the airport, talking with a French girl, a German man, and an Italian man, laughing a lot, and keeping everyone else awake, I finally boarded the plane and was on my way back to Australia! But getting back into the country was not as easy as I thought it would be, after getting my passport ever so slightly soggy back on the Tongariro crossing, but that's a story for next time! Thanks again for reading :)

Santa Costume Wearing, Knife Making and Glacier Climbing

After my soggy accent to the top of Mt Doom, I stuck around the hostel for a while, playing board games, watching (aka, falling asleep in front of) films, and massaging my aching calf muscles before my bus departed from Turangi at 1.45AM. I got to the bus stop early so that I could look at the stars in the cloudless sky. They were just so beautiful because the level of light pollution was so low, and the air is so clear over here. A five hour bus journey then ensued which took me to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.

When I got there at 6.30AM, there was very little to do, so I resorted to having a McDonald's breakfast and falling asleep in the corner for an hour, after which, I went over to the Houses of Parliament. Oddly enough, there was a troop of people wearing Santa costumes. Confused as to what they were doing at this time, dressed in this way, I went over to ask what was going on. It turns out they were promoting a fun run (where you had to dress as Santa to take part. Much less exciting that I thought - I thought there would be some sort of protest) that was going to occur later in the day, and that the news team from Channel One was going to be there shortly. I was bored, and it was still two hours before anything in Wellington opened up, so I decided to ask if I could join in, and sure enough, there was a spare Santa outfit lying around. I put it on and tried my hardest to make myself look presentable for television after two weeks of living out of a backpack (although the only parts of me that were visible were my eyes and nose anyway). It's a good job smellavision hasn't been invented yet. Just saying.

When the news team arrived, we did a very cheesy Rocky-style running up and down the set of stairs outside parliament building, occasionally throwing a few punches into mid air while trying to hide our laughter with our fake beards. At the end of the clip, we all ran into the distance and for some reason we were told to stop and wiggle our bottoms every so often. And this is the start of my career as an international superstar, but I'm sure that will be a story for another day.

After this I headed over to New Zealand's biggest museum - Te papa (Mauri for 'our place'). It was actually a really good museum, with lots of interactive installments so that children (and child-like people like me) don't get bored, and they did a good job of explaining Mauri culture and the science behind the earthquake in Christchurch. Shortly after this I went to catch a ferry over to the South Island. Strangely enough, I ran into a man called Kevin. I met Kevin the day before on the shuttle bus to the start of the Alpine crossing, so we spent most of the ferry journey contemplating travel plans for the south, and exchanging stories of travels so far. We decided that we'd part ways when we the boat landed in Picton, but exchanged details because it looked like we'd have pretty similar plans after a few days. A nearby girl called Julia overheard our conversation and decided to come and talk to us, she said she was going to try and hitch hike around for a while but she was nervous because she'd never done it before. Since we were heading the same way, I said I'd go with her - and so, I had a new travel companion, Julia from Wellington.

Julia and I with a hippy lady that gave us a lift

Even though we didn't start until 5pm, it was still surprisingly easy to get a lift! We got picked up three times and were in Nelson that night. There wasn't a lot there. I think it's just a place to stop off on the way to the west coast or to the Abel-Tasman reserve (which I was gutted that I didn't have time to visit). Julia had a friend in Nelson, who was supposed to hook us both up with free accommodation for the night, but the parents are super strict Christians and were opposed to a boy sleeping in the house, so Julia and I parted ways, after a shot but sweet four hours of companionship.

I reluctantly stayed in a hostel that night after the offer of a free place to stay was cruelly snatched from right in front of my face, but its a good job I did, because one of the guys I got chatting to said that he'd hired a car and was heading over to the west coast, so kindly offered to take me to Westport - the top of the west coast of New Zealand's South Island. On all of the maps, Westport looks like a major city with heaps of things to see in do. In reality there is one road with shops on it, and a beach which takes 45 minutes to get to where the water is too cold to swim.

It didn't take long to get bored of Westport, and so the next day, I hitched a lift out of there, and began my journey down the coast. I'd heard that the drive between Westport and Greymouth was meant to be amazing, with beautiful scenery and winding roads. This was enhanced by the guy who picked me up. A retired English man who has fallen in love with New Zealand and just can't stop coming back, called John. I had a great time in John's car - mainly because he seemed fascinated by everything I said. We talked about science, and he was keen to ask me lots of questions about the chemistry and geology of the world. I did my best to answer his questions accurately, but remembering those geology lessons from five years ago was a bit of a struggle, so I must admit that some of my answers were slightly on the fictional side. I think I got away with it though. Since he was a tourist as well, we stopped off at the pancake rocks (rocks that look like stacks of thick pancakes) and he even bought me a pot of tea and some chips. When we got to my next destination of Barrytown, I discovered that the hostel there had been closed down, so John even offered to take me to the nearest hostel, which involved going back on ourselves. It was a shame to part company with John, since he was such a kind, generous and interesting man, but I suppose that is the way of a hitch hiker!

That night I stayed in the Punakaiki Beach hostel. Obviously I'm not going to bore you all with the details of every hostel I stay in, but this one was just great. It sits right on a a quiet beach where you can just walk up and down collecting jade stone and with a backdrop of the southern Alpine mountain range. That evening, I sat and watched the sun set over the sea, and it was the most vibrantly red sunset I'd ever seen. Everything about this place was beautiful, and I kind of didn't want to leave, but the next day I set off, back to Barrytown, where I spent the day making a knife. From scratch. And by coincidence, Kevin was there too!

We started with a piece of steel, a plank of wood, some brass and a length of metal. Steven, the man who took the course, showed us some of the finished products, and we all thought the same thing: how on earth are we going to turn these things into one of those?! It was a long day of hammering, grinding, sanding and and sawing, but sure enough, at the end of the day, we all ended up with beautiful knives! We finished the day with a glass of Barrypagne (boxed wine from Barry passed through a soda stream), and Kevin and I continued down the west coast towards the Franz-Joseph glacier. The west coast is very sparsely populated, so there was very little traffic. We managed to get 20km away from the glacier that night, but ended up having to sleep in Kevin's tent on the side of the road because the sun had set and we were both exhausted from walking 10km from our last drop off point. Luckily, when we woke up the next morning at about 6.30, I managed to hitch us a lift in the first car that passed us! We went to drop off our bags in a hostel, and spent the rest of the day hiking up the Franz-Joseph glacier, apparently the world's steepest and fastest flowing commercially guided glacier.

It was a sunny day for the most part, which really made the blue ice on the glacier stand out. I'm aware that I overuse these words a lot in these blogs, but it looked amazing and beautiful. The pictures don't really capture it, but they never do... Sadly, the ice is melting at such a fast rate that they think that pretty soon the glacier won't be there, so if you want to have a look for yourself, then I'd do it in the next few years! After the eight hour glacier walk, Kevin and I went to the local hot pools (included in the price of the glacier walk - result!) and stayed long enough to sooth our aching muscles and wrinkle our skin.

The next morning, we got up early to try and hitch a ride to the infamous adventure capital of New Zealand - Queenstown. We stood on the side of the road for about half an hour, but only two or three cars even drove past... It was a hopeless cause, so we just got on the Intercity bus and paid our way there. Finally I was here. This is the place I'd been most looking forward to for my entire trip. Adventure ensued.

The other Alps

So at the end of my last entry, I'd just said a teary goodbye to the Norwegians and endured eight hours of bus travel to get to the, frankly underwhelming, Turangi. My initial plan was to do the Tongariro Alpine crossing (over part of New Zealand's Alpine mountain range - copycats) the day after I arrived (reputably the best one day hike in New Zealand), but everyone was telling me not to go because the weather forecast was bad and that I wouldn't see anything. I wasn't doing the hike for the views, I was doing it because it's a twenty kilometre hike over a mountain with the option of climbing Mt Ngauruhoe (AKA Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Because of everyone's advice, I decided to do the hike the following day (Tuesday).

As it turned out, the weather on Monday great, but because of the bad weather forecast, I hadn't set an alarm and had missed all the shuttle buses. It wasn't all bad though, as I spent the day catching up with this blog, lazing in the sun, and sorting out my onward travel (though it was nice, I was slightly irked by the fact I wasn't standing on top of the mountain).

Tuesday arrived and I got up at the horrific hour of 5am to catch the 6am shuttle bus and start the walk at seven. The weather looked like it was going to be alright - there was some blue sky with patches of clouds. As it turned out, the weather was not alright, and there were eve thunderstorms later on in the day. This annoyed me, because I could have been away from this place and could have spent a bit longer in Wellington.

So as I started the walk, it slowly began raining heavier and heavier. I actually didn't mind the rain though. Being British, I think I'm used to it, and still had a bloody brilliant time. At the front of the pack with me were two other men (one in a red jacket, and one in a beige jacket), who shall hereafter be referred to as red man and beige man. We plodded along silently, using each other to set our pace and for moral support. I sensed that beige man was quite competitive, and tried to hurry away, but red man and I wouldn't let him and kept up with him. Beige man seemed annoyed, maybe due to a combination of the weather being bad and the fat that red man and I could keep up with him. The three of us, who all set off at 7am, got to the end of the crossing by 11.10am - four hours and ten minutes. I felt slightly proud of myself, because everyone says it's supposed to take about eight hours!

About a third of the way through the climb, you could go and climb to the summit of Mt Ngauruhoe (one of the two mountains used as Mt Doom). I was told before I set off not to climb it if I could see clouds at the top. I did it anyway. It was too much of a cool opportunity to pass up. It was a tough climb, especially in the wet, and I came down pretty much as soon as I'd got to the top, but now I can say that I've been to the highest point in Middle Earth. I had a nice day climbing, but because of the weather (low lying clouds, rain, etc) the views were not great. This is how the emerald lakes looked when I got there...

 And this is how they could have looked on a nice day...

So maybe I'll be back one day, when I have more time to waste waiting for the weather. I know I definitely want to come back to this amazing country - I just don't know when. I did, however, learn some important lessons that day:

1. When I next decide to walk through clouds and heavy rain, use waterproof shoes
2. When I next decide to walk through clouds and heavy rain, bring dry clothes for when I finish
3. Waterproof jackets are less waterproof than described

Drenched at the end

7 Europeans, 4 Hostels and a Deer with a Funny Face

Since I'd worked really hard all week, and on Friday at the Earthship we'd worked an extra long day, Brian decided to give me the day off! There wasn't exactly a lot to do in Ngaruawahia though, and I'd pretty much done everything there (sampled the two bakeries, been to the post office, and used the library...) so I went to the nearest city - Hamilton - for the day. Hamilton is the biggest city in the Waikato region - but there still wasn't a lot to do! I got the bus there and arrived at about 8.30am... big mistake, since nothing opened until 10 on a Saturday, so I just wasted my time walking around and buying fast food. When it opened, I went to the museum to take in a bit of Mauri culture and Hamilton history which only took about an hour, at which point I decided to check out the "world famous" Hamilton gardens. It was actually pretty nice there, but not really my thing.

Then, when one of my earphones fell out, I could hear bagpipes...?! Startled and confused, I followed the sound, and around the corner were several bagpipe troops (is that what they're called?) practicing. I went up to one of the bagpipe bearing, kilt wearing men and asked what was going on, and it turned out that I'd stumbled upon the New Zealand North Island regional bagpipe competition. I decided to stick around and watch for a bit, but after a while I started to get a headache, so I headed back into the city.

After a while of trying on clothes that I couldn't afford, it was time for me to catch the last bus back to the Ngaruawahia, where I would spend my last night with the Gubb family. The next morning saw me getting up to catch an early bus where I would meet with Charlie, Noor, Tora, Torill, Birgitte and Karina in the sulfur city of Rotorua. It was all perfect, they would be travelling from Auckland and we'd all be getting there at about 11.30, but it turns out that they didn't know the difference between AM and PM, so there was a slight delay before they arrived to meet me! While I waited, I left my bags in the hostel and took a look around the town, and had a wonder around one of the parks and the lake where it was market day (I was after some fruit but couldn't find any anywhere!). By the time I'd got back to the hostel the others had arrived (they managed to change the time of their bus) and we were all reunited as one big European family!!

Once we'd all settled into the room, we caught up with each other, I recalled tales involving animal feces and they told me about silly drunk antics and we went for a stroll in another park, where there were a heap of hot thermal pools and bubbling mud. It was all very exciting and smelly (I should explain that Rotorua is the sulfur city because all the hot pools smell of sulfur, which smells remarkably like eggy farts). We then went to the liquor store, where they wouldn't serve me!! I went to the counter with my driving license next to Tora, who is 23 years old, and they refused to serve me because I didn't have my passport or any other NZ identification. Personally, I feel like this is a  stupid rule, because I hate having to carry my passport around with me (constant fear of it falling out of my pocket). In the end, we had to go to a different shop where Tora bought the beer, and I stood outside like an underage school boy.

Thermal pools in Rotorua

The next day, we went white water rafting in the Kaituna river, which has the highest commercially raftable waterfall in the world (apparently) at seven metres. We had an awesome guide, who made inappropriate jokes every other minute (a good thing when you're around us) and had a very bushy mustache. When we went over the waterfall, Torill and Birgitte fell out of the raft and we almost capsized! I'm actually disappointed that we didn't capsize, that would have been a better story :p

In the evening, the owner of the hostel we were staying at (Dan) took us to a private hot pool with a hot waterfall. I liked it at first, and standing under the waterfall felt pretty good, but after a while it just got old and I felt like I was being cooked... Most of us felt the same, but it was hard to get Noor out of the water to go home, even after an hour and a half of being there! Then in the evening I logged onto the net and got my results from the recent exams - a day earlier than expected - and I was pretty bloody happy with them! We found the Canadians and Irish that were staying at the same hostel and celebrated the night in style with many beers and tequila shots before heading to a local bar, where I definitely didn't need to buy any of the drinks I bought, which resulted in this mess...

After a messy night

On the following day, we went to the "Skyline" which consisted of a big skyswing (where we were hoisted up to a great height and left to fall towards the ground at "speeds of up to 120 km/h" with a great view of the city) and some luge tracks. We headed to the liquor store in preparation for our last night in Rotorua... I am a little disappointed that I didn't do one of the Mauri encounter nights, because no one wanted to come with me. On reflection I should have just done it by myself. I'm sure I'll get another chance though!

B and I and the luge track

Wednesday consisted of an early start to catch a bus from Rotorua to Waitomo. Waitomo is barely even a place (population: 50), but the reason we went there was to explore the caves. The caves here are apparently world famous, so we thought we'd check them out. Since we liked the white water rafting so much, Charlie, Tora and I decided to go black water rafting through one of the glow worm caves - and since no one else volunteered/I didn't give them much of a chance, I got to lead the group through the caves and jump down the waterfalls first. It was cold, but it was worth it. At one point, we were told to just turn off our head torches and drift down the river so that we could look at the glow worms - what a sight! It was like looking into the sky on a cloudless night, but with sooo many more flecks of light. It was really beautiful, and I could happily of spent longer down in the tunnels of the cave.

While Noor, Birgitte, Karina and Torill were off doing walking tours around of the other caves, Charlie, Tora and I decided to take a look around the fields behind the hostel we were in. In one of the fields, we found a deer-type thing. Except it was more ugly than a deer. When charlie tried to stroke it, it just made the the BEST comical face. What's more is that we could relate to the face, because it was exactly the same as the 'Mauri face' we'd been making on the trip! We were in literal fits of laughter, and took plenty of pictures and videos to show to the others when they got back.

Chalie and the deer doing their Mauri faces!

Thursday took us back up to Auckland. The others didn't really want to come, because while I was on the farm, they'd spent four nights there, but since I'd gone straight from the airport to the Earthship, I was pretty pumped to sample the night life of the largest city in the country! We literally got there, sampled some local cuisine (McDonalds) and went to the liquor store before we started drinking. We were sharing a room with two other people - a German girl who didn't really want to talk to us, and a guy from Leeds called Nick. Turns out Nick was a pretty cool guy, and we let him drink with us (an honor not bestowed upon many people). We went out to a bar called The Globe, which I think was partnered with our hostel, and then on to a club called Cassette. I remember very little about either of these places! I have no idea when we got back, but in the morning when Noor called me to wake me up (B and him were in a different room) I realised I was stark naked, passed out on top of my sheets. It was the German girl's lucky night - I had the bed next to her.

Doing our Mauri/BC faces in Auckland

After hauling myself out of bed and putting on some underwear, it was go, go, go as I had to run to get to the 7.45am bus after packing and a rushed breakfast of bread (no topping) and I had to wave goodbye to Karina, who had won a trip to the Bay of Islands so was going to go there while we went to the Coramandel peninsula. I felt fine on the first bus (probably still drunk) but when we got to a place called Thames, en route to our next destination, we had to change onto a smaller bus to take us along a very long and windy road. Not great when you were drinking the night before! B, who gets car sick, and I sat there, wallowing for most of the ride trying not to vomit.

We got to our hostel, which was great! Decorated really nicely, and the woman who ran the place was really helpful and wanted to do everything possible to make sure we got the most out of Whitianga (pronounced fitty-anya), and told us the best way to do this was to hire a car, so this is what we did. We drove forty minutes to the idyllic Cathedral Cove. No one told me that there was a half an hour treck from the car park to the cove though, and stupidly, I drove without shoes, so the soles of my feet were in intense pain by the time we got there - and after half an hour we had to walk back! It was really beautiful though, probably even worth the pain, and there was so much wild life about.

After this, we drove to the imaginatively named Hot Water Beach. There is thermal activity below the beach, and so if you dig deep enough, you can create your own pools of hot water. It's often a little too hot though, so you have to get the right ratio of hot thermal water and cold sea water. Like I said earlier though, hot water really isn't for me, so I spent most of my time in trying not to boil in it. At one point I'd had too much and had to go and dive into the ocean. It's no wonder I've not had a bath in over ten years.

Digging our pool on Hot water beach

That night, we FINALLY had the group meal that we said we'd have every night since I met up with the others! We made tacos, or tried to. I put too much in my tortilla and couldn't close it, so just ate it like a salad. The others had more success than me. We'd bought enough for three wraps each, but after two we were all defeated and I couldn't move. I resorted to lying on the floor comforting my food baby.

My unclosable "taco"

While we still had the car, the next morning we drove to a Kauri tree reserve (really big trees with really big trunks) and danced around it singing Christmas songs (apparently this is what they do in Norway, but with Christmas trees...) and then came back to Whitianga, since it was time for Charlie to leave us so that she could get back to Auckland to catch her flight! But it wasn't that sad, because the Norwegians would see her in two days, and I would see her in two weeks.

Charlie and a Kauri tree

There was a ferry to the other side of the water in Whitianga, so once we'd bid farewell to Charlie, we took a ride to the other side (after a quick detour of running over to a "beached whale" which turned out to be plastic). We didn't spend long here, because there wasn't really anything there. There were some nice beaches, but the weather wasn't that good, so we just sat next to them and ate crisps instead of going onto them. We then, as usual, got drunk and sampled the night life of Whitianga. Tora and I had a dance when we got to the pub, and for the rest of the night, I was recognised at the bar as "that guy who can dance!" - no one would reward my fancy footwork by buying me a drink though, gutted.

I tried to make the most of this night, since it would be the last time I'd see the Norwegians until next year (when I plan to take the idiot abroad to Norway before uni starts again in England), but I just kept falling asleep! I had a pie though, and that seemed to wake me up and give me some energy (it's like fuel for a northerner). The next morning, I left them at 7.30 and I actually teared up a little! But it's okay because I will do my tour of Norway at some point (even if it's not next year), and if they really want to, they can visit Stockport (the 12th most crappy place in the UK)!

Next stop, Turangi, to try and to the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.