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.