Roadtrip: Rambling 'round Rotorua

Got up and had a slow start, grabbing a quick coffee to wake me up a bit before we headed out to wander around Rotorua. If the coffee hadn’t already woken me, the not-so-friendly smell of Rotorua would certainly have done the trick!

The hostel was close enough to the town for us to walk, so we ambled down to the main stretch and strolled up and down the roads, looking at the shops. I was surprised to realise that actually it seemed that there were more shops in Rotorua than there were in Auckland on Queens Street! They also had an incredible number of tat shops, which I revelled in. I found the ‘Farmers’ which is NZ’s closest thing to a Debenhams, and was amazed at how big it was, so had a good look in there – not that I was actually ‘shopping’ per se, more just perusing.

After a spot of lunch, we had a mooch about some of the other shops, including a ‘Warehouse Extra’ which was rather exciting as it had ‘Extra’ – this meant it was just a very big ‘Warehouse’. It’s hard to equate Warehouse to a UK equivalent, maybe a bit like a Woolworths (as we knew it) or Wilkos. Cheap and cheerful, but selling more or less absolutely everything you can imagine.

Once we were all shopped out, we found the information centre and had a look at the suggested walks. We found one that looked vaguely interesting, which would take us on a little tour of some of the ‘cultural heritage’ sites. Handily, the trail started outside the i-site and the map told us a bit about the things we were passing by.

The first thing we came to on the trail were the Prince’s Gate Arches, which we’d noticed earlier on and had commented that they looked unusual. They were made of wood and had been erected in 1901 and their unusual shape was meant to represent the crown. There was an interesting fence around the arches with Maori carvings sat on the posts. We then came to a set of ornamental ponds and gardens which looked like they might be more ornamental during the summer months – I’d say in the winter they aren’t particularly attractive!

There was a lovely ‘band rotunda’ nearby which really made me feel like I was in England; it really reminded me of the bandstand in Fassnidge Park, only a bit smaller and without drunken tramps or chavs hanging about under it! Around the gardens were other little buildings, like the tea house and small pavilions, all very decorative and reminiscent of cute, old fashioned English buildings. The Bath House was another beautiful, old building, from 1908 and was one of the first spas in Rotorua. It looked out onto croquet lawns and bowls greens and their respective pavillions, again, making this setting seem really English. In contrast to this, close to the Bath House we found a large totem pole, nothing Maori this time, instead it was a gift to NZ from Canada. It looked quite out of place next to everything else.

Not far away from the baths we came to Rachel Pool, a natural hot spring. The water bubbled away frantically and huge clouds of steam emanated from it. The water used to be pumped to the Bath House for use in their spa; free hot water! I was really tempted to dip my foot in, but figured that I would probably be likely to get severely burnt! We then came to another area of hot springs where steam was being churned out – in fact there was so much steam, it was hard to see what was underneath and how big the pool was!

Once we’d completed the loop and arrived back at the beginning of the trail, we decided to head to ‘Pak N Save’ and get something for dinner. On the way back to the hostel, I was more than bemused about some of the road markings, on several of the crossings, it really looked like whoever had drawn the white lines had been as drunk as a skunk! We then cooked a chicken curry and managed to hog the tv so we could watch CNN news (about the UK general election) and some random US tv shows whilst enjoying a dessert of hokey pokey (vanilla ice-cream with bits of honeycomb in it – an icon of NZ apparently!).

Roadtrip: Sheep Shearing Shenanigans!

Got up and packed the bags once again. Just about had time for a cup of tea before having to check out. The guy at reception gave us a local map and suggested a bush walk we could do nearby to where we had been caving yesterday, so we jumped in the car and took the short drive to the caves.

The walk itself was quite interesting and not too tough. It was an extension of the cave system we had been leaping about in yesterday, but over the course of time, the caves had collapsed in on themselves, leaving a kind of deep gorge beneath it, with fast flowing rivers, waterfalls and lots of vegetation. In fact, if you took the plant life away, added a roof and made it dark again, I am sure it would be easy to see how similar it was to the black water caves. This walk involved no wading through water though, as it has been developed as a nice easy walk so you get to climb down wooden steps and walk along a boardwalk for much of it. At a couple of points we had to walk through low, narrow tunnels, cut out of the rocks over many eons by trickling water. Eventually we came to a large cave (still with a roof, but no glow worms!) where we saw lots and lots of unusual rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites.

We kept on seeing lots of really cute birds, I think it was called a ‘fantail’, and we tried for ages to get a photo but they just wouldn’t sit still longer than a millisecond – they moved so fast but teased us by hanging around really close, just impossible to capture!

After our walk we went to a cafe in Waitomo and had a spot of lunch before heading to our next visit to ‘Billy Black’s Kiwi Culture Show’ just around the corner at Woodlyn Park. When we arrived, we were more than amused to find that Woodlyn Park was typical of random Kiwi-ness and in fact was a hotel, of sorts. At the reception, we were shown into the main hall to wait for the show to begin and it was full of lots of odd memorabilia, photographs and farming ephemera, all over the place. Amongst these were displays about the hotel and we discovered that it was not a normal sort of hotel - they do not have rooms, instead they have units and each is incredibly odd and quirky – a train carriage, a boat, a plane and two ‘hobbit holes’. There was a display about each one – the plane was a 1950s Bristol Freighter and was one of the last allied planes out of Vietnam, the boat was a WW2 patrol boat built in 1942 in Auckland, the train was a 1950s rail car and they have created two ‘hobbit holes’! They had photographs of how they had transformed each of them from what they once were.

When the show began, there were only 7 of us in the audience, so it was clear from the start that there would be no way of getting out of any audience participation bits! The guy on the stage introduced himself as Ben Black, and it was clear he was very Kiwi indeed, had a very Kiwi sense of humour and was a true farmer at heart, albeit with a bit of a flare for performing on stage (a fair dinkum Kiwi as the Aussies would say!)! He explained and showed us things about the ways of farming in the pioneering days, from how they would climb trees to fell them, to some of the tools they would use. He then dragged Mike and an American guy up on stage to get them to use an old-style two-handed saw, to cut up a log. Next up was me and I had to help blow up tree trunk, although thankfully it was not a real explosion – just a demonstration of how it would be done (the ‘gunpowder’ I was lighting was really just black sand!).

Next Ben showed us some of the animals from the farm (I think this was the most astonishing part to the three Japanese tourists in the audience!). First of all he brought out a ‘kiwi bear’ – another name for a possum, which was called Helen. Then he brought out a really massive black pig with massive teeth, he got it to do tricks on stage, including the moonwalk! It looked like the sort of pig that might have roamed wild a long time ago and certainly one that you wouldn’t want to meet whilst wandering the woods in the dark! Next up, we met the sheep dog who herded in a group of sheep from outside, into the building and up onto the stage by means of whistle commands from Ben (the Japanese thought this was amazing!). Ben then caught one of the sheep and put it in a pen, before getting the dog to herd the rest of the sheep and the rather feisty ram (which kept trying to butt Ben with its rather long, sharp horns) back outside.

We were then shown the hand held sheep shearers that farmers used to use (and some apparently still do) which just look like large scissor blades. Ben brought out the shears that he would be using – they looked like modern clippers, only they were not electric, but instead were connected up to a contraption which had a handle that someone else had to turn, in order to make the blades move. Once he had demonstrated how they functioned, he brought out the sheep and sheared it on the stage, with various people cranking the handle. Within just a couple of minutes the sheep went from being rather fat and fluffy to being very skinny and bald!

The last animal he brought out was Big Mac, the really large steer. The biggest cow I have ever seen. It was quite funny as it looked just like the cow and calf we had seen yesterday, but only was about five times the size of them!

After the show, we stayed and chatted to Ben. He told us a bit more about the plane and the train and their plans to develop the hotel further with more hobbit holes. Apparently Waitomo has now been officially earmarked for some filming of ‘The Hobbit’ so the town is looking forward to a bit of a boost. Then we went for a wander around Woodlyn Park and took a closer look at the different units, they looked really cool.

We then had a quick drink at the pub before making tracks to Rotorua; a drive that took about three hours. On arriving in Rotorua, we were trying to find the hostel using a map for a different hostel and then got really confused when it wasn’t there when we pulled up. It was then that I realised my marvellous navigation had gone a bit wrong – rather than just using the map of the second hostel to find the road that our hostel was on, I had actually directed us to the X on the map for that hostel; made me laugh anyway, so then I had to redirect us to the hostel we were actually looking for.

We got out the car and were greeted by the beautiful Rotorua stench – really, I don’t know how people could ever get used to the smell enough to ignore it and live here! We checked into the hostel, found the tv room and relaxed with a couple of beers and a movie (they have Sky Movies here – wow!).

Roadtrip: Wild Waitomo Water & Wetas!

Got up and made breakfast of toast and jam, then gathered our bits together for the day’s adventures, before heading off to the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company just a short drive away in Waitomo. I was really excited about this, as lots of people from the bus had done caving in Waitomo the other day and they had all really enjoyed it. We were going to a different place to them, but I figured it would still be good.

When we arrived at the centre, we were really surprised and delighted to find out that we were the only people booked in for the ‘Black Abyss’ tour, as our two guides (Doug and Lloyd) explained that seeing as there were only two of us it meant we would probably get to do some extra stuff. Great news!

First we got kitted up in a delightful outfit of wetsuit with brown undershirt, wetsuit jacket, shorts, booties, plastic lace up boots, ninja hood, helmet and harness. We looked ace! Once we were all set to go, we hopped into the mini bus and went to Ruakuri Cave (Ruakuri meaning ‘two dogs’) the real start of our adventure!

Doug gave us a quick lesson in abseiling with this particular type of kit and we practiced by abseiling down a not-very-steep grassy hill, just to get used to it. Then it was time to actually abseil. Mike went first, dropping down into a rather narrow, dark hole in the ground. After a minute or so, Doug said it was my turn and I suddenly got nervous; I didn’t know why, as I like abseiling and have done it before, I guess abseiling 37m down through a rocky hole in the ground into dark nothingness is a touch different to abseiling down a 10m bit of scaffolding at a Scout campsite in broad daylight! After an initial moment of panic when stepping off the edge of the ledge, this subsided and I actually found the experience most non-terrifying and rather incredibly cool. The hole got narrower and darker and for a moment, as the rock walls enclosed around me, I did wonder if I would make it through the gap, but from above, Doug assured me that I would fit through fine! This rocky bottleneck then opened up and I could see the really impressive cavern, with really unusual, layered, rock walls. I think it must have taken me two or three minutes to make it from top to bottom. Once at the bottom, I was reunited with Lloyd and Mike, then Doug literally dropped out of the air next to us (I think he must have just jumped off the top, as I had barely landed myself before he appeared!).

Lloyd showed us some fossilised shells in the rocks and we made our way, walking through some narrow rock tunnels, clambering over rocks and ducking under low hanging stalactites, until we came to a point where the pathway lead to a dark cavern, which was so dark we couldn’t see anything inside it. There was a loud, steady banging noise emanating from the darkness, which was a little odd and I was then surprised when Lloyd hooked me up to a cable overhead – it was a flying fox, so I then had to hang on and swing off into the darkness –it was super fast and super dark – and the banging noise got faster and louder! When I finally stopped and dangled from the zip line, Doug appeared and unhooked me, then we crouched down while Doug resumed banging on a makeshift drum and waited for Mike to zip down, followed shortly after by Lloyd.

The guys got us to sit down on the edge of the rocks for a break, with a dark river flowing fast beneath us, then Doug suddenly presented us with a cup of hot chocolate and a delicious Anzac cake! Once we had rested and enjoyed our snack, Doug showed us to a pile of large rubber rings – I think they were inflated inner tubes from some large tyres – and we selected one. He then led us to the edge of the rocks and Lloyd demonstrated how we needed to leap into the water, holding the tyre onto our backside, landing on the tyre on the river 4m below. It didn’t look particularly warm, but instead dark and rather scary. After I had psyched myself up, I jumped off the rocks and hit the water successfully straight, although completely shocked by the temperature which was so cold, it took my breath away! I paddled myself over to Lloyd and looked up, to see Doug coaxing Mike to make the leap. Lloyd and I shouted encouraging words (“Come on you big wuss!” being my best attempt!), then with a look of desperate uncertainty, Mike sprung off the rocks and landed in the water where we were; his face showed the same shock as mine had with the temperature!

From there we bade farewell to Doug and followed Lloyd, paddling up the river in the darkness and then pulling ourselves along on a rope. As we went along, we looked up and high above us on the ceiling of the cave we could see thousands of little green lights – glow worms. Lloyd told us all about them and then we stopped and had a good look at them. They are fascinating creatures, if a bit odd. The cave was beautiful though as their little glow worm backsides produced luminescent green poop, which twinkled in the darkness like lots and lots of tiny little fairy lights!

We paddled a fair way and then Lloyd showed us a really interesting stalactite which looked uncannily like Gandalf! Apparently the stalactites and stalagmites take a century to grow one cubic centimetre (for those imperial people reading this, that really is not very big at all!) and Gandalf wasn’t particularly big, but his size would indicate that his is over 20,000 years old, which was rather amazing! Lloyd then towed us back along the river and we were able to lay back on our tubes, staring up at the darkness and appreciating the beauty of the glow worm caves – Lloyd made a really loud banging noise against the water and the shock of the vibrations the sound caused made the glow worms glow brighter – it made the cave light up momentarily, then they continued twinkling away.

Once back at the point we’d jumped in, we hopped out of our tubes and started wading through the water in the opposite direction. This began our walk further through the caves. The terrain was rocky and the water varied in depth constantly – sometimes ankle deep and other points it was waist deep or even that bit too deep to walk, so we had to swim! Lloyd pointed out that some of the passageways necessitated the “drunken stumble” as the ground was so uneven, it made it hard to walk straight and sure enough I kept falling over into the water which was rather entertaining! We then came to a mini waterfall where there was a metal slide to get down it and Lloyd made us go down it head first which again made for a funny sight! The water actually flowed really fast at some points but we noticed that we were surprisingly warm, considering how cold we had been when we had first leapt in.

A little way along, we came to another waterfall – a bit bigger this time and at the top of it we bumped into a group of other cavers (doing a shorter tour of the caves than the one we were doing), they still had their tubes with them, so after they had jumped down the waterfall on their tubes and floated off down the river, we jumped in feet first and took a swim a little way, before then finding some rocks to walk along, at the edge of the river. Lloyd showed us a passageway to squeeze through and once we had negotiated our way through that, we climbed out and up to a ledge which Lloyd told us to climb.

Ahead of us was a really narrow tunnel which we had to literally slide along, using our knees and elbows. The ground beneath us was rock that was covered in thick, slippery mud, which actually made it easier to move along as it was so slidy. I kept bashing my head on the low rock ceiling – but thankfully this made me realise how effective the helmet was! Lloyd slithered off ahead and we followed suit, then came to an opening, where the mud disappeared and was replaced once again by rock. Lloyd told us the next section was even narrower and was called the ‘rebirth’ as we had to fit through the rocks so tightly! It was quite funny as I had to twist around and go through the gap horizontally, but head first, then lever myself out at the other end. There, we had a rest and then clambered down the rocks back into the water and tried to de-muddify ourselves a bit, before Lloyd presented us with some chocolate and a cup of hot orange squash!

In the next cave we walked through, we saw an eel lurking in the corner and a short distance after that we climbed up some rocks and into the next cavern, where Lloyd introduced us to a really large eel called ‘Cecil’ who swam over to us and had a good nose about (apparently some of the tour guides bring food down for Cecil, so when he sees people he assumes he is going to get fed!), before swimming off back into the darkness and allowing us to pass through. We continued making our way through the river, walking some of the way, climbing other bits and swimming the rest.

Lloyd then brought us to a point where we had to climb up two waterfalls, it was quite mad as it was actual rock climbing, only without any ropes or harnesses – admittedly they was only about 4-5m high but it required finding footholds and handholds in the bare rock, whilst the water gushed down past and over us! As I climbed, it made me think how rubbish I am usually at climbing when I am on Scout camps etc and I wondered where on earth I was finding the strength and nerve to do this! Once at the top of the two waterfalls, I felt rather elated at having achieved it!

Onwards further and we came to another section to walk/clamber/swim along, then Lloyd led us to the edge where we climbed up onto the bank over a little wooden fence, onto a boardwalk. This walkway is along the route that they take ‘dry tours’ and led to an immense cavern, full of stalactites and stalagmites, some so large that they must be hundreds of thousands of years old. The cavern was illuminated by lights which had been carefully positioned to show off the majestic beauty of these natural forms along with the pools of water which reflected them endlessly.

Having seen those, we headed back to the river and climbed over the fence once again. Lloyd then gave us a choice as to whether we make our way out of the caves or go on one last adventure down “The Slot”. The attraction (if you can call it that) of this particular section of the caves was that it would involve passing through a place where we would be guaranteed to see some wetas. Having not seen these indigenous creatures already, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to get another tick on my list of NZ things I’ve seen, so we went for it. They had been described to me as insects a bit like crickets, so didn’t sound too bad. Lloyd led us to the weta cave; another section we had to crawl into. It was really dark and he told us that they would react to the head torches, so we switched them off and Lloyd used his to find a weta to show us. He shone his torch on one and it was just like a cricket, only with slightly longer legs and antennae – not too bad. Lloyd then said that he’d see if he could find a bigger one to show us and shone his torch on a section of rock above our heads, illuminating a few of them, including one which was bigger, again with long, wiggly antennae – not so cute. As our eyes adjusted to the light, suddenly we were aware of a large number of weta, crawling all over the place and I got a bit spooked – Lloyd assured me that they would not bite us or anything, but that they might jump onto us; I did not like that idea one little bit, if that happened I would surely squeal in a most undignified fashion! With that threat in mind, I hurried along the cave, avoiding touching the cave walls or floor with my hands and trying to keep my head as low as possible, to avoid making any contact with the weta so that they would not leap on me!

We arrived at the “The Slot” – a 5m sheer, vertical drop downwards between a very narrow gap made by two rock faces. Lloyd looked up and pointed out a weta, just above Mike’s head – it was huge, its body was about 6 inches long, plus the ridiculously long legs and antenna; I told Mike not to look at it but he did and then promptly got freaked out! It was creeping me out too and this helped inspire me to get down the Slot as fast as possible - I had to brace myself between these walls by pushing my back against one side and wedging my feet and knees against the other side, then edging my way down until I could jump (or rather elegantly fall) the rest of the way. I sat in the dark at the bottom of the slot waiting for Mike and Lloyd to appear, desperately hoping that no wetas had followed me down – I did not turn my headlamp on for fear of seeing them! Thankfully nothing seemed to be crawling on me and Lloyd led us the last little way up and over some rocks, to a wide open section of cave, from where we could see water gushing but also daylight – the first we had seen in 5 hours! We clambered up the rocks and out of the cave.

After a short walk back to the minibus, Lloyd took us back to the centre and we got changed out of our wet gear, back into our civvies. We sat down with Lloyd and looked at the photos from our tour (keep watching this space – I will upload some of them shortly) and were presented with a much deserved bowl of soup and a toasted bagel – just what the doctor ordered to warm us up after having expended so much energy in quite a cold environment.

We said our goodbyes and thank yous to Lloyd (Doug had gone off on another tour) and headed off. Our next brief stop on our way back to the hostel was at a farm, where we got to see and feed some ostriches (they were massive and really rather prehistoric looking), a miniature cow and her miniature calf (they really were tiny!), some miniature pigs (incredibly cute and snuffly) and two miniature alpacas. Everything at the farm was miniature, other than the ostriches!

After chilling out at the hostel, we headed off for a drive to a nearby town called Te Kuiti which had been recommended to us as somewhere we could get some dinner. We eventually ate at a little take away Chinese/fish and chip shop, as once again we had left it a bit late (in NZ terms) to get food seeing as it was 8.00pm, so that was literally the only place still open! Then we headed back to the hostel and had a few beers, feeling absolutely shattered from a really fun day.

Roadtrip: it begins!

Despite having had a late night, I still managed to wake up early, so promptly turned on the tv and watched the various morning shows whilst I packed up my bags once again. I still can’t believe I am finding packing such a bane and that I am still rubbish at it, you’d think by now I would have it down to a fine art!

Once packed, I checked out and went for a wander down the K Road, not that there was anything different to see, it was just nice to walk along in the sun. I enjoyed stopping at Starbucks for morning coffee and a read of the local paper. As not a lot happens in NZ, the paper itself (a broadsheet) was very thin and took no time to read.

Back at the hostel, I collected my things and left to get the shuttle bus – the man behind the hostel reception desk offered to help me down the stairs with my luggage and I think as soon as he had started doing so, he really wished he hadn’t! I managed to negotiate my way across two roads and find the bus stop, where I had a relatively short wait until the bus arrived and soon I was on my way to the airport.

I was surprised how quick the journey was – it was supposed to take almost an hour but instead took only twenty minutes. I then negotiated my way into the airport and found a spot to wait in Arrivals, with one eye on my book and the other on the Arrivals board. I could see Mike’s flight listed as being expected to arrive early and sure enough it did! It landed half an hour early and less than half an hour after that he emerged through the doors. It was good to see a friendly face from home once again!

We made our way on the shuttle bus to the car hire place and picked up our lovely silver Nissan Sunny, then headed off on our road trip. No sooner had Mike turned the key in the ignition then it started raining. Big rain. The biggest rain I have seen in ages – worse than in Cairns! We could barely see through the windscreen but somehow Mike managed to make it through with my expert navigation skills, towards Otorahanga (it helped that I had been there before recently so was able to recognise some things which meant I was pretty sure I knew we were on the right tracks!). As the rain eventually started clearing, we saw an amazing double rainbow – two perfect arcs, one over the other; really beautiful.

When we eventually arrived at the hostel after stopping briefly at Woolies, we checked in and chilled out watching tv for a bit and chatting, before heading out to find some dinner. Not surprisingly, seeing as it was after 8pm everything was closed other than the fish and chip shop, so that had to suffice, it was good though. Back at the hostel, before turning in, we had a couple of beers and I heard about Mike’s visit to Dubai and caught up on all the gossip from home (well, not really, boys are rubbish at gossip, it was more just some news!).

Aimless in Auckland

After a night with very little sleep – these Scottish boys are noisy as well as stinky – I was very relieved to be moving rooms (due to complications with my booking, I had to have one night in one room and the second in another!), so did so at as early an opportunity as possible. I have to admit, I got my own back on them for the disturbed sleep I had, by making as much Japanese style rustling and zipping of zips as I possibly could in the process! The move was literally to a room two doors away, but I was more than relieved to find out that it was a single room and had a tv – although no window, but a tv nonetheless! Woohoo!

As a result of my room move, I then wasted the rest of the morning watching all sorts of rubbish daytime tv, before suddenly realising it was the afternoon and thinking I should go outside and see some sky!

I wandered into town and meandered around the shops for a bit in Downtown, then popped to the Stray office and sorted out the next bit of my travels – I am having a break from the Stray tour whilst I go on a road trip with Mike when he gets here (if the stupid Icelandic volcano stops messing Europe about that is!). Having done that, I went to Starbucks and had a well earned latte, before heading off back to the K Road and having a mosey along there at the rather eclectic collection of shops and stalls.

Back at the hostel, I got settled into my room with the tv remote and whiled the evening and night away watching all sorts of shows, from Simpsons, to My Name is Earl and then found some movies on another channel and watched those too. I think I must have watched about eight solid hours before deciding I should probably get some sleep! Clearly the novelty of tv does not wear thin easily when you don’t get to see any tv for lengthy periods!

Anzac Day & Final (really final this time) Farewell

Ciara, Charlotte, Rebecca and I all woke up early and managed to get ourselves together in order to check out before 9.30am, so we could meet the others (Catherine and Roxanne) in reception for our wander into town. Today was Anzac Day – the Aussie/NZ equivalent of Remembrance Sunday and we wanted to go to the parade.

Somehow, despite lots of chatting, the plan worked and soon we were on our way. The only thing was, we didn’t know where the parade was going to be and also we hadn’t seen the war memorial on our travels about the town, so we were not sure where to go. We got a clue when we saw a bunch of teenagers (about 14-18 years old) who looked like cadets; they were wearing a military style uniform and were marching along the main road (badly – hardly in unison with one another!) towards the park, so we followed them as we figured they must be going the right way! They stopped and started doing some drills, so we found a bench by the lake and sat chatting for a while, then noticed that lots of people in uniform were gathering around us. We all leapt about 10 feet in the air when suddenly we were blasted away by the deafening wailing of about 15 people playing the bagpipes right behind us!

At 10.30, the parade seemed to be coming together, so we moved to watch it begin. The bagpipe players lead the way and groups of military, old and new, followed along behind and then right at the back, about 50 girls – Pippins, Brownies, Guides, Rangers and their Leaders. Once they had passed us, we followed and as they proceeded along the main street, it occurred to me that until now, I had never been to a Remembrance Parade without being in the parade myself! The walk itself was very short and we couldn’t believe we hadn’t noticed the cenotaph before as it was right next to the information centre on the main street.

We gathered amongst the large congregation of people for the service and were shocked to hear what the vicar said as he opened the proceedings – this morning in Wellington, a military helicopter involved in the dawn Anzac service had crashed, killing three of the four servicemen inside – what a tragic irony. You could feel the disbelief emanating from the crowd – obviously, like us, they had not heard the news beforehand either. This made the service even more moving, as reference was made several times to this recent tragedy, as well as to the tragedy of such horrific loss all those decades ago.

As sombre and occasion as it was, one thing really made Rebecca and I laugh – the mayor explained that there had been a change in the law recently that meant that as well as the NZ national anthem, the Australian national anthem was also to be sung, as a mark of remembering their losses too. He then went on to explain that unfortunately the law had changed just after the final arrangements had been made for this particular service and so as a result it was not possible to include the Aussie national anthem into the proceedings, but instead there would be a fly-by of an Australian plane (an old one; I think it must have been fitting with those from the period), this was also printed in the order of service. We stood and waited a couple of minutes and then the plane flew overhead, most unceremoniously (if you didn’t know it was a special fly-by, you would easily have thought it was just a little plane going past!). The reason we found this funny was that it seemed to us that it would have been far more complicated (and expensive!) arranging a fly-by of an old Aussie plane, to pass a particular place at a precise moment, than it would have been to just get the band on the stage to play a few bars from the Aussie national anthem for people to listen to – it just made no sense at all! We know very well how the Kiwis seem to dislike the Ausiies, so clearly they just did not want to sing or listen to their anthem.

After the service ended and the wreaths had been laid at the memorial, people started dispersing. I decided to go and chat to a couple of the Guide Leaders I had spotted. I was slightly surprised to find out that they were both Brits who moved to NZ within the last year! We spoke briefly before they had to go and deal with their girls, but I did manage to discover that the absence of any Scouts was for good reason – there was a large District service going on, so the Taupo Scouts had gone off to that.

Back at the hostel, I sat and chatted with the girls and then at 12.30 the bus arrived – it confused us immensely as it was not a Stray bus; it turned out that they had had to hire a replacement bus as it had broken down! I think the change of bus confused everyone as people seemed reluctant to get on – it was not the usual bright orange bus, after all! We said a fond farewell to Catherine, Charlotte and Roxanne and then jumped on board.

Our driver was Emily (aka Keifer) and the five hour journey back to Auckland was relatively uninteresting – I just sat and chatted to Barry, then at our stop I bought a bottle of L&P (an odd form of lemonade from the place I drove through the other day), but could not decide if I liked it or not!

On arrival in Auckland, Barry, Rebecca and Ciara all got out at Nomad’s Hostel and we arranged to meet up later on. Emily then dropped me off at my stop and I checked in once again at the K Road City Travellers. I was a little shocked to find my room mates were two stinky boys who turned out to be Scottish, so after a quick check of my email, I went and got showered and ready for my final, final, final night out with the bus gang.

When I met them down at Nomads, they had brought someone else along called Carl (he had gotten on the bus with us at Taupo, but was not an official gang member!) and we sat in the bar chatting and discussing the places we had visited over the last few weeks and what we expected would happen over the next few weeks, as we are all going separate ways. Rebecca and I got everyone drinking vodka, lemon, lime & bitters (the best drink ever) and enjoyed bopping along to some classic early 90s pop, much to Barry’s horror – he had no idea what the songs were, being young and Dutch! We then trudged to Maccas and had a late night snack, before saying goodbye and heading back to our respective hostels, having had a wonderful evening. I really have enjoyed meeting people on this Stray leg, it’s given me faith in my ability of travelling alone.

Time out in Taupo

Today was a slow, quiet day – quite fitting after such an amazing week. When I woke up, I knew it was going to be a sad morning – saying goodbye to those of the gang who were leaving. We got up and went out to the bus, to wave everyone off. It was one of those moments when we all felt a bit flat afterwards, so I went for a wander into town for half an hour before going back to the hostel and finding those who had stayed.

Rebecca and I decided to go for a meander and found a lovely cafe to have some lunch, then went around the shops and discussed how interesting (or not!) the shops were. At least they were open, though, so we couldn’t really complain!

Back at the hostel, I had an unbelievable surprise – who should I literally bump into but Captain Silent and the Speaky Brothers! I couldn’t believe it! As you would expect, after about thirty seconds we ran out of steam with regards to conversation (plus I couldn’t actually remember their real names and could hardly introduce them to Rebecca as Captain Silent and the Speaky Brothers!), so Rebecca and I made our excuses and headed to the tv lounge where we started watching a movie. Before long, I realised I was falling asleep so nipped off for a snooze, until Rebecca came back to the room and we headed off for our next exciting activity - washing!

As we waited for the machine to work its magic, we sat and chatted to Charlotte and Ciara. Barry came back from his day out so we then sat and listened to all his stories about his trip – he’d had an amazing time. Rebecca and I sorted our washing and then we all went on a quick outing together to Pak N Save, for a few essentials. Back at the ranch we sat down and watched Avatar on the screen in the dining room, which killed quite a bit of time and was quite a nice way to chill out.

Rebecca pointed out that we had better pack our bags ready for our departure in the morning; we’d both ascertained that we both a) detested packing and b) were rubbish at it! We used the idea of a drink at the bar as an incentive to get it finished! An hour later we were done and went straight down to the bar. There we stayed and chilled out, joined by the others; making us the final five! We just enjoyed a quiet evening, laughing and chatting with a few beers before heading to bed.

Sledging & Springs

We woke up to Uncle Boy’s favourite CD blasting out over the speakers – Abba’s Greatest Hits! We got up and showered, then headed into the dining area for breakfast. We were all still raving about our performances from last night! When we were done, we packed our stuff up and I chatted to Uncle Boy whilst the others finished lading their bits onto the bus. I was amazed to discover he is 73 – still going so strong! He then wanted the group photo – he collects a photo of every group who visits – he thinks he has about 8000 now!

Not far from Uncle Boy’s we stopped at the Big Kiwi; it was large and looked like a kiwi! It really was a super fast stop – Daisy pulled into the carpark, we leapt out and then leapt back on once he had swung the bus around!

Back on track, we continued our way to Rotorua. Ciara and I were not feeling particularly enthused about being thrown into a river at this time in the morning and were beginning to wish we hadn’t booked in for these activities, but the Swedes seemed pretty up for it still – they’re always full of beans though!

Daisy dropped us at the centre and then took everyone else off for a bit of time in Rotorua. The four of us trudged inside and were greeted by a really bouncy ‘extreme sports’ dude – his enthusiasm did not rub off on Ciara or I! We booked in and were told to get into our swimmers and then hang whilst we waited for the others. As we sat waiting, we suddenly became acutely aware of a rather horrible stench – Rotorua is famous for smelling bad, like sulphur, but the Swedes were convinced it was the damp wetsuits; Ciara and I were not so sure. Before long, more people had arrived and we were all ready to get kitted up. It turned out that everyone except me was doing white water rafting – suddenly I got scared! I was assured by the guys that it was all ‘sweet as’, and actually they were right – they explained that there has to be two instructors minimum, which meant I would have both Joel and Dax looking after me in the water, so I felt a bit better as a 2:1 ratio sounded pretty safe to me! I got a wetsuit, booties, jacket, helmet and buoyancy aid on, picked up my fins (which looked just like penguin feet!) and headed to the bus with the others.

On our way to the river, we were given safety briefings – it was quite worrying that there was a group of four Japanese people who did not speak English (literally none) so they had to read the instructions and safety notes from a sheet that had been translated into Japanese. I thought to myself that if I was the person in charge of their boat, I would be really worried! We dropped the rafters off and continued a little way down the road before we got out. Dax, Adrian (the photographer) and I walked with our kit down to the river – about a five minute walk – carrying my river sledge on my head. The sledge itself was a big, plastic thing, about the length of my torso and looked bit like a body board, but thicker and not made of sponge! It has two bar handles down the sides. It was really heavy and I was beginning to panic a bit – how on earth was I going to do this, my arms already hurt?! Adrian offered to carry it for me the last bit of the way, which was good as it gave my arms a rest before I got in the water.

At the river, Joel was waiting for us (having dropped off the bus). Dax explained something to me about the Maori tribe whose patch we were on and how they hold the river sacred. To be honest, Dax had the thickest Kiwi accent I have ever come across, plus he spoke really fast, so I had trouble understanding a lot of what he said. The general gist was that we had to introduce ourselves to the water and ask permission to go into it – he did this by means of a Maori chant. Once that was over, he and Joel explained that I had to climb over the fence and onto the rocks – with the roaring river below!

Nervously, I got up on the fence and climbed down the other side, then down the rocks further to the water’s edge. Up-river a little way from where we stood, I could see a waterfall and the water rushed really fast past the rocks I was standing on, hmmmmm – getting more nervous at this point and thinking that it might not have been the best idea! Joel explained to me how to get on the sledge, then demonstrated – my turn next!

I felt really worried as I stood there on the rock, holding onto the sledge, waiting to launch myself onto the sledge and the water, in a kind of skimming action, like you’d try to skim a stone. Dax encouraged me to go for it and reminded me that I had him and Joel to rescue me if I needed it! So I went for it and only mildly drowned in the process! The water wasn’t as cold as I had thought it would be, but the water had managed to get into my eyes and I was having contact lens issues! I headed with one eye closed over to where Joel was hovering by some rocks and fiddled with my eye until I could see again. Dax then demonstrated two skills I needed to practice – how to handle it if you get knocked off course sideways and what to do if your sledge flips upside down. I figured these sounded like very important things to learn, especially as both Dax and Joel had repeatedly told me that the golden rule of river sledging was ‘never let go of your sledge’. I had a go and actually surprised myself at being able to do it – in fact I did the first skill for real even before I went to try it, as I was knocked sideways by a big wave as I swam from the rock to where Dax was waiting for me.

As we practiced the skills and discussed the next bit of the trip, a big yellow boat flopped down off the side of the waterfall we could see! It was the boat with the Japanese people in it! There was no Ciara or the Swedes in it, so Dax said we’d hang there so I could see my friends come over the waterfall; no sooner had he said that, they did just that – it looked really scary as I saw the boat get to the top of the waterfall, then drop over the side, everyone leant backwards and then the boat was gone! It completely submerged and then popped back up again, a fraction of a second later! I gave the girls a big wave (which was quite difficult when you are relying on your hands to keep you attached to the sledge), then they went past us and further down the river.

Dax explained that we’d next be going down a rapid (not a waterfall!) and told me what to do – I could not understand what on earth he said, as now there was the added problem of the noise from the water roaring around us. I just figured I would watch him and copy what he did and where he went! This plan worked well and as I sploshed down the rapid, I didn’t come off the sledge and only mildly drowned again! Another quick stop to sort out my contact lenses and then I was ready.

It was really nice as the whole way along the river, we’d go down a rapid (each time I would just try to mirror where they went and what they did!) and then pull up and sit for a bit in an ‘eddy’ (quiet bit of water with no current) and Dax and Joel would stop and point stuff out to me or tell me some Maori stories – granted I didn’t always know what they were talking about, but it was sweet nonetheless. It didn’t take me long before I actually realised I was not at all scared and in fact was rather enjoying myself. The river itself twisted this way and that, which meant that at times we had to swim/kick harder against the current to go in the direction we wanted, in order to position ourselves for the next rapid. Dax told me the ‘grade’ of each rapid – I think we went on mostly 2s, 3s and also a 4. I don’t really know what that means in the grand scheme of things, they all seemed pretty much the same to me – wet, watery and splashy.

By the time we got to the end of the rapids, I realised that I had thoroughly enjoyed it! The only thing that wasn’t so great was that my eyes were going crazy from where the water was irritating my contacts, but apart from that, I was feeling pretty awesome! Jax then asked if I wanted to ‘rapid surf’ and proceeded to demonstrate – it looked cool; it’s quite difficult to describe, but what happens is you go down the rapid, then swim back up to the side of it and then catch the wave and swim into it – leaving you hovering on the rapid. I gave it a go and was actually more proficient at it than I’d expected. I stopped swimming, rode the wave and went round again for another try, which again was successful!

All that kicking had left me a bit exhausted, so I said I was done and the three of us swam over to the side, where we hopped out and walked the short distance to the bus. All the rafters were back, so I hopped on the bus and we all chatted about how much fun we’d had. Ciara and I laughed about how much we had not wanted to do it this morning when we’d arrived, but both agreed that we’d had such a cool time so were glad we had indeed done it! It had certainly woken us up!

Back at the centre, we took off our gear, then were horrified to realise there was no shower! We went inside, then Ciara went off again and came back wet – she’d found a hose to at least get a bit of the river water off! I thought this seemed like a marvellous idea (I was really worried about being covered in sulphur-stinking river water!) so went back outside to do the same. I was having trouble getting the hose to work, then I heard Joel calling to me to see if I was ok – I explained what I was trying to do and before I knew it, I was being attacked with hoses! A couple of the instructors had grabbed hoses from where they were washing the kit off and I got full on blasted from two directions! It was very funny as the water was really cold and it made me yelp something chronic! Then I got them to hose my hair as I could feel it was thick with dirty water and they commented that it looked like a Baywatch moment (hardly!?!), so as I walked away, I gave a big, dramatic, Baywatch style flick of my hair and we all fell about laughing! It did the trick though, I certainly didn’t feel as river-watery as before! We finished getting changed and then waited for our lift back to town, chatting to the instructors and watching the Swedes play volleyball.

The guys took us on the bus to Rotorua and we found the others at the Stray bus. We told them all about our adventures and then sat chatting, waiting for everyone else to come back. Then we had to say goodbye to Paul, who was stopping in Rotorua, which was very sad – another of the original gang gone. I think Barry was particularly sad as this meant he was the only guy left (other than Daisy) with a bunch of mad girls!

We carried on our journey to Taupo and Daisy mentioned that although it was a fairly long drive, this was a good bit, as there was a couple of cool places to stop along the way. As we drove along, Rebecca, Daisy and I discussed how most of the bus spent most of their time asleep! We passed the time by playing ‘Eye Spy’ and ‘Animal, Vegetable or Mineral’ which was quite funny – it took them a good hour to guess ‘kettle’!

Our first stop was not far out of Rotorua town centre - some hot mud pools. They are caused by heat from under the earth heating up huge ponds of mud; they must be incredibly hot as the mud bubbles up so vigorously and you can feel the heat coming off of it. The stench was immense and it wasn’t long before we had to give up and go back to the bus!

Once back on board, Daisy told us he was going to take us somewhere really special – a Stray secret spot (ie a place that none of the other tour buses go – we see a lot of the Kiwi and Magic buses which are huge buses, usually around 50 people, so they get in the way of our photos!), although he hadn’t been to this particular spot before. After a bit of a windy drive, we pulled up at the side of the road and he told us to put our togs on.

He then led us through some trees and we came to a little clearing and below us was a pool – a natural hot spring. It wasn’t particularly clear water, but he assured us it was good. Slightly dubiously, we climbed down the bank and stepped into the water – it was warm, like a bath! We instantly decided that we liked it. We all walked a bit further in and then noticed that the ground was no longer stones, but instead the silty stuff you get at the bottom of a river; a bit creepy when walking through with no shoes on (I was very nervous of grass that might be lurking about sneakily under the water, waiting to pounce on me), but the water was warm so it was bearable.

There was an old bloke in the water, he told us which patches of water were which (to the left, cool water and to the right, hot), so we followed his directions and suddenly we all noticed at precisely the same moment that this old dude was in fact as naked as the day he was born –heinous! He was right though – he must come here often as he was incredibly accurate about the temperature of the different areas of the water!

The water was amazingly warm and then we found the hot bits, and they were seriously hot, like “Ouch, I am getting scalded, go back, back, back!” sort of hot. This made for an interesting five minutes where we all shuffled about in the water, finding the spot with the optimum temperature for our personal preference. For me, this involved sitting on a rock (thus avoiding potentially scary silt!) and laying out straight, with my feet in the uber hot bit and my shoulders in the cooler bit. It was absolute bliss, so much so, that it was possible to completely forget the fact that this was actually not a bath. That was until someone found a tiny red wiggly thing and we all freaked out and the old naked dude told us they were just larvae of a fly of sorts and completely harmless. Seeing as he had been right about everything else, we decided to believe him and ignore the wiggly things.

The next interesting thing the exposed old man told us was that the clay on the sides of the banks was really good for the skin – like a face pack. He proceeded to demonstrate by smothering himself in the greenish-white paste! Again, we didn’t doubt that he knew what he was talking about, so most people put it on their faces and looked like they were at the beauty therapist having a facial – I didn’t partake as my skin generally dislikes things like that! We chilled out (well, only when we got too hot; other than that we were beautifully warm!) and chatted, sitting in the water for about half an hour longer, before hopping out and getting back on the bus. We were so pleased and had really enjoyed the experience; Daisy was pleased as he usually takes groups to a different spring, but had wanted to try a new one.

We then suddenly noticed that the water had done something really odd – everyone wearing silver jewellery now appeared to be wearing gold! Somehow something had reacted with the silver and tarnished it a really golden colour! My ring and bracelet looked like 24 carat gold! So Abbey and I sat there rubbing our silver on our jeans and slowly began lifting the tarnish off! It was so strange!

The next stop was a really massive waterfall, called Huka Falls. It looks impressive as it’s a relatively narrow waterfall, which means the water gushes particularly fast over it – 220,000 litres of water per second. That’s a lot of water! As it was only a very quick stop, we leapt straight back on the bus and continued on the last leg of the journey to Taupo.

On arriving at the town, we dropped off those doing the sky diving and I did feel a little jealous as I knew how much fun they were going to have! We waved them off and then Daisy took us to the hostel where we checked in. Rebecca and I booked into a four bed dorm and earmarked the other two beds for Ciara and Charlotte who were skydiving and then promptly collapsed on our beds for a five minute nap.

Clearly we were way more tired than we’d thought as the next thing we knew, we were being woken up by Ciara and Charlotte coming into the room – 3 hours later! This meant we had to leap up and start getting ready for our night out – our official last night out as the Stray bus gang. Rebecca and I then flew out and grabbed a quick bite to eat and I experienced my first lime flavoured milkshake from Maccas – odd, very odd!

Back at the hostel, we joined the others in the bar and our end-of-trip night out started to get underway. We talked about all the cool things we’d done and all the funny things that had happened. The gals got me drinking drinks involving caffeine and very soon I was entertaining everyone once again with my super-fast talking and peculiar behaviour, but it was all good! We then became aware that the bar was closing around us – it was 10pm after all; incredibly late for NZ! Thankfully, Daisy knew a bar that would be open later called Mulligans (surprise surprise an Irish pub!), so we headed there and enjoyed the rest of the evening being merry and making the most of our last night together. It was ace, if a little sad – with the knowledge that our gang was going to be separated, nevertheless we partied on and enjoyed every moment!

Maori Mahem in Maketu

Having been so caffeine fuelled from the previous night, I wasn’t really in a state to be able to sleep, so was grateful when it came round to an appropriate time to get out of bed! I got my bits together and then a little while later at 8am, when everyone else was ready, we all hopped onto the bus after saying goodbye to Nickolai, who was staying in Raglan for a bit to surf.

We left Raglan and headed to Waitomo. It didn’t take too long to get there, we dropped off the people who were going caving and then Daisy dropped the rest of us in the town. He showed us where to buy coffee and said we had four hours to do whatever we wanted until we had to be back at the bus. The girls and I walked up to the coffee shop, only to find it was closed; opening in one hour. Now Waitomo itself is absolutely tiny – the coffee shop, an information centre, two souvenir shops, a mini market, a pub. And that’s it. So we were indeed rather disheartened to realise that we couldn’t get a coffee and there was literally nothing to do. Whilst stood outside the coffee shop, wondering how we could waste an hour waiting for the cafe to open, Daisy came over and was also horrified to see it was closed. He then made us a great offer – to take us somewhere else! He needed a coffee too and so volunteered to drive us to the next town along which had more going on! We jumped at the chance.

The drive to Otorohanga did not take very long at all. It turned out to be Daisy’s home town. The six of us went straight to the coffee shop, whilst Daisy went off to meet his dad. The coffee was much needed and we sat and chilled for a bit, chatting about Raglan and Hahei. Rebecca, Catherine and I then went for a wander, whilst the others went to the library.

The town was much bigger than Waitomo, but not massive. We just enjoyed walking along, window shopping and then found Woolies, so popped in there for some supplies. Back in town, we found a little display of all things Kiwi, so we had a look at that – I learned that NZ claims the pavlova as its own invention (Australia also claims that it is the inventor of that dessert!). Back in the high street, we noticed that hanging from the lamp posts were large Kiwi ‘icons’ – eg kiwi fruit, kiwi bird, pavolva, Anzac hat, jandles (NZ word for flip flops), sheep, pie. We then headed to the library, where I was delighted to discover their free wifi service!

We met Daisy back at the bus and made our way to Waitomo once again, to where we needed to pick up the cavers. Rebecca, Daisy and I went into the woods, following the path which is a one hour looped walk around the area – but we had an ulterior motive; we were collecting wood for tonight’s fire on the beach. We managed to gather a fair bit and then scurried with it back to the bus and chucked it in the back – Daisy hasn’t yet worked out if you’re actually allowed to take fallen wood, so was just being cautious (or sneaky!). We didn’t get arrested, so figured it had been a successful mission! Not long after we finished, the cavers came back so we were able to head off to the other pick-up point, where a couple of the others would be waiting.

This particular pick up point was actually a place called ‘The Shearing Shed’ and turned out to be something different to what we expected. We were taken inside and there was not a sheep in sight, instead the woman brought out a rabbit – a huge, white, fluffy, German angora rabbit. Then she brought out another huge, white, but-not-as-fluffy rabbit and proceeded to strap it to a very odd contraption which looked like a medieval instrument of torture and within a moment the rabbit was stretched out by its feet on a metal table, half shorn from where she had done the show earlier on. Next she took out the shears and started removing huge, thick strips of white fluff, then spinning the rabbit around on the rotisserie thing and carrying on. It looked rather pathetic! She assured us that the rabbit was not in any pain, which I do believe, but I had to walk away after a bit as from where I was standing at the end of the table, I could feel the blood red eyes of the rabbit boring into mine – it was way too freaky!

Once we were back on the bus, we continued to Maketu, chilling and chatting along the way. Daisy told us some Maori stories about the hills and how they believed the world started. We arrived at Maketu and first dropped off the wood at the beach, finding an appropriately discrete location for it, so that it was still there when we came back later. Then we went to ‘Uncle Boy’s Place’ where we would be spending the night learning about Maori culture. He jumped on the bus when we arrived and shouted ‘Kia Ora’ (no, he wasn’t offering us a 1980s carton drink, it’s a traditional welcome!), to which we shouted back the same (Daisy had forewarned us that Uncle Boy likes it when people sound enthusiastic and if we didn’t want to have to sit on the bus all night shouting ‘Kia Ora’ until it reached an acceptable volume, we should just yell it as loud as possible from the off!) – thankfully this was loud enough and Uncle Boy let us off the bus!

We went into the dining room and had a cup of tea, then Uncle Boy explained to us a bit about the background of the place and what would happen while we were there. We had to nominate a chief for our tribe- it had to be Barry as he was the oldest male (I think Paul was really incredibly pleased he was just a couple of months younger!). Then Uncle Boy invited us to partake in the hangi dinner (mixture of traditional Maori foods) which was very tasty indeed.

Next it was Barry’s big moment. We went and stood outside the marae (the name for a Maori meeting place) where we would be staying – as it is a special place, we had to take our shoes off to go inside. When we went through the door, there were a group of people in traditional Maori clothes standing at the other end of the hall. This was the ‘formal’ point of the evening, where this tribe had to ascertain whether we were friend or foe; they sent forth a warrior (a 15 year old who was way too ripped than was natural!) who had the task of trying to intimidate our chief, whilst we all had to stand, being serious. The warrior placed a token on the floor in front of Barry and he had to pick it up, without losing eye contact – to show he was a friend. The warrior rejoined his group and they sang a song welcoming us into their family – the Stray tribe had been accepted! Hurrah! That was better than being chased with sticks!

The Maori group stood in a line and we went along greeting one another in the true Maori way – shaking hands, saying ‘Kia Ora’, touching noses/foreheads whilst keeping eye contact! When we’d gone along the line, we joined the end; this meant that we greeted everyone – even our own tribe. Then it was time for the show – we sat down and were entertained by the group, who sang Maori songs and did some traditional dances for us. The group was made up of children and young people, aged 7-15, along with their group leaders.

Then it was over to us. The guys from the Maketu Cultural Group took Barry and Paul off into the dining room to teach them the Haka, whilst all the girls stayed in the hall to learn the Poi. This is a dance that Maori women traditionally do, using a ball on a string called a poi (it used to be a weapon but then became redundant). We only had about fifteen minutes to learn it – it wasn’t easy! We were given some Maori cloaks to wear and then began our lesson. The girls teaching us were only young, probably 12-15 and there were a few too many cooks, shall we say! We’d been learning by chanting ‘Catch, catch, swing, swing, catch’, in time with the swinging or catching of the poi and then suddenly we were told it was time to perform! Arrrgggghhh! We weren’t ready

The boys came in, us girls nearly fell over laughing – Barry and Paul had been put into the traditional Maori skirt things (I can’t remember their actual name), over their boxers. In contrast to the Maori teenagers, Barry and Paul looked rather pasty and incredibly scrawny! Daisy had joined them, as moral support – to try and make them feel more at ease and less self conscious, although he was just as scrawny and pasty as they were! They stood in line and then Barry started the ball rolling – we watched as they performed the Haka – they put their all into it, although it was quite funny as Paul didn’t look like he knew what he was doing and was trying to blend in with the background which is not really possible when you’re standing three feet away from your audience! Barry looked a little more confident than Paul, although it was still really funny watching and Daisy knew exactly what to do (I guess he has done this many, many times with the Stray tour!). Their performance was great, considering they’d only had a short time to learn it! We gave big cheers and then they did it again! The second time they seemed a little less terrified!

Then it was over to us – I sneakily put myself in the back row; terrified that I wouldn’t get it right, as we wouldn’t be chanting ‘Catch, catch, swing, swing, catch’ and instead would have music playing, plus I had been having trouble catching the poi – a fundamental part of the dance. Arrrgggghhh! The music started up and somehow I managed to get the hang of it, in fact having the music actually helped. We did the dance and it all went ok! Hurrah! Then we had to do it again, only this time I had to stand on the front row – right in front of Daisy, Barry and Paul (now I knew how they felt!). The second dance went just as well as the first, in fact they even sped up the music! At last it was over and I felt elated that I had done it!

The group performed some more songs and then it was time for them to go – we said goodbye to them and thanked them for the entertainment. We went to the bus, grabbed our things (again, I took a little bag with some bits in, rather than dragging my whole bag about!) and took them into the marae. We laid out lots of mattresses all over the marae and covered them with sheets and duvets.

When we were all done, we collected our drinks from the fridge and all headed down to the beach. We were pleased to find or wood still there, so Daisy and I built the fire and then everyone sat around it. We spent the evening chatting around the fire with a few bevvies. Wayne – the cook from Uncle Boy’s came down – a proper old, NZ, hippy-dude who said very little but was very interesting when he did speak. It was really good fun. Gradually people started going back to the marae – it’s surprising how some people really can’t handle a tiny bit of smoke! I was one of the die hard who stayed til the end, then Wayne gave us a lift back to the marae in his clapped out old car (which he had to drive with the window down, looking out of that because the windscreen was impossible to de-mist – thankfully the drive was literally only a couple of minutes though!). A really different evening, like none other!

Raucous in Raglan

Got up bright and early this morning, tidied up the Lodge and gathered our things together. We all said farewell to Lucas, who was staying on for a few days, then hopped onto the bus and said goodbye to Hahei.

We started on our way to Hamilton, as we went, I thought it would be a good idea to make use of the time to sort out my ipod and clear off it the songs I do not like. So I spent a couple of hours going through the listings in itunes, selecting the songs to delete from the main playlist. We stopped for a coffee at a tiny town called Paeroa – the home of the famous L&P drink (a type of lemonade), which I still have yet to try, instead I went for a latte! Outside the cafe was a giant bottle of L&P, although somehow I managed to miss it, only seeing it as we left (I was probably too engrossed in the itunes clearout).

Back on the bus I continued my ipod fiddling and then got some help from Barry to synchronise the itunes with the ipod. Sadly this was an epic fail. I don’t know what happened, but everything deleted off the ipod, so I then had to put everything back on it from the itunes library. I tried again and another failure, everything deleted. After another total restore and deletion, I was getting a bit cross and tried something else, but all that has done is now to make it so that I can not delete/move/copy anything at all, so I am going to have to try and find an Apple store (chance would be a fine thing!) to see if they can solve the mystery!

We arrived at Hamilton and found Abbey. By this point, we were all slightly over excited and she got greeted by a barrage of references to vegetables, fruit and obscene names that we’d been using during the games last night. The poor girl did not have a clue what was going on! She sat next to me so I explained as best I could. As we drove through Hamilton (which Daisy told us is commonly referred to as the ‘Town of the Future’ – although I could see no reason as to why this possibly could be true) we saw the track and barriers etc from where there had been a big V8 race (I think I saw it on tv when I was in Auckland with Nikky) – you could see all the skid marks all over the road too.

Daisy took us to ‘Pak N Save’ – a big supermarket (for NZ, anyway – hardly like Sainsbury or Tesco; no pretty displays or signage, it’s more like a warehouse). We stocked up on important things like alcohol and some food, then hopped back in the bus and considered stealing or just moving the bus a bit before Daisy came back and seeing if he noticed, but no one had the guts to do it!

By now, I think Abbey had realised that we were just a silly bunch and she needn’t be worried, although I think she had doubts about that when we were back on the road – everyone knew I was trying to sort out my ipod, so when Daisy’s ipod died, there was a request for mine to be put on; specifically as they knew I have a ridiculous amount of Disney music on it. So that was put on full blast and we drove along with ‘Circle of Life’, ‘Hakuna Matata’ and I don’t know what else, blaring out and everyone singing along. I think Abbey once again wondered what she was letting herself in for!

We arrived in Raglan at lunchtime, so Daisy dropped us in town for an hour, stopping right outside the library – obviously this was very exciting for a few of us, so Paul, Barry and I dived straight in there and made use of the wifi, whilst others did sensible things like going for a walk to the harbour etc. When I came out of the library, I found some of the girls outside and Rebecca and I went for a wander around the sparse, but cute shops, before heading back to the bus.

The fifteen minute drive from town up to the Lodge we were staying at took us up some long, winding roads, which were also really steep. Daisy had asked me to cue up the song ‘Surfing USA’ on my ipod and whilst we drove up this road, he got everyone standing up or kneeling on the seats doing as he described ‘the most activity in NZ’ – bus surfing, whilst the Beach Boys song blasted out! It was rather funny watching the others wobbling about, although the sensible person inside of me really did think it was incredibly dangerous! At the top of the hill, Daisy pulled over and we could see a beach way below us – in the sea we could see lots and lots of surfers. Raglan is a particularly famous NZ surfing hot spot.

A few minutes later we pulled into our hostel and it promptly starting drizzling with a very fine, misty rain. After we had checked in, I went with Ciara to see our room and realised that for a one night stay, it was up way too many steps for me to be carrying my bag up! I went back to the bus and decanted some essential things to a smaller bag and took that up instead, leaving my big bag in the bus. Back in the room, we found that we would also be sharing with Charlotte and another girl who hadn’t been on our bus, but would be getting on it tomorrow (although she was so uber-shy that she didn’t really say anything else other than that). We stood on the veranda with the others and appreciated the view; the misty rain had stopped.

Ciara, Nickolai and Paul went off for their surfing lesson, so the rest of us decided to check out the Lodge. We came across Daisy who suggested we go to the Flying Fox – a zip line down a relatively slow incline. It looked like fun, so we had a go on that – again, my H&S alarm bells started ringing, as there was very little, well nothing in fact, in the way of protection; if you came off, you’d be falling from quite a height, straight onto a gravel/dirt track – well at least this was an incentive to hold on tight! I had one zip down the line and managed to stay on, but then decided that I’d had my fill of luck, so should not go back for more!

The excitement of the Flying Fox over, we all stood about saying the usual “What do you want to do?” to which everyone replied “Don’t mind”! Most people dissipated, leaving just Charlotte, Rebecca, Barry, Daisy and myself. I threw out an idea – going somewhere in the Stray bus, then after a little discussion, we made a plan. We had a chill for half an hour (I thought it was a bit harsh for Daisy to drive again already, having driven for ages and only just arriving!) then jumped on the bus.

Daisy took us to town, where we found a cafe and had afternoon tea! It was most civilised and quite nice chatting in a small group over a coffee. Next, Charlotte, Rebecca and Barry nipped across the road to the supermarket and cash machine, whilst Daisy and I went to the bottle shop for some supplies. We reconvened and headed back to the bus, then Daisy took us to an ice cream shop a bit up the road. I had a cone with ‘Goody Goody Gum Drops’ – it was good! Nibbling our ice creams, we carried on to the beach, parked up and walked down a very steep slope to the sand. We stood on the beach, being blown to pieces, feeling rather cold, but enjoying the view of the sea and trying to make out which of the surfers were our friends – we couldn’t be certain; they all looked the same! We chatted and I denied being cold (I am still braving the cold and not giving in to cardigan wearing unless it’s extreme!), then we all decided we’d seen enough of the beach, so went back up the hill to the bus.

We got back to the Lodge at about 5pm, we went into the main hall, only to find the tv and sofas had been taken over by a bunch of Germans, so Rebecca and Charlotte went online whist I played pool against Daisy. He thought I was pool-sharking him when I told him I couldn’t play, then after a few minutes he realised that I had actually meant it! I was truly trounced but it was a funny game nonetheless – I think they found my attempts at hitting the ball rather entertaining! When Daisy had won and then potted all of my remaining balls (ie, all of them!), we noticed that the tv area was vacant – yoink!

I shouted out the different VHS films that were on offer but no one would make a decision, so I just selected Pulp Fiction and whacked that on. Curled up on the sofa , sinking a few bevvies, watching a good movie was great! Before long, a few of the rest of the bus gang found us and we sat enjoying the film. After four drinks I had a look at what it said on the can and noticed ‘High Caffeine Content’. Oh dear. I had been thinking I felt a bit funny, not drunk, just incredibly alert. The whole bus gang was in the hall when the film ended and it was dark outside, so Daisy said he would take us on the tour he’d promised – Daisy’s Glow-Worm Walk. It was only when I got up and went outside that I noticed just how ‘wired’ I was – serious caffeine overload. The others said it was really funny, as I was speaking at a hundred miles an hour, with incredibly wide eyes and being generally odd. Daisy’s ‘tour’ was actually five minute walk from the hall, down to the reception, along a path and back up to the hall again – along the way we saw a grand total of six tiny glow worms, I still thought it was cool though!

Back at the hall I was devastated to see that the tv had been taken over by some Germans again, but there were only two of them, so seeing as we had the larger number, we managed to overthrow the German invasion and get the VCR back. I selected the next film, as again, no one else would make a decision, so I put in ‘Lock Stock’ and settled back on the sofa, with a beer this time as I thought I might have had enough caffeine for the night! I had a bit of a fight with the remote, trying to get it to play, but managed to get it going in the end – again, I was told that this moment was particularly hilarious, in my hyped state!

During the film, I got up and made a tuna sandwich (thanks to Nikky who had left me the necessary ingredients!) possibly not using the most usual method, as I didn’t want to wash up, but it was fine! I do recall getting some rather odd looks though! We carried on watching the film and chatting, then when it was over, we sat around and played some games (including a repeat of those we’d played in Hahei) and again spent the rest of the evening, into the wee hours, in absolute hysterics before dragging ourselves to bed.