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Date Posted: 23:14:59 03/29/03 Sat
Author: Nomi
Subject: New Zealand Update

Hello all!

We've been so bad about posting, other than the occasional "we're going here!" post... sorry about that ;)

Anyways, here's what we've been up to.

We arrived in Auckland on the 21st. We spent 5 days there. We didn't do a whole lot, just the usual city kind of things. We went dancing quite a few nights, saw some kareoke, played some pool, watched a few movies, wandered randomly. It's a nice city, very similar to Vancouver/Victoria in many ways though. We shared a dorm room with 8 other people, so it was really easy to meet people do things with.

One thing we did in Auckland was to go to Kelly Tarltons Antarctic and Underwater world. That was pretty cool, quite different than other sea world type places that I've seen. You go around on this conveyor belt thing, through a tunnel. The water is all around and above you, so you feel like you're surrounded by swimming sharks and other sealife.

On the 26th we took our first "Kiwi Experience" bus, up to the Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands is supposed to be the place in New Zealand with the best weather, and the least amount of rain. There are 144 islands in the Bay, so it's huge with all sorts of different water activities. There is snorkeling, scuba diving, sea kayaking, sailing, etc. We were pretty exciting about exploring these options... however, it decided to POUR rain the entire time we were there! The dirt from the farmlands stained the ocean this ugly brown colour. The roads were flooding, it was horrible!

The day after we got to the Bay of Islands, we took off on a day trip in the bus up to Cape Rienga. It poured rain that entire day too, but we still managed to enjoy ourselves. One cool thing about this day trip, is that the bus drove along 90 mile beach... literally! It drives right along the sand, it's pretty cool. Once the bus gets to the end of this beach, it turns and drives up along a stream to get back to the road. The entire drive the bus driver was on the radio, trying to figure out if the stream was too flooded to drive up... it was a little scary. He told us stories about busses that had flipped over or gotten stuck in the stream or on the beach. *gulp!* Luckily we managed to make it up the stream ok.

All along the sides of the stream were giant sand dunes. We stopped in front of the biggest one, pulled out boogie boards, and proceeded to walk up to the top. That was one TIRING walk! At one point we were almost half way up, and looked ahead of us... the slope of the hill seemed to be at almost at 90 degrees! We finally made it to the top, where we hopped on our boards, and rocketted back down to the bottom of the dune. That was scary, but so fun! It started to rain again once we got to the bottom, so most people ran to the bus... but Sarah and I liked the ride so much that we climbed back up to the top anyways and went again ;)

The night after the day trip we went to the pub for kareoke night. I really wanted to sing, but my voice was still suffering from when I was sick, so I wimped out :(

We had planned on staying at the Bay of Islands for 3 nights, but we headed back to Auckland after 2 due to the rain.

We've now been in Auckland for 2 days, doing nothing much in particular. We went dancing last night, but the place was a meat market. I think the guy to girl ratio was like 5-1. It was a little uncomfortable, but we still had fun.

We're leaving tomorrow on the bus to head down South. I'm not sure of the name of the town we'll be staying in tomorrow night. Our bus trip will stop at a few places along the way to show us the sites.

Anyways, that's about it. Hope you all are well.

Love Nomi

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