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Date Posted: 19:31:31 04/05/03 Sat
Author: NomeNomiNomiNome
Subject: Whitianga, Rotorua, Waitomo, and Taupo

Alright folks, here is another update! It's long, but you asked for it! hehe ;)

MARCH 31st:
Left Auckland for Whitianga. We stopped off at 2 beautiful beaches along the way: Hahei Beach, and Cathedral Cove. We didn't have a lot of time at the beaches, but enough time to soak up some gorgeous scenery (as well as to run quickly away from the dead sheep we found on the beach). We spent the night in Whitianga, which was a nice little town on the Ocean... didn't do much, I think we watched ER ;)

APRIL 1st:
Unfortunately we completely forgot it was April Fools Day, so we missed out on playing some good jokes on you folks back home! We drove this day from Whitianga to Rotorura. As we arrived at Rotorura the power steering on the bus broke down, so our driver was having a heck of a time getting it around corners, that was a little scary. We later found out that there had also been a fire in the bus, just luckily not where our luggage was!

We spent the afternoon at the Whakarewarewa Thermal Park, which was pretty cool! There is so much geothermal activity going on in Rotorura, you can see steam coming up all over the place, and the town smells like sulfur. We saw some lovely bubbling mud holes that looked like they came right out of the labyrinth (The Bog of Eternal Stench!)

That evening after much debate we decided to go to the Mauri Hangi, which turned out to be a great descision! It cost us $56 New Zealand dollars, but was worth it! They've recreated a pre-european Mauri village about a 15 minute drive out of town. We were picked up from our Hostel by an amazing bus driver who took us out there. He greeted us in 47 different language, and got us all in a great mood! He could even do all the accents (Irish, German, English, American, etc)... it was amazing!

While on the bus, we nominated one guy from the bus to be our "Chief". When we arrived at the village, all the chiefs from the different busses stood in a line in front of the rest of us. A fiersome young warrior came in from the village doing the traditional greeting to decide if a visiting party is friendly. It was quite intense, which lots of yelling and chanting coming from within the village. Eventually we were accepted, and allowed to enter the village. The village was beautifully created, and very cool to walk around.

After our tour of the village, we were treated to a cultural show of singing and dancing. I was very impressed. When they sang and chanted the noise was so powerful (the show also included lots of tongue sticking out, and eye bugging!)

After the show we got to eat (finally!). It was a buffet, and Sarah and I were in HEAVEN! Most of the food was actually cooked underground and had quite a unique flavour to it. After living on a backpackers diet for so long, we were quite determined to make the most of the buffet. After we were finished I could hardly breathe or walk do to all the food, but it was soooooo yummy!!

The trip back from the show was no less fun than the rest of it. Our bus driver was great, and managed to convince our "Chief" to come up to the microphone and sing his National Anthen (God Save the Queen)... everybody joined in of course. After that, we sang a bunch of other songs. These included the American Anthem (led by a fellow bus rider who had had a few too many glasses of whine), and Wheels on the Bus. You should have seen everybody bobbing up and down on the bus when we sang "The People on the Bus Go Up and Down"... it was hilarious! Our bus driver also treated us to a perfect rendition of an Elvis Presely Song. At one point he declared that he was going to sing for us a traditional Mauri song. He then broke out into "Here we go round the Mullberry Bush", and drove the huge bus around a roundabout about 10 times. It was so much fun! :)

APRIL 2nd:
We spent the day hanging out in Rotorua: it's a very beautiful city, though there are too many bugs.

APRIL 3rd:
Drove from Rotorua to Waitomo, home of the Waitomo caves. Waitomi is a tiny little township consisting of mostly farmers and people who run the tourist attractions. We stayed at a beautiful hostel there, with views of the surrounding farmland.

In the afternoon we went "Black Water Rafting" through the glowworm caves. This involved suiting up in full wet suits, grabbing an inner tube, and spending an hour floating through the caves. At a few points we turned off our helmet lights, and floated through the dark which was lit only by the glow of the glow worms. It was so cool! The ceiling of the cave was so high that I kept thinking we were under an open star filled sky (thanks to the glowworms). We got to jump off a little waterfall too, which was fun :)

We spent the evening playing Scattegories, and then went off for a evening walk to see the glowworms and batcaves. That was cool, though we saw zero bats and a few too many giant spiders!

Around 11 pm we were heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed and got stopped by a rather drunk guy in the hallway. Turns out he was on a retreat with the other managers and workers of this stationary company, and he thought it would be a good idea to join them at the local Tavern. We did so, and ended up having a very fun evening. We partied with the stationary company people, as well as a few local farmers we met... we're so crazy! ;P hehe.. It was a nice break from constantly being surrounded by other backpackers. I'd like to look for more opportunities to break out of the backpackers circuit and hang out with the locals.

APRIL 4th:
We left Waitomo to head to Taupo, one of the adventure capitals of New Zealand. We saw a few waterfalls along the way. Half our bus went sky diving in the afternoon. We really wanted to go, but decided it wasn't a good idea to spend that much money all at once. We had a relaxing evening at home instead, and went to bed early, to prepare for our big day the next day.

APRIL 5th:
Woke up at 5 am to hike the Tongonaro crossing... this was an absolutely AMAZING hike, and Sarah and devoted an entire post to it, so you can read that for more details.

We spent the evening at the Hot Pools, which I think did wonders in helping to save our poor tired muscles

APRIL 6th (Today!):
Today we're just spending the day hanging around in Taupo. We're having a pretty relaxing day today. Spent some time drinking tea and playing scattegories this afternoon... it's a great game, but I think it needs more than 2 people! We're thinking about going to see a movie tonight. We want to see Lord of the Rings again, but we're going to save that for Wellington (The Holy Land!)

We're both happy and in good spirits. We're quite excited about Easter, though rather annoyed that we have to wait TWO WEEKS! Sarah and I had quite convinced ourselves it was going to be today. :( It seems to be a huge thing here, every store we go to has TONS of easter chocolate everywhere!

Tomorrow we head out to River Valley, where we may try out some White Water Rafting, depending on the weather. After that, it's on the Wellington (The Holy Land!)

The plan as of now is to fly out of Auckland to Brisbane on May 6th. (Look out Lynne, here we come! hehe)

Love you all!!

-Nomi

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