So.. we arrived in Auckland and headed to the Base Backpackers hostel and bumped into a girl from Fiji in our dorm room, crazy coincidence. Next day early 7.45am we rose to watch England's victory over France, get in. Particularly as there were some Welsh girls sat next to us supporting France, bloody Welsh (Sorry Welshies). Then came the arrival of Giles, Em's boyfriend bearing replacements of my stolen goodies so most welcome. The next couple of days we explored Auckland, went up the sky tower and had a drink, went to the Auckland art gallery to check out some traditional maori portraits and hit the Auckland museum where we had the haka (All Black's psyche out dance) warrior dance performed for us.
Tuesday, we got into our hire car and hit the road for Paihia and the Bay of Islands. This was where the first settlers came to NZ from Europe and settled in Russell and the Waitangi Treaty was signed bringing unity to NZ at the instance of a British representative there. Explored Russell across the bay and its pretty beach and Waitangi National Park where the House of said treaty was and some waterfalls/big Maori meeting house and war canoe stuff! Thursday we did a big boat trip around the Bay of Islands which has some stunning beaches and some rather happy holiday home owners living there. Friday, we headed to the northern tip of the North Island to Northland, where Cape Reinga can be found and a 90km beach which we walked around the next day and helped a kiwi family get their car out of the sand after an ambitious off the road project.
After this we spent a long day driving down to Rotorua, all hostels were booked up and we ended up staying in a Young Christians Women's Association hostel, bit quiet and grim but hosted us well and meant we could watch England's hideous defeat on the Sunday morning before heading to Rotorua. Rotorua for those who don't know is a big sulphur smelling town where there are hot geysers shooting up steam and thermal baths, obviously we visited both. Also bumped into some guys from law school there in our hostel, surreal and had a good drinking session with them. This was where I got to see the kiwi bird for the first time, in a darkened enclosed area in the Rotorua maori cultural centre but a kiwi bird nonetheless.
When we could stomach the sulphur no longer we headed to Taupo and what was to be the site of the long anticipated and feared Burgess skydive. The day we arrived we headed over to SkyDive Taupo and all 3 of us were wetting ourselves. I went rather pale and quiet apparently but chirped up big time when I got the blue overalls on and was harness to a rather nice Kiwi and got in the plane. It hit home I was doing it then and I decided to give it my all. 15,000 ft, 60 seconds of free fall and a groin wrenching parachute fall later, I landed, relieved and hyperactive on the ground. Great rush, thought my heart would explode when I fell out of the plane!
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