Day 61 – Auckland back to Titirangi.

It’s nice to wake up and not have to jump on a bus. After a few complications and not being able to call each other I finally skyped Danika! After this, I organised all of my bags and chucked away things I didn’t need anymore so I was back to my original 2 bags instead of 3. I knocked on Rach & Charli’s door to see what they were up too. We then wandered along Queens Street as the girls needed to get a few last things before their flight. I then went and chilled out in Albert Park again and read some more of my book as the weather is just beautiful! As I got back to the hostel my phone rang and Stuart was coming to get me in 5minutes so I quickly sorted all my stuff and walked to where I was meeting him. We got back to his and the kids were very excited to see me (who wouldn’t be!) I was introduced to a book called ‘A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree’ which is actually just ‘The 12 days of Kiwi Christmas’, why Louie wanted to read this book at this time of year I don’t know but it spoke about pies and rugby and other things!

Day 60 – Auckland.

I’ve never done this on my travels before but I thought it was a good idea to spend some time making a spreadsheet on how much I’ve spent so far. I was intrigued to work out how much roughly I’ve spent a night on accommodation here in New Zealand (the answer £14) and how much I’ve spent overall so far. It’s actually slightly less than I thought which is always good! I also think it’s helpful not only for future reference but to help other people that may want to do this too. Anyway, that’s how I spent my morning.

I was getting pretty hungry so I decided to go for a walk and find some lunch. I stopped in a cute little café called Buns on High Street. The workers were so friendly and the food was amazing, if the weather had been worse I could have stayed there all afternoon. Instead I made my way over to Albert Park to enjoy the beautiful sunshine, chill out and read some of my book. I’m currently reading The Book Thief, which has just been made into a film, I’m really enjoying it at the moment and I’m intrigued to see what they’ve done with it. By the way, not every book I read is because I want to see the film!

It was our official last night in New Zealand together. Rach & Charli jump on a plane to Bangkok super early on Friday morning so tonight is the one. Freddie & Charlie came over to join us at Base for our belated Pancake Day celebrations! Probably a good thing too as the best non-stick frying pan we could find didn’t have a handle, so Freddie ended up being in charge to use a tea towel to flip them. You can’t have Pancake Day without them being flipped and trying your best not to stick them to the ceiling! It was a great success, making me very happy! It is one of the best holidays of the year because it’s not a national thing so a lot of people don’t know what you are talking about.

Day 59 – Taupo to Auckland – PANCAKE DAY!

Originally Rach, Charli and I were going to stay another day in Taupo but there wasn’t any room at Base so they decided the night before to leave today instead. I decided to join them, as there was plenty of space on the bus, enough space for two seats each as well!

Our first stop just an hour up the road was in Rotorua. Before we arrived there we stopped just outside in Waiotapu to see the geothermal pools. The sign said ‘Acid waters attack and dissolve adjoining ground to digest many minerals in the rock, forming viscous mud pools.’ Basically the ground bubbles away and smells like sulphur. We dropped off and picked up people in Rotorua but I still managed to have two seats, WOO, GO ME!

Our lunch stop was in Matamata (near Hobbiton) but the three of us had been prepared and made lunch before we left meaning we were the guards of the bus as the driver left us in charge.

It was official, Kiwi Experience was over, our final bus arrived in Auckland at about 3 in the afternoon but it took us about an hour to check in because their system was down which was just a bit annoying. We didn’t end up in the same room but at least we were on the same floor.  I went for a walk around town but most things were closing up by the time I got out. Today was Pancake Day but we actually fell asleep before pancakes were made so we’ll just have to do it another day instead.

Day 35 – Taupo Rain & Spa Thermal Park.

Yesterday I went to the tourist information centre and grabbed some leaflets on what to do in Taupo. One of them I saw was for a market that is held on the green on a Saturday morning and as that is only over the road from where I’m staying I thought I’d check it out. As I got closer I noticed it wasn’t on because Lynyrd Skynyrd, 10CC and some other bands were having a mini festival.

I decided just to walk around some more and pop into Pak and Save for a few things; Timtams and stuff… the necessities. When I came out there was a slight drizzle in the air so I grabbed a pie for lunch (Butter chicken, bloody lovely!) and made my way to the library to do some research for other places I’ll be visiting. Chrissy told me yesterday she’s going to join me for the last 5 weeks I’m away, so Vietnam to Thailand, which I’m very excited about now!! Another reason I wanted to create a rough plan so I can tell her my ideas and whether there are any other places or things she wants to see and do.

The lake above is called Lake Taupo and is the largest lake in Australasia, it is 616 square kilometres and you could fit the whole of Singapore into it!

I walked out the library to go and meet some of the girls and it was absolutely hammering it down! I feel your pain back in the UK. We didn’t end up doing a lot just chilling in reception, watching one of their Bungy videos.

It cleared up quite a bit and the sun came out and one of them said she was going to the hot pools in the Spa Thermal Park which is about a 40min walk from our hostel so I decided to join her, as I wanted to go and see them anyway!

They were really cool and it’s surprising how hot the water actually is. We chilled in the hot spring for about 45mins and at one point it started to chuck it down. It was a weird sensation as the rain was cold hitting you but the water was super warm, it created this weird steam mist making it really hard to see. Within 5minutes the rain had stopped and the view cleared up.

We made our way back to the hostel and I was excited to have my leftover curry! Unfortunately for me it wasn’t that simple. The microwave rotated your food and the light was hot but it didn’t actually heat up your food, I tried to grill the naan so it was warm and that didn’t work either… I then thought there is only one thing but to bung it in a pan and heat it that way. The gas has to be lit using a match or something but all of those in the kitchen were broken, so I had to find someone with a lighter to do it for me, you wouldn’t think reheating something could be so hard?! Bits were hot, bits were cold but it was alright.

Finally I was ready to meet everyone else, we hung around in the girls room for a bit watching some sky dive videos as 3 of them got to do it yesterday and then we went to check out the Element bar that is linked to our hostel.