Auckland is home to the tallest structure in the Southern hemisphere, the Sky Tower (330m). Some people paid to walk around the outside of the roof, others to throw themselves off it. For us, just getting up there seemed expensive enough.
Our options for getting around NZ were by bus or by car. Seeing as we'd gone by bus around South America and were planning the same for Australia, we decided to hire a car for New Zealand. After picking up the almost superbly named Toyota 'Vitz' and heading out of Auckland we discovered a pair of prescription sunglasses left in the glove box, so had to drive back to the hire place to return them. This slight inconvenience turned out to be a blessing though, as we were rewarded with two bags of Pineapple Lumps which we would otherwise not known existed. Pineapple Lumps are amazing. They're basically big lumps of chocolatey pineappley goodness, and supposedly unique to in NZ. I have no idea why, they should be sold everywhere.
Our first destination was north to Paihia in the beautiful Bay of Islands. This is where they come to take long panning shots of sandy beaches and glistening seas as part of NZ tourism promo films.
It's also a spot where you're able to see (and swim with) dolphins. The swimming part is dependent on their mood (if they're relaxed it's fine, if they're stressed it's not) and whether or not there's calves feeding with the pod. Well, there were no feeding calves in the pod that we saw, but they were pretty stressed. Because they were being stalked that day by a pod (I assume it's also a pod) of Orcas. So while it was a shame that we didn't get to do any swimming that day, we did get the chance to see Killer Whales up close. Really close.
From the Bay of Islands we headed as far North as possible to Cape Reinga, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea, and then back down the west of the peninsula, huge strips of which are covered by huge sand dunes. And in New Zealand, if there's any section of land that isn't perfectly flat, then someone will have come and tried to climb it, or jump off it, or ride it, or surf it, or do anything else to it and then given that a name. Then they'll set up a business and try and get lots of other people to come along and have a go too. So on the sand dunes of Hokianga Harbour we tried sand boarding. If you put the effort in to walk up them, you're rewarded with the chance to slide on your chest all the way back down them. There's also a video over there -> somewhere.
The centre of the North Island has a rich Maori history, so near Rotorua we went to see a cultural show in the traditional house, called a Whare. I say near Rotorua, but the place we went to was actually called Te Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao (and supposedly that's only the second longest word in Maori). I think 'near Rotorua' or 'Whaka' is easier. Whaka is essentially a huge thermal reserve, due to all the volcanic activity in the area (Lake Rotorua is actually the crater of an extinct volcano) so there's mud pools and hot springs all over the place. It's also home to Pohutu, a huge geyser which shoots up to about 20 or 30 metres. Good when it happens, but boring to wait for.
And then came Taupo and the sky dive. Taupo was probably my favourite town in New Zealand because it had loads going on, but with cheaper prices and fewer people than in Queenstown. For our jump we had the option of 12,000 or 15,000 feet - with 12,000 you get forty seconds of freefall and with 15,000 you get a minute. We went with the latter. The preparation all felt pretty rushed at to the airfield, but that was a good thing because it gave me no time to talk myself out of it. After throwing on the equipment, whizzing through the instructions and spouting out some nonsense for the video camera we were in the little plane (a very white one, not the very pink one) and high up over Lake Taupo and a host of volcanoes. At 12,000 feet the door rolled opened and several others in our plane slid out, before it rolled shut again. Five minutes and 3,000 feet later it was our turn. Me and my instructor Alex shuffled to the door then waited for what seemed like an eternity with our feet hanging over the edge...and then we were gone. At first we were spinning around a lot and my mind was scaring the hell out of me by worrying that something was going wrong. But it wasn't of course, and then you just start to really enjoy the feeling that you're plummeting to the ground at about 200km/h. Seriously. The freefall bit is over way too quickly though, no matter how many seconds you get. You'll all get to see the DVD at some point, with me looking stupid throughout.
The Tongariro Crossing is supposedly the best one day hike in New Zealand. It cuts between Mount Tongariro and Mount Ngauruhoe with the option of climbing to the top of either as well. Mt Ngauruhoe is also better known as Mount Doom from the recent Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it looks better than Mt Tongariro, so I chose to climb Tongariro (so I could look at Ngauruhoe, not because I didn't have faith in my abilities of climbing it. Oh no). All in all it wasn't too challenging a trek, and any pain I had at the end of the day was mainly down to mild sunburn, and it was well worth the effort for the 60 odd photos that I took.
More NZ stuff to come soon (from both of us).
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