Auckland to Taupo

I promised a run down of Auckland, and I do not want to disappoint, so:
1) The city is small, but is big enough to know its a city. Megan and I walked it a few times and again with Laura and we still managed to find new areas to explore.
2) The food is good (nothing like the italian place in Hobart, but then again, not to many places can measure up to that). We found a good Ramen place and a cafe that can fry up some pretty mean bananas.
3) The amount of people out on the weekends exceeds anything I have ever seen before! When I got up at 4 am to pick Laura up at the airport there were more people out then there was at 10 pm the night before! It really was quite a site.

So the hop-on-hop-off bus tour we are on is insane! We have the option to do so many things and partake in so many activities its nuts!

From Auckland we headed to Mercury Bay where we got to dig our own thermal hot pools on the beach. The water was so hot that it turned the bum of an English girl on our trip the color of a ripe tomato (though I cant laugh too hard because my calfs an back were about the same color).

We were then shipped to Rotorua where we got to go ZORBING!!!!!!!!!!! So for those of you who did not google it as I asked, basically what zorbing is a smaller beach ball filled with hot water and people inside a bigger beach ball. The smaller ball is held in the middle of the bigger one with strings. To get into it you have to take a running dive head first straight into the middle of the small ball. You are then zipped up and told to run at one side of the ball (which faces down the hill). You proceed to roll down the hill, boucing around the ball, giggling like a little school girl! The three of us were in one... and Laura got the bright idea to try and stand up and run... which simply ended in her landing straight on my gut as I was trying not to swallow water... but it was totally worth it!!! That night we got to do a whole Mauri culture dinner and a show type thing which I do have to say was one of the most interesting things I have ever seen. We got to learn about the culture and eat lots and lots of food. I would not trade this day for anything!

From Rotorua we headed to Waitomo where we got to go Black Water Rafting. We repelled 50 meters down into a cave, took a zipline even further in, jumped into freezing water, and climbed up two waterfalls to get out. I have never in my life done something so amazing (I do not want to sound redundent, but I'm still at a lose for words)! That was this morning and I still havent recovered.

We are now in Taupo. We got in around 4 this afternoon so we havent done anything yet, but I think we are staying here for 2 days, so I'm sure there will be something!!!

Hope all is well! Cheers!

(Pictures and USB ports are hard to come by... sorry!!!)

Kiwi Itinerary

This will again, sorry to say, be a short post. The bus that will take us south picks us up in 6 minutes, but I wanted to let you all know some of the activities we have planned (and by planned I mean picked up pamphlets and said, "Oh, that looks fun!"):

1) Black Water Rafting
2) Zorbing (Google it!)
3) Glowworm Caves
4) Tongariro Crossing [17 KM hike (oneway) to the top of Mount Doom]
5) Skydiving (?)
6) Jet Boating
7) Canyon Swinging
8) Peddling for change on the streets

Hopefully the next hostel has internet access so we can add some Auckland pictures and I can discribe the city a little more. Until then...