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New Zealand Trip

Auckland : start of the trip

The first day of my trip was in Auckland. First of all I went to the skytower to jump it : 192m of fall, it's a bit scary when you have to step off.... The picture on the right shows the view I had when I was about to jump. Later in the afternoon I went to visit an aquarium, called the "Kelly Tarlton's Antartic Encounter & Underwater world". I could see for the first time some penguins, sharks, marine turtles, and other interesting marine animals. Very good museum.

PHOTOS

As I still some time to hang around I did a tour of the city and saw a couple of interesting buildings, as the "Hoyts movie theater" that had a strange pattern, shown on the picture on the right. I saw the maritime museum too, and the KZ1, the challenger of the America's Cup in 1988. It is so massive that it couldn't even fit on one picture !

The next morning we went to Mont Eden, just out of the city. It is an ancient volcanoe, 196m high, and the view over the city is fantastic. Surprisingly some cows are around, quietly dealing with their stuff. That is the last sight from the city we will have before we head to Raglan, the surfers paradise.

Auckland to Raglan

Nothing really interesting to say, the trip was boring and it was raining all the time, even when we arrived in Raglan. The only highlight of the trip was the Bridal Veil falls, really nice. The bus driver, Allison, was absolutely nuts, but funny. A bit hyperactive, though. In Raglan some crazy people went surfing, though it was deadly cold and raining. Apparently they had some fun. Personly I prefered organising my trip at the accomodation.

Raglan to Tauranga

On the way we stopped at Waitomo, famous for its Glow-worms. Some people did what they call "Blackwater Rafting" on tyre tubes. I prefered going for a walk and watching the shave of angorra rabbits. On the way to Tauranga we stopped near from the location of "Hobbiton" in the Lord of the Rings. It looked pretty much like it with the hills, but to respect the deal with the Department Of Conservation ( DOC ) everything had been dismounted to leave the land intact. You could just make your imagination function.

On the way we stopped in a pub with a very strange pool table, as you could judge by yourself. Having tried it, I can tell you that it is useless to calculate too much what to do, as anyway the shot will be random... A lot of fun.

Tauranga to Maketu

In Tauranga we climbed up Mount Maunganui, a 3 hours walk rewarded by a magnificient view over the Bay of Plenty. The walk itself was really pleasant, it looked like Scotland with wide green fields dotted with granit stones.

As we still had time untill we headed ti Maketu, the Maori village for the cultural stop, I windsurfed for a while in the bay. It was a long time since I last practiced, but it was alright. The wind was gentle but always changing, which made it fun to stick to a cape...

We spent the evening in a Maori House, after a visit of the Maori village. This stop was really worth it as we got a chance to discover the cultural aspect of New Zealand, from the mouth of a Maori. This is a very strong tribe, apparently although a couple of tries by the colons, they have never been beaten on the field. That is probably why they are still respected in their country, nonwithstanding with some other populations which have been destroyed or put quickly under European control.

Maketu to Taupo

On the way to Taupo we first stopped in the morning in Rotorua, famous for its smell ( we could smell the sulphur 30mn before we got there... ), as it is a geothermal area. We got to visit a Maori village, Whakarewarewa, located in the middle of sulphur sources and boiling lakes.

The views in that region, once you manage to forget the smell, are moon-like : everything is steaming everywhere, the water flowing is almost boiling, the ground is hot... People living there use the natural water sources to cook, wash their dishes, warm their houses, they have some communal baths filled by the streams and cooled during the whole day before it is possible to go inside... But there is one big problem : all the electric and electronic equipments are wasted within 2 years because of the sulphur in the steams...

Finally to close the visit we had a "typical" Maori show. "Typical" because no mistake, they do it 10 times a day and it is only for tourists... Whatsoever it was pretty good, the performance was better than I expected.

Just before we left the village we saw the boiling mud pools and a huge boiling lake. Then again it is really unreal to see such landscapes.

Arriving in Taupo, I had something to do : skydiving !!! So my buddys and myself got prepared, then took a small plane and jumped in tandem from 12.000 feet, for a 45 seconds freefall before the instructor opened the parachute. The feeling was absolutely incredible, it is highly adictive. I want to do it again ! And surprisingly it is not as scary as it sounds to jump from a plane. I seriously loved it !

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