So we jumped onto the Kiwi experience bus in Auckland after James birthday to start our tour around the North Island.
The first stop was a really cool and unique place called Hot Water Beach. On this beach when the tide is out if you dig a hole into the ground when you hit water it is warm and the further you dig it is roasting!! People had dug lots of little pools that everyone was sitting in and paddling in, one of the pools was so hot it had bubbles coming off the top of it and noone could even dip their toe in it. It was good fun and something quite different.
The cool thing with Kiwi experience is they stop at all these wee random places on the way to a bigger place and you get to see quite fun and pretty things that you probably wouldn't otherwise know where there. The next place was called Cathedral Cove which is a beach that looks quite like the one of 'The Beach' film.
The next cool thing I did was Black Water Rafting in the Waitomo caves which are famous for the glow worms which live inside them. It is basically going through an underwater river in small caves in the pitch black on a rubber ring. We were all given head torches etc so at some stages we were allowed to have light. It was unreal and quite adrenaline fuelled as we jumped backwards off a few waterfalls, navigated the tunnels in the dark and also froze to death haha!! I really enjoyed it and am glad I did it - not every day you get to black water raft in the dark!
Next stop back to Rotorua. This time we went to a Mauri cultural evening called Tamaki village. The local Mauri people showed us the traditional way of Mauri life and culture such as the games they played, the food they ate and the way they were trained to fight. It was really interesting and they put on a show performing the Haka and lots of Mauri dances and songs. I really enjoyed the evening. They finished the night off with an amazing dinner which was cooked in a traditional Mauri Hangi oven for 3 hours which is basically hot stones below the ground and then wrapped in Hessian sacks. We had chicken, lamb, kumura, carotts and stuffing pulled from the ground - it was unbelievably light and moist...if only we could all have Hangi ovens!! It was such a great insight into the traditional culture of New Zealand...we expected it to be slightly cheesy and fake but it was very authentic and the hosts were so passionate about informing us about their culture. It was one of my highlights of the North Island.
The final really cool thing was our driver took us to a river and on the edge of this river was a water fall which flowed hot...it was so unexpected but so cool!! The little rock pools only in this area were really hot and we could sit in them like a jacuzzi but if you went out towards the river it was freeeeezing!!! This is one of the wee free activities that Kiwi enables you to do and we had a couple of hours entertainment for nothing. These natural hot water springs are caused by the geothermal activity underground!
We have had a brilliant time on the North Island bus and made lots of nice friends. We will leave them in Wellington as we stay around for the quarter finals. The next blog will be about Welly and the banter around the rugby...sadly we all now know the result but we still had a fun weekend.
The blog will come soon!
Thanks for reading!
xx
The first stop was a really cool and unique place called Hot Water Beach. On this beach when the tide is out if you dig a hole into the ground when you hit water it is warm and the further you dig it is roasting!! People had dug lots of little pools that everyone was sitting in and paddling in, one of the pools was so hot it had bubbles coming off the top of it and noone could even dip their toe in it. It was good fun and something quite different.
The cool thing with Kiwi experience is they stop at all these wee random places on the way to a bigger place and you get to see quite fun and pretty things that you probably wouldn't otherwise know where there. The next place was called Cathedral Cove which is a beach that looks quite like the one of 'The Beach' film.
The next cool thing I did was Black Water Rafting in the Waitomo caves which are famous for the glow worms which live inside them. It is basically going through an underwater river in small caves in the pitch black on a rubber ring. We were all given head torches etc so at some stages we were allowed to have light. It was unreal and quite adrenaline fuelled as we jumped backwards off a few waterfalls, navigated the tunnels in the dark and also froze to death haha!! I really enjoyed it and am glad I did it - not every day you get to black water raft in the dark!
Next stop back to Rotorua. This time we went to a Mauri cultural evening called Tamaki village. The local Mauri people showed us the traditional way of Mauri life and culture such as the games they played, the food they ate and the way they were trained to fight. It was really interesting and they put on a show performing the Haka and lots of Mauri dances and songs. I really enjoyed the evening. They finished the night off with an amazing dinner which was cooked in a traditional Mauri Hangi oven for 3 hours which is basically hot stones below the ground and then wrapped in Hessian sacks. We had chicken, lamb, kumura, carotts and stuffing pulled from the ground - it was unbelievably light and moist...if only we could all have Hangi ovens!! It was such a great insight into the traditional culture of New Zealand...we expected it to be slightly cheesy and fake but it was very authentic and the hosts were so passionate about informing us about their culture. It was one of my highlights of the North Island.
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| The Hangi oven |
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| During the show! |
The final really cool thing was our driver took us to a river and on the edge of this river was a water fall which flowed hot...it was so unexpected but so cool!! The little rock pools only in this area were really hot and we could sit in them like a jacuzzi but if you went out towards the river it was freeeeezing!!! This is one of the wee free activities that Kiwi enables you to do and we had a couple of hours entertainment for nothing. These natural hot water springs are caused by the geothermal activity underground!
We have had a brilliant time on the North Island bus and made lots of nice friends. We will leave them in Wellington as we stay around for the quarter finals. The next blog will be about Welly and the banter around the rugby...sadly we all now know the result but we still had a fun weekend.
The blog will come soon!
Thanks for reading!
xx
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