19 January 2007 - On the search for Gandolf and The Ring

My first week in New Zealand has already flown by and it's only 6 days until i fly off again! I got picked up from the airport in Auckland at 1am by my aunt and her friend and got taken back to her house in Howick just outside of Auckland city for a well deserved cup of tea and a good sleep!

Managed to drag myself out of bed on Saturday morning/afternoon and had an English breakfast and a cup of tea waiting for me.....amazing! After the last few hectic weeks in Australia in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane i was really looking forward to doing nothing for a few days, so Saturday was pretty much a write off and it was spent drinking my aunt Sylvie out of tea bags and eating most of the contents of her biscuit tin.....Perfect!

The next day Sylvie son Martin came over and we all went off to the local Irish pub for a few pints of Guinness and some pie and chips. After several beers in the Auckland sun we headed of home for a couple more drinks and to watch the cricket. I had decided that i should probably move on the next day as i could see myself sitting on Sylvie's sofa and not moving for the whole 2 weeks! So, i booked a car for the week and decided to drive around the North Island and then drop the car off in Queenstown in the South Island the Monday after. I picked the car up on Monday morning and headed to the north of the north island to the Bay of Islands for a few days. I arrived Monday afternoon in Paihia and spent a couple of days chilling out on the beach, watching cricket and drinking New Zealand beer.....I met a few people up there, Frosty from Newquay, Claire from Brighton and Louise from Cambridge and we all had a good couple of nights out together!

On the i left Paihia and the Bay of Islands a little hungover from our last night and headed back down to Auckland to say goodbye to Sylvie as i was due to head straight down to Roturua. By the time i got to Sylvie's i was shattered.....had a few cups of tea and some dinner and Sylvie asked if i wanted to stay at hers for the night.....i've never said yes so quickly!!!

So, I was definitely going to be leaving the next morning! I said my goodbye's and headed off in the morning to Roturua, around 3 hours drive south of Auckland. I got there in the afternoon and checked into the hostel....Roturua is famous for it's mud pools so i headed of to Hell's Gate, 50 acres of Geothermal land with mud pools, Sulpher baths, Volcano's and Hot Lakes. It was given it's name by George Bernard Shaw the English playwright who described it as the gateway to Hell.....it was pretty crazy and smelt pretty weird aswell......i decided to add to the atmosphere of hell during the 1 hour walk around by putting my i-Pod on and blaring out some Iron Maiden.......it was very emotional.

This morning i drove of from Rotorua for the hour drive down to Taupo to have a look round and to grab some breakfast. Gonna be leaving soon for the 4 hour drive down to Wellington in the very south of the North Island.....tomorrow i catch the ferry across to the South Island and make way down the very, very long drive to Queenstown!