Kiwi Krusades

Next stop on the trip was New Zealand, it had been my job to plan this part of the trip so shockingly enough not much was planned before our arrival! We had immigration issues on the way over with Qantas asking us to do some things that sounded very illegal but we eventually made it across the sea to New Zealand and boarded the Magic Bus (this is a name of a tour company not just a strange turn of phrase).


We spent three weeks touring the country and saw and did a lot of cool things and met some great people along the way, highlights included:

• Zorbing in Rotorua
• Black Water Rafting in Waitomo
• Wine tasting (for a change)
• Beer tasting (where we discovered our new American was a huge light weight)
• Traditional Maori cooking and entertainment
•  Touring Milford Sound by boat
• Seeing rabbits being sheared for their fur
• Jet boating over rapids
• Sailing on Lake Taupo in a boat that used to belong to Errol Flynn
• Heli rafting (white water rafting where you get a helicopter to the start of the rapids)
• Touring the Lord of the Rings Scenery (more my thing that my better half's)
• Swimming with wild dolphins
• Seeing a real live Kiwi (not a New Zealander, the bird)
• Visting the Ice Bar in Queenstown

Some not so great moment that still made for interesting stories included:

• Not skydiving cause I was to fat :-(
• Having out pillows stolen by the YHA
• Not being able to climb the Hans Joseph Glacier due to bad weather
• The company on the wine tour (the guy had a shaved head and a British Bulldog tattoo all the way down his right arm and a very high pitched brummie accent
• Me not planning very well and us having to pay for a flight to get us back to Auckland to get our flight back to Oz in time

New Zealand is a great place to visit and I would recommend it to anyone, if you want to hear more about any of the above drop me a line and I will happily indulge you...