I think it's a testament to how much Stray manage to cram into every day that it's only been four days since my last blog but it feels like I've been travelling for two weeks already. I've finanly managed to catch my breath with a couple extra days in Rotorua, before I head onto the rest of the 
north island. My only day in Auckland was spent wandering around in the city in a daze recovering from the 1am arrival at the hostel. After inhaling the smell of socks and gingerly stepping over other people's junk in the room I was thrown into in Melbourne the Base hostel in Auckland was bliss. I managed to creep into the dark room without having to trip over the entire contents of someone's bag strewn onto the floor and collapsed into clean white sheets and a soft pillow. They really go out of their way to enhance the girly experience of the girls-only dorm in this hostel with magenta walls, free hairdryers and spotless bathrooms. Yes, clean bathrooms really are that rare in hostels, as I now know. Auckland is the capital of op-shopping, as I saw wandering down K-road, with a nicely huge selection of asian cafes. The city cemetery is facinating, looking like an ancient roman ruin built into the side of a hill, surrounded by prehistoric jungle.The next morning saw me on the Stray bus and on my way to Hahei and the hotwater beach. Several quick
stops on the way showed us such tourist highlights as Mt Eden, an extinct volcano in the centre of Auckland, and Thames, the city where the country's white discoverer first entirely failed to set foot on the soil due to a misunderstanding over some mis-shot arrows and a boat full of slaughtered sailors. The landscape around here started to get really beautiful and the next few hours were a blur of rolling green hills, blue cloudy skys, hazy mountains and autumn trees. Also, sheep. Our driver informed us that one third of New Zealanders live in Auckland, but the other two thirds dont consider Auckland to be part of NZ at all. Having seen the dramatic change in scenery since leaving the city, I have to agree.At Hahei we hiked through forest and up cliffs to get to Cathedral cove, where the huge rock formations and natural bridges draw travel show
cameras from all overthe world. Dozens of tiny island dotted the ocean view we sawfrom the tops of the cliffs, and we trekked back in the dark after an exhausting day to the barbeque that our driver had prepared. The main attraction for Hahei is the geo-thermal activity under the local beach, which causes hot water to rise to the surface when the sand is dug into. This only works at low tide when most of the beach is uncovered, and unluckily for us low tide today was 1am. I made the unfortunate mistake of deciding to nap before we left and woke groggy and confused at the suggestion that we should rug up and head down to the beach with shovels where we would then dig down, strip off and sit in the water under the stars. Thankfully it was really worth the effort, the air around the hot water was warm from the steam rising out of our sometimes too hot pools and it was an amazing experience which I would gladly have repeated, even in the middle of the night.
Next morning we headed down to Raglan, famous surfing beach. It was a one horse town with a bohemian and crafty feel, and the hostel we stayed at was something else altogether. After being greeted by the owner running into the middle of the road waving we piled off the bus to find ourselves up amongst the hills in a little rainforest retreat lavishly decorated with rainbow mosaics and a view of the sea from the dorms up at canopy level.
An early start the next morning took us to the caves that honeycomb the area around Waitomo. Myself and Tanja (an awesome german girl I met on the bus) opted to do the 100 metres abseil into one of the more scenic caverns. Since there was just us and the guide we got the personal treatment, and after a short drive through some story-book farmland we geared up like house-painters in gumboots with a bondage fetish and trekked through the jungle-like landscape to the cavern we were about to drop into. I can honestly say I wasn't the least scared right up until the point where I was sitting on the edge of the platform and I looked down between my legs to the tiny cave floor below. The rope setup allowed us to drop straight down into the caverns, with no support from the walls and so, feeling like a spider dropping myself down on a thin strand into a giant room, we lost contact with the platform. After half an hour of lowering ourselves down into the rising mist, past the hanging ferns and moss adorning the cave walls and staring at the stalactites and arches that, in the slanting morning light gave the cave a cathedral-like quality, we dropped unsteadily onto the rocky bottom. After pulling ourselves together after the shock of what we'd just done we 
clambered up a steep rocky incline into the cave-propper and started our ascent back to the surface, stopping to look back at the mist-shrouded cliff walls we'd just dropped past. A couple of hours of stalagtites and glowworms brought us to a 30 metre ladder that would take us up to the surface. Climbing that ladder suspended in the middle of the cave with darkness above and darkness below, gripping the steps made slippery with the mud on the shoes of the people who went before me was probably more frightening than trusting to the ropes and pulleys that had gotten me down there. Emerging into a world straight out of a child's picture book, with green hills, blue sky and bouncing white sheep after so many hours in a world that seemed untouched by time and humans since the dinosaurs was an unreal experience. The drive back let us aclimatize to our normal surroundings again and left our trip to the caverns beneath feeling like a dream of a lost world.After the longest drive so far we eventually arrived in Rotorua and were greeted by the smell which is often explained but can only be experienced. Somewhere between rotten eggs and a rather fruity fart is my impression. Thankfully your nose seems to shut off after a while in defense and you stop smelling it. Our driver took us out for indian as a treat after so many bulk pasta cook-ups and raw fruit. Feeling full and tired we ventured into the hostel's backpacker bar and my impression of the short-skirted, ugg-boot wearing girls in there did nothing to raise my opinion of contiki tour groups.
This morning was an interesting mix of New Zealand's past and present with a trip to the living-village amongst the geisers where the Maori residents still use the boiling water and steam that rises from pools and cracks in the ground to do their cooking and bathing. The wry humour of our guide when she explained to us the Mao-Ri-Mi-Crowave they use to cook their food (a wooden box built over a steam vent for cooking food) taught us not to be too serious about the "cultural experience" we were having, especially when she mentioned that because no vegetables will grow in the soil around there they still all shop at Pak'n'Save. After watching a 30 foot geiser erupt before dancing the hokey-pokey with the Maori performers we ate the most delicious cake and sausage that had been cooked in said 'microwave' earlier.
I now know a lot more about Maori art, including the fact that the red, white and black in all their paintings symbolise the red blood in our veins, black for death and white for life after death. The tongue poked out to the side in the carvings that decorate the entrance to their halls is a welcome whereas the tongue poked out straight down is a defiant challenge and warning.
Having soaked up as much facinating culture as I could in two hours we headed off to partake in one of the more bizzare pasttimes that the New Zealanders in their isolated place down here at the bottom of the world, Zorbing. Essentially this is rolling yourself down a steep hill in a huge transparent rubber ball filled with water, preferably with two or more people. Diving through the small opening and washing around inside as the ball rumbled down the sloped with two other squealing girls was a real rush, but I could have done without the photographer at the end poised to capture our first moments as we emerged dizzy and drenched at the end.
Finally I've collapsed in our hostel for the evening, anticipating a trip to one of the world's best spas to relax and be pampered tomorrow. Exhaling....now.
-- H in NZ
I now know a lot more about Maori art, including the fact that the red, white and black in all their paintings symbolise the red blood in our veins, black for death and white for life after death. The tongue poked out to the side in the carvings that decorate the entrance to their halls is a welcome whereas the tongue poked out straight down is a defiant challenge and warning.
Having soaked up as much facinating culture as I could in two hours we headed off to partake in one of the more bizzare pasttimes that the New Zealanders in their isolated place down here at the bottom of the world, Zorbing. Essentially this is rolling yourself down a steep hill in a huge transparent rubber ball filled with water, preferably with two or more people. Diving through the small opening and washing around inside as the ball rumbled down the sloped with two other squealing girls was a real rush, but I could have done without the photographer at the end poised to capture our first moments as we emerged dizzy and drenched at the end.
Finally I've collapsed in our hostel for the evening, anticipating a trip to one of the world's best spas to relax and be pampered tomorrow. Exhaling....now.
-- H in NZ
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