nic_taylor

So, that was my trip.

I thought I'd just link some of my favourite photos in one last post. Some of these I may have posted before.

Batu Caves, KL:



Mt Cook:



West Coast:



Driving to Lake Pukaki:



Lake Hawea:



Rapaki:



Kaikoura:



Kenepuru Sound:



Diving in Tairua:



Otama beach:



Waikari:



Wellington:



Fire dancers in Christchurch:



Honeymoon Bay:



Cape Reinga:



So, a very small selection of the 1,400 photos I took! I've missed loads out and I don't think I'd be able to put all of my memories into such a small space.

Anyway, that's me done for a while. I hope I'll return to NZ in the future if only for three or so weeks. I had an awesome time and I don't think I'd change much of what I did/achieved. If you did read from start to finish I hope you enjoyed what I wrote as well as the photos, I'm sure I'll be willing to bore you with more pictures if you ask. :)

Nic

So, on Saturday I left Christchurch to fly up to Auckland to visit the Northland region of New Zealand.



I arrived in Auckland and after a mix up with my car hire (they had overbooked so moved me to another dealer) I drove up to Whangarei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whangarei) where I thought I had booked a hostel. Sadly, it turned out I had booked one in Whanganui (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whanganui) but luckily YHA swapped the bookings so it was just wasted time rather than money.

Sunday I decided to visit the Bay of Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_islands) as well as the Treaty of Waitangi grounds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi) The Bay of Islands was pretty amazing and I had pretty good weather to go with it.



The treaty grounds were fairly interesting as well as they hosted the legislation that effectively led to the creation of New Zealand as part of the British empire as well as confirmation of Maori rights. This was the house owned by James Busby, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Busby) the chap who basically pushed the entire thing through.



Monday morning I woke early to go diving off the Poor Knights marine reserve. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Knights_Islands) It was about a 45 minute boat trip to get the dive spot and again it was decent weather. The islands were full of wildlife as well as various rock arches and whatnot.



I was supposed to do two dives but on my second my breathing got quite short so I decided to sit and go kayaking instead. Sadly I didn't see any turtles but there were lots of other critters and fish swimming about.

The day after I left Whangarei to go to Ahipara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahipara), just at the south end of Ninety Mile Beach. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety_Mile_Beach,_New_Zealand) I drove along the coast to the very tip of the North Island - Cape Reinga. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Reinga)



The coastline was pretty impressive:



On the drive back I stopped at the Te Paki sand dunes and by this point it was stupidly hot and I struggled to climb up to do some sledging. I did manage it but didn't go that fast due to the heat making friction an issue.



I only spent a day in Ahipara before driving to Mangawhai Heads on Wednesday evening (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangawhai_Heads) - a small town about 1.5hrs north of Auckland.



Heading to Auckland I was staying in a hotel for my last night so I could sort my luggage out as well as getting a good nights sleep for the flight. Auckland was busy driving through but I'm glad I spent a night there sorting out various things before my flight.



So, my last day rolled around and I left Auckland airport at around 14:00 and landed in Kuala Lumpur at 20:00. My flight to Heathrow was at 11 the next day so I stayed in the transit hotel from 23:00 to 8 the next day so I got an okay amount of sleep before the 12 hour flight back to the UK.



The flights were okay, long and uneventful and I was pretty glad when they were over!

So, there you have it - my final week in New Zealand! (This time around anyway...)

Anyway, see you all soon!

So from the 2nd of October to the 10th I was at my housemates bach (http://maps.google.co.nz/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=-41.030991,173.02138&spn=0.00157,0.003428&z=18) near Kaiteriteri.

The bach was built in the 1940's and was sat right on the edge of beach/bush divide. The actual road down to Honeymoon Bay was private which meant very few holidaymakers/tourists actually knew about the beach - when it was high tide the beach in front of the bach was cut off by the sea as well which was pretty cool.



Four of us went up on the second and we were joined by another two friends a couple of days later. There were enough beds for six people to sleep comfortably, but obviously more people could sleep if needs be.

The view from the bach was pretty impressive! You can see in this photo where the sea comes up to cut the beach into two.



Over the week I didn't really do "touristy" stuff, but we relaxed on the beach, did some kayaking, swam in the sea (warm), BBQs every night and other things like that.

We also had a bonfire set up on the beach and had marshmallows.



On one of the days I kayaked round the corner to Ngaio Bay which was a lot wider than the bay we were on.



We had awesome weather for all the days we were there with the exception of the day we came home when it was a bit overcast. Again you can see where the bay is split into two as well as Breaker Bay in the bottom left corner of the photo. I swam to Breaker Bay on one occasion - further than it looks!



I think this was one of the nicest holiday homes I've ever been to and it was pretty amazing Andy's grandparents let us use it for free. I'd been looking forward to going since September and it was worth the wait!

I'm leaving Christchurch tomorrow as I enter my final week and heading up to the Northland region. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northland_Region) I'll be staying in Whangarei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whangarei) for a few days and then heading up to 90 Mile Beach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety_Mile_Beach,_New_Zealand) for a day. I'm also going to be scuba diving again off the Poor Knights Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Knights_Islands) which should be pretty amazing.

Auckland will be my final spot and I'll spend the 18th there before catching my flight on the 19th and landing at Heathrow on 20th in the afternoon.

I hope everyone is well at home and I'll see you all very soon!

Sadly I haven't been doing much fun stuff since getting back from Wellington. I've managed to sell my car for $1,700 (bought for $1,500) and I've always had to find a new person to take my room. Had some really bad applicants but I've now got that sorted so I'm happy that I've come to the realization that I'll be back in the UK in less than a month.

It's been the World Buskers Festival (http://www.worldbuskersfestival.com/) for the last week in Christchurch so I've seen a few cool acts over a couple of days.

This was an acrobatic act called "The Navigators".



Fire dance act called "Flame Oz".



Pole gymnast:



Really, really cool festival. Obviously it's all busking so you pay what you think for each act, but it's quite interesting to see loads of different performances from all round the world.

Last night I went to see Wellington Phoenix play Adelaide United as they were doing a one off game at the AMI stadium in Christchurch.

The ground had only three stands until recently but the newly completed one had its first trial run for this match.



I was sat at one end of the stadium but the view was pretty poor so I sneaked into another stand which wasn't open for the match. Adelaide weren't that great and Wellington were slightly better - possibly English middle/bottom of division one standard? (at a push)



Only one steward was in that stand and she somehow missed me! Attendance was just under 20,000 - Phoenix's highest for the season. The final score was 1:0 to Wellington which puts them in their highest ever position in the league at fourth!

I am going away from Tuesday right through to the week after to a friends bach (holiday home) kind of near Nelson. It fronts onto a beach called Honeymoon Bay (http://maps.google.co.nz/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=-41.030991,173.02138&spn=0.00157,0.003428&z=18) which at has its own beach at high tide.



So I'll be there until the 10th then I am leaving Christchurch on the 13th to head to Auckland and then I will be visiting the Northland region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northland_Region) from then until the 18th.

I'll write more about what I'm going to be doing there when I'm back from the holiday home in a week or so.

Hope everyone is well!

P.S Hi Mike!

So, off to the capital city!

I left Tuesday afternoon to fly up and I landed in Wellington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington) around four ish. I caught the bus into the city, found my hostel then went on a late afternoon/early evening walk to get my bearings.

From my initial walk, Wellington seemed a pretty nice place and had some interesting areas of the city. Cuba Street (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_Street,_Wellington) kind of reminded me a bit of Brighton with a whole host of independent shops and coffee bars.



I found Te Papa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_New_Zealand_Te_Papa_Tongarewa) and decided to spend 45 minutes inside before it closed.

Here's the museum front. (no idea why the photo is washed out so much)



I went on the second level, but could see it was pretty huge so I planned that I would spend Wednesday looking around the rest. After my brief visit I had dinner and then saw a film at Wellington's oldest cinema. After that I went back to my hostel to sleep.

So I decided to spend as much time as needed on Wednesday in the museum. There were loads of exhibits including the only public display of a dead Colossal Squid. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Squid) As well as that there were art exhibitions, displays about Maori including a meeting house, or wharenui.



Inside the wharenui: (no shoes allowed!)



I left for lunch but then came back in to view what I had missed. It was hard to believe the place was free with the exception of a visiting display on the Romans. I left kind of near closing time and decided to walk to the art gallery but there was a massive queue as it was a free exhibition day so I moved that to Thursday. I grabbed dinner and headed back to my hostel.

Thursday morning I left to visit the New Zealand parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Parliament_Buildings) as they did a free tour. The tour was about one hour long and there were no cameras allowed inside but I did take a few photos of the famous beehive building that you can see in the picture below. The statue is Richard John Seddon, the longest serving NZ prime minister.



I then visited the Museum of Wellington City & Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Wellington_City_%26_Sea) which was on the old waterfront. Again it was free and had some interesting displays, particularly involving maritime tragedies. Post museum I visited the City Gallery.



They had an exhibition by Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist obsessed with dots. No photos were allowed inside, but I managed to sneak this one.



That evening I went up the cable car to the botanical gardens as there was a free open air concert taking place.



Sadly the weather turned a bit sour, but I stayed till the end anyway. It was a three piece
Islander acoustic band - Adi Dick and The Children of Tane.



The garden was also lit up by lights which were pretty cool.



So, my last day rolled around and I visited Te Papa again to redo the exhibitions I had glossed over. I had done pretty much all I wanted to in Wellington, so I mooched about until my flight at 4. Oh and I got my haircut too.



Overall, Wellington was a pretty cool city and I think if I was to live somewhere else in NZ it'd probably be there. The city had a decent "feeling" to it which was nice.

Not sure what else I have planned in January, but I'm heading up to Nelson in early February to my housemates bach.

Anyway, I hope the snow is disappearing back home and that everyone is well back home.