The final New Zealand post!

Sunday November 29
We got up early and had a few hours of driving to do again. We headed back to Auckland where the tour officially ended for all of us. It was a sad goodbye as this really meant that it was over! We said goodbye to our tour leaders and were on our own. We grabbed some lunch and then we had a full afternoon to do as we pleased. Some people chose to go up in the tower to get a better view of the city but I decided that I wanted to watch the Santa Parade that was coming down the street in a bit! I went and staked out a good viewing spot and waited. It really was a good parade. It was weird seeing a parade for Christmas in 70 degrees and before December 1st! People slowly began to have to go to the airport to catch flights to return to various places. It was a lot of very sad goodbyes! I was not ready to say goodbye to all of these wonderful people! That evening, those that were left of us headed out for a final dinner and tried to watch a movie. We were all so tired though that we all kept falling asleep. I headed to bed as I had to be up at 4 am to catch my flight back to Sydney.














Overall the trip was absolutely amazing. I wouldn’t change any part of it. I met some of the most amazing people, and have many memories I will never forget. I think I will go as far as to say that New Zealand is the most beautiful place I have ever seen! There are such a variety of sights to be seen and adventures to be experienced! I would highly recommend visiting this incredible place!

NZ 8

Friday November 27
Today was a very boring day as we did heaps of driving. We drove from Rotorua to Auckland (the largest city in New Zealand) where we dropped off most of the people on the tour. It was quite a sad farewell actually as I got along with everyone so well! I wasn’t ready for them to go. The 6 of us who were staying on the tour went and had lunch together, and when we came back we gained 15 new people. It was very weird to be with totally different people, it was not the same. We kept driving for what seemed like forever (with many stops along the way) before finally reaching the Bay of Islands. That evening we went on a leisurely stroll into town, had some thai food for dinner and then wandered a bit more. It was a very small town, not much to do. We stopped at a bar at a backpackers place to try and get to know the new people some more but they were only there for like 20 minutes before going to bed. We went to bed shortly thereafter as we had an early start the next morning.












Saturday November 28
This morning we got up early to do some dolphin spotting! We knew we may POSSIBLY have the opportunity to go swimming with them as well if everything fell perfectly. We saw heaps of dolphins, most of them were in feeding mode so they were scattered everywhere. We saw a couple of different pods of dolphins in the area. It was so neat, they let you hang your head off the front edge of the boat (don’t worry there is something to hold you so you don’t fall in) so you could see the dolphins at the front bow riding and also the ones under the boat. Unfortunately because they were feeding at one time, and another pod had a baby with it we were not allowed to swim with them. They have to be all adults to be able to swim with them. It was still a wonderful experience though! That afternoon we just wandered the town a bit more, and layed on the beach for a bit. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly the warmest day ever, and the sun kept hiding so laying on the beach was short lived. Being our last night, we sat around and had a couple hours of bonding and reminiscing about the fun we had on our trip. It was actually quite a good time!

NZ 7

Wednesday November 25
Today was possibly the highlight of my tour but unfortunately I cannot post pictures for this day. If you are interested in seeing these photos just let me know and we can arrange a time for me to show you.

We stayed overnight at a Marae of a Maori family. When we got there we had to go through a very formal, official ceremony to be welcomed into their Marae (the house of their ancestors) and more importantly into their family. Before you enter the house, you must always take your shoes off, only the elders are allowed to wear shoes inside. When people enter with their shoes on it is a sign of war, and the Marae is a place where the ancestors keep peace. Any “war” behaviours must be taken outside or the ancestors will get angry. After going through this ceremony we are a member of their family and will forever be welcomed into their Marae and homes without having to go through the ceremony again. I can now enter through the backdoor if I ever choose to go back and stay. After the ceremony we goofed around, played some ball games on the lawn and just hung out. The guys went off to learn the huka (an intimidating dance males would do if another tribe approached wanting a fight) and came back and performed it. It actually is quite intimidating, it consists of a lot of yelling (I have a video if you are interested in seeing it). For the rest of the night we just hung out some more chatting. We got the opportunity to talk to some of the Maori people in the family and here what they believed in and all that stuff. I found it all extremely interesting! They have a large connection with their ancestors and have pictures of them all over the marae. It was a very interesting discussion and I learned a lot about the Maori people and the family that I joined!



Thursday November 26
We woke up bright and early, said goodbye to the Marae, and drove the few minutes it takes to get into the actual town of Rotorua. We checked into our accommodation and then headed off to the thermal village. More Maori families live within the thermal village and allow the general public to come in and have a look around.



There are thermal pools all around the village that are so hot the water in them is boiling. The people who live in the village actually use them for cooking in! Its a very convenient way to cook vegetables! They also have a few mud pools around, where again, the mud boils.



We got a demonstration also on how they make the skirts that they wear. They informed us of all of the different things that they use plants for, a lot more ways than you could ever imagine! Our guide made a little flower arrangement from the plant that they make the skirts from and I won it in a little contest :)




We then went and watched some Maori people perform some traditional song and dance for us. It was quite interesting as well. That afternoon a few of us wandered into the center of town (about a half an hour) and had a bit of a look around. There really wasn’t much to do there! Some people did some other activities such as going to the spa, white water rafting, or skydiving. When they all got back we just went and hung around the pool for a couple of hours and hung out in the sun. It was only the second day of the entire trip that we had solid sun and warm weather! We really didn’t get much sun exposure on this trip! That night we went out for dinner as a big group as again more people were getting off the trip. We spent a bit of time at the bars around town but most of us turned in relatively early as there was not much going on in town for nightlife.

NZ 6

Tuesday November 24
We did only a little bit of driving today (with a couple of stops included) to take us to the town of Picton where we caught the ferry over to the north island. I was sad to see the south island go as I had such a wonderful time and enjoyed the scenery so much! I had no idea what the north island would bring but I was ready! We arrived a few hours later in Wellington and thankfully we didn’t have to drive anymore today! We spent the afternoon exploring the capital city of Wellington and just hanging out. They have quite an interesting museum there, and lucky for us, it was free! Here more of our friends ended the tour but not me! Thankfully I had more journeys ahead of me still!

NZ 5

Monday November 23
Today was a day filled with exploring the nearby Abel Tasman National Park. I wanted to go kayaking around the park but that option was $170 and I figured it wasn’t worth it as I have done a fair bit of kayaking in my day. I chose the cheaper route and took an aqua taxi to a point in the park and did some hiking! While we were on the water taxi we saw both New Zealand fur seals and dolphins! We didn’t realize the duration or difficulty of the hike we were about to do. We ended up hiking for over 4 hours and the hills going both up and down were MASSIVE. There were some hills where we had to stop at points and take a short break because they were so steep and long we questioned if we would make it! We made it just fine of course, and were absolutely exhausted by the end of it.















We got picked up from another point by the aqua taxi and taken back to the town where we were picked up by a bus and taken back to our accommodation. We got back sooner than planned and because I was quite sore and exhausted I made use of our jacuzzi! It was so wonderful! It was the perfect day to have a jacuzzi in our accommodation. That night most people were so exhausted from enjoying the national park that we did not do much of anything. We enjoyed watching one of the boys with extremely curly hair get his hair straightened and then my hair was curled afterwards. I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought, why not? We all turned in for an early night after that.