Journey to the North Island

9th June We had quite a rough ferry crossing to the North island- Wellington (NZs capital) which lasted 3hrs, I am surprised I was'nt sick. we are still under debate as to whether we sawa whale or not but we definately saw a dolphin which was cool. We decided to check out the bars but it was surprisngly really quiet and quite disappointing after a night out in Queenstown. 10th June A few of us went to the free museum which was actually quite interesting, we then took a tram up to the viewpoint which reminded me so much of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, a lot of memories came flooding back!! 11th June We left the capital to go to Taupo. We stopped off at a river called Huka Falls, where loads of water rushes out of Taupo lake which is massive! It looked really scary, i dont think I have ever seen water flow that fast before! As we have already done a lot of activities there wasnt a huge amount extra to do in Taupo. Though we did find something funny and cheap to do and I have a really embarassing video. We basically had to try and hit a golf ball onto this island in the sea and laura and i were the amusement as we were sooooo bad at it! 12th June We stopped off at a mud bath on our way to Rotorua which absolutely stank of rotten eggs, though despite the smell it was fascinating as I have never seen bubbling mud before. That afternoon despite the stomach churning smell we though we would try out the Polynesian Spa pools. The first pool was acidic and apparently it was meant to be good for our bones and muscles. The others were of different temperatures. that evening we went to a Mauori village to see how the locals used to live. they did a welcoming dance and then told us a story about a Mauori couple. After the singing and dancing we sat down for a traditional meal that had been cooked in the ground. It was really yummy, especially the fruit salad, pavlova and chocolate cake with hot custard! As it was all you can eat, you could tell who were the travellers as we all went up for seconds/thirds to make the most of the good food. 13th June We had a chilled out day, a sit was good weather Laura and I went for a wlk down to lake Rotorua. We then went to pak 'n' save (cheap supermarket) but it decided to absolutely chuck it down and we were at least 20mins from the hostel. Neither of us had our umbrellas so we had to try and run in flip-flops to the shopes that were covered. Then the rain turned into hail, so not only were we wet we were freezing! 14th June Laura, Dan and I said our sad goodbyes to the boys that we had got to klnow really well after 3 1/2 weeks of travelling together. On the way to Auckland we stopped at Hobbiton for lunch, feeling slightly hung over we bought steak pies which was probably the cheapest and yummiest pie I have ever eaten. We then got pictures with Gollum. the journey was actually really quick to auckland as we all fell asleep on the bus. To make the most of the day we headed down to the harbour. We t6hen treated ourselves to 20p icecreams from Maccy d's which has to be the smartest Macdonalds i have ever seen.