New Zealand

September - October 2015

A 19-day adventure by Diana Read more

33footprints
3countries
19days
119photos
0videos
33.4kkilometers
31.1kkilometers

Follow Calendar Share Bucket list

Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 22, 2015, 9:00am
- ☀️ 8 °C
- Altitude: 85 m
- New Zealand Waikato Waipa District Kihikihi -38.0377, 175.345438°2’16” S 175°20’43” E
Day 7
Mitai (Maori) Culture Experience
September 22, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 8 °C
Went to hear the story of the Mitai Maori people. The host, John, was an amazing orator and was able to say "chocolate cake" in all of the 16 languages represented by the guests. :)
They put on a traditional song and dance show. The war dance was the best with lots of shouting and sticking out their tongues.
Afterwards, we ate a Hangi meal (complete with stuffing for the Brits) of chicken, lamb and lots of potatoes!Read more
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 22, 2015, 9:35am
- ☀️ 29 °C
- Altitude: 69 m
- New Zealand Waikato Waitomo District Waitomo Caves Kapongaru -38.26384, 175.1257338°15’50” S 175°7’33” E
Day 7
Waitomo Glow worm Caves
September 22, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
Going tubing thru a cave of glow worms! Hurray for wet suits!
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 22, 2015, 2:27pm
- ☀️ 13 °C
- Altitude: 165 m
- New Zealand Waikato Matamata-Piako District Hobbiton Movie Set -37.87166, 175.6828937°52’18” S 175°40’58” E
Day 7
Hobbiton
September 22, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C
Where the (outdoor scenes of) Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies were filmed. Short folks!
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 24, 2015, 12:51pm
- ⛅ 15 °C
- Altitude: 9 m
- New Zealand Auckland Te Awapuia Bay -37.52391, 177.1911937°31’26” S 177°11’28” E
Day 9
White Island
September 24, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C
Active volcano! Complete with boiling mud pools, steam, and lots of sulfur!
Random: we ran into my high school Geometry/Calculus teacher on the boat! One of my favorite teachers, I was shocked he remembered me ("You would get 96% on a test and be devastated. You always had to do everything perfectly." - nothing has changed!). Wonderfully serendipitous, it was great to catch up!Read more
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 26, 2015, 1:27pm
- ⛅ 29 °C
- Altitude: 347 m
- New Zealand Waikato Taupo District Wairakei Huka Falls -38.64871, 176.0938°38’55” S 176°5’24” E
Day 11
Huka Falls
September 26, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
Supposedly New Zealand's most-visited waterfall and it is quite spectacular! The water is crystal blue and rages through the chasm.
We walked about an hour and a half from our hostel to reach the falls, following the river on a lovely hiking trail. There were huge trees throughout the forest and they grew in very strange ways. Some had branches that seemed to start off normally enough, but somewhere down the road they got lazy and drooped back down to the forest floor.
A picnic on our way back from the falls made a great end to the trek.Read more
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 26, 2015, 2:51pm
- ☀️ 12 °C
- Altitude: 364 m
- New Zealand Waikato Taupo -38.6851, 176.0693738°41’6” S 176°4’10” E
Day 11
Gypsy Fair?
September 26, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C
Yep, right in the middle of Taupo. A traveling gypsy fair. Complete with: donkeys, face painting, banjo-playing folk singer, fried food, palm reading, body piercer, and playground toys randomly strewn across the lawn. Katy managed to get the stilts walking, Kristen destroyed Dom in tennis-style tether ball, Kristina found a skip-it, and I almost killed myself on some see-saw balancing contraption.
So. Incredibly. Random.Read more
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 26, 2015, 4:50pm
- ☀️ 12 °C
- Altitude: 361 m
- New Zealand Waikato Taupo -38.6915, 176.0720838°41’29” S 176°4’19” E
Day 11
Hole in One Challenge
September 26, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C
Think you're a great golfer? Try hitting a golf ball off a gusty pier toward a floating platform. They average a hole in one once every two weeks!
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 27, 2015, 8:35am
- ☀️ 13 °C
- Altitude: 8 m
- New Zealand Wellington Wellington City Te Aro Wellington Ferry Port -41.29005, 174.7806941°17’24” S 174°46’50” E
Day 12
Wellington
September 27, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C
Ate "breakfast" at Fidel's Cafe on Cuba street then hit up the Te Papa museum - New Zealand's best and most popular (and free!). Katy took us to a cult beer bar and walked us thru some tasters, then Dom, Kristina, Aaron and I went to a sushi restaurant complete with sushi train! It looked super sketchy but ended up being delicious!Read more
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 28, 2015, 3:03pm
- ☀️ 14 °C
- Altitude: 329 m
- New Zealand Otago Queenstown -45.03112, 168.6626445°1’52” S 168°39’46” E
Day 13
Welcome to Queenstown!
September 28, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C
Just the view off the plane was incredible! Though the airport crew was not pleased with my picture-taking skills...
Showed up at our hostel and - surprise! Fire trucks, alarms, and sexy firemen.
A gorgeous evening for bungee jumping; Kris, Kristen, Jens, Katy, Kristina and Aaron all took the plunge! Kristina's was the best to watch - the operators basket-tossed her into the air!Read more
0 likes
Diana Gaccetta New Zealand
- Show trip
- Add to bucket listRemove from bucket list
- Share
- Sep 29, 2015, 8:30am
- ⛅ 25 °C
- Altitude: 267 m
- New Zealand Southland Southland District Milford Sound Freshwater Basin -44.67158, 167.9256244°40’18” S 167°55’32” E
Day 14
Milford Sound
September 29, 2015 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C
Took a cruise through Milford Sound. Carved out by a glacier, the U-shaped valley has mountain walls that plunge straight into the frigid water. We lucked out with fantastic, sunny weather, but on a rainy day the rocky walls turn into hundreds of waterfalls. That sight must be spectacular!
The bus ride from Queenstown to the sounds took around six hours roundtrip, but never fear - the most ridiculous bus driver ever is here!
Bus driver Carlyn (sp?) spent the first hour and a half telling us the intimate details of his life story. From before his birth, when his unwed mother was "sent away" for being pregnant, to when he was 21 and met his parents for the first time, and on and on and on... He was once recorded saying "um" 96 times in half an hour, managed to leave two passengers behind at a photo-op stop, drove the coach bus into a tiny dirt forest road (not part of our itinerary), coordinated a musical quiz game using songs on his ipod whilst simultaneously driving the coach along narrow, windy, cliff-sheer mountain roads ("um, let me um, drive the bus here so I um don't drive it off the road"), and took more than one stab at the Indian family on the coach ("um I'm gonna um put in a movie for you if I can um figure out the bloody DVD player. It's um called um the Fastest Indian and um it's not about um a boy from Mumbai..."). Needless to say, it was an endlessly entertaining adventure.Read more
0 likes