Day 2 - February 22

Kia ora,

I am realizing it is going to be difficult to post every day, as this tour is really packing things in, which is good. Today, I met up with my tour. I am still learning names, but getting better with it. I have met people from the UK, Germany, Australia, Netherlands, Austria, Canada, and Belgium on my tour. Both tour guides are native Kiwis. There are a few of us from the States, but I am the only one from the Midwest.

So far, the North Island has a lot of green, rolling hills. Our first stop was at Tairua, the home of Hot Water Beach. This place was really unique, as we grabbed shovels and dug our own pool at the beach. Some of the pools we dug had cold water, but there were a couple with scalding temps. I then went into the Pacific Ocean and swam and jumped waves in the mightiest of oceans for the first time ever.

After this, we drove and hiked to Cathedral Cove, which was very scenic with rock formations protuding from a beautiful turqoise ocean.

We set up camp for the night, ate dinner, and then a few of us went eeling with our tour guide, Jonno. This was a fun late night experience as we put bait (fish and chicken) in a stream and then watched the eels come up. We caught two eels on our line. The things are ugly, but they will hopefully taste good when we cook them in a couple nights. I will write about that later.

So far, all the people I have met are really nice, and a few good conversations have been had.Read more