New Zealand

Day 2
Today was the first day of my 2 week trip, so I walked to meet the bus at 7:15am. There were 53 people on the bus, which was a way bigger tour than I was expecting. After loading up the coach we made our way to the first stop of the day which was Hobitton, (where Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed) a 2 hour drive from Auckland. I never saw the movies but it was a cute little village and a cool thing to see with the most incredible views. Unfortunately, New Zealand is in a bit of a drought right now so the landscape wasn’t as green as I was anticipating. It was very hot and you need to be careful in New Zealand because there is no ozone layer so it is very easy to get burnt. After walking around Hobbiton, we grabbed a free beer at the Green Dragon and then headed back to the bus. When we got back on the bus Dan (the trip manager) handed out a piece of paper for all the add on activities for the North island. We were all given some time to decide what activities we wanted to do and Dan collected them and would call everywhere and book us in for what we picked. All we were responsible for was picking what we wanted to do and knowing when and where to be; it was nice to not have to worry about all the planning. We stopped in a town to grab a quick lunch and then headed to Rotoura (another hour drive) and made a stop at our first add on activity which was Zorbing (a big enclosed ball with water in it that you roll down a hill in). About 15 of us signed up and when I was waiting in line to get driven to the top of the mountain, everyone seemed to want to go alone (you could have up to 3 people in one ball). I was hoping to go with someone else because I thought it would be more fun and a girl Kacee (from Canada) agreed to go with me. It was so much fun! We choose to do the zig zag path and I was surprised that when you are in the ball you actually can’t see much through it. As a result we never knew when the next turn was coming, which made it even more fun. After all of us were done the bus picked us up and brought us to the hotel (Sudima Hotel) to get showered before our first included dinner. When we were on the bus a list was passed around for rooming and we were able to choose who we got to room with (I roomed with Paige, from Sydney and Tori, from Melbourne and it was a room with 3 twin beds in it). Rotoura has many hydrogen sulphide emissions which gives the city a smell similar to rotten eggs, some of the rooms in the hotel you were unable to escape the smell. In the evening we visited a traditional Maori (native New Zealand people) village for a cultural performance and a hangi dinner (this is a feast that is cooked in an earth oven underground for several hours, a long cooking process but all the meat was so tender). When we got there we were taken down to the Wai-o-whiro stream (a fresh water stream which is why the tribe originally settled there) and got to see the warriors in traditional dress paddle an ancient canoe down the stream. We then went and sat down to watch the traditional dances of the tribe and see the games they would play to work on their coordination skills and the exercises they would do to train for combat. It was a really incredible experience to see how the native people lived. After being welcomed by the chief of the tribe, we were able to go and eat the feast. The food was AMAZING! There was fish, chicken, lamb and pork as well as stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pasta salads and a soup. It was probably the best buffet dinner I have ever had and the meat was all cooked perfectly. After dinner and desert, we went back down to the stream to look at the glow worms along the trees. It was such a good night, we went back to the hotel to get some sleep because the next day we all had activities.

Day 3
I woke up in the morning and went to the hotel breakfast (bacon in the US is better than anywhere else) and then got dressed for the day. My first activity wasn’t leaving until 11:45am so I walked into town with another girl to look around the town and find somewhere to buy B12 vitamins (I haven't had a lot of energy). The town was actually bigger than what I was expecting and had many different pharmacies and vitamin shops. We went to the grocery store where I got some lunch and then I went back to the hotel to change and put sunscreen on before my canopy tour activity. After getting picked up by the company and getting all of our gear necessary, we were driven about 10 minutes out of town to the forest where all the zip lines were. We did 4 ziplines and also walked across swing bridges (which I thought were a lot scarier than the ziplining). They gave us snacks at one of the locations and we were even able to race someone else. Some of the ziplines were mostly enclosed by trees but there was one that opened up and you were able to see the mountains which was really pretty. We learned a little more about the forest area itself and how it has changed overtime. New Zealand's native animals are mostly flightless birds, the famous one being the kiwi bird (hence why New Zealanders are nicknamed kiwis). Unfortunately, awhile back New Zealand introduced rats, possums and ferrets to the island to help control the rabbit population. This quickly backfired because instead of the possums being vegetarian like there were in Australia, they started eating the eggs of the native birds. Fast forward to today, many of New Zealand’s birds are extinct and others are in critical danger like the kiwi birds. The government in recent years took action by laying traps all over to try and control the possum and ferret population. There are also many kiwi sanctuaries that save and hatch the eggs before releasing them back into the wild on islands that are predator free. It was nice to hear that a portion of the money we paid for the ziplining activity goes towards this initiative to restore their environment. At the end of the ziplines we had to repel down from one of the trees; I went backwards down with my feet in the air. After a little over 3 hours of ziplining we were brought back to the hotel and had to quickly get ready for our next activity. At 4:15pm we got picked up at the hotel and driven to white water rafting at Kaituna River, which has the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world at 23 feet high. After getting geared up we were driven in a bus to the river and we set up the rafts and then the guides said a Maori prayer (the river was sacred to them). We learned all the signals necessary and entered the water and started paddling down the river. The river had 14 rapids and 3 total waterfalls, it was so much fun! When going down the big waterfall it isn’t uncommon for people to fall out of the raft or for the whole raft to flip over. Our raft was the only one that didn’t flip or lose anyone. At one point we were able to swim down a rapid, which was awesome but the current was very strong. I had never been white water rafting before and I am so glad I did it here, the staff was so incredible and the scenery was just gorgeous. We went back to the hotel afterward and showered to get ready for dinner (wasn’t included tonight). The group met at reception at 8pm and we all walked to Gengy’s Restaurant together, which was an Asian style restaurant where you got a bowl walked around a buffet, filled it with the food you wanted and brought it to a big round grill where there were chefs that would cook it all for you. It was kind of like hibachi but you got to choose whatever you wanted to eat and see them cook your food along with everyone else’s. It was a cool concept and it was all you can eat for $29. After dinner several people in the group went out but I decided to go back to the hotel to relax and get a good night sleep.Read more