Laura & Weeny's Travel Adventures

21/3/06
We arrived at Rotorua at 7pm and checked into the Base hostel, new and very modern and has a crazy very high indoor climbin wall and Cinema, tonight we ate and went to bed.
22/3/06
We decided to go to the Whakarewaewa Thermal Resort which is also a Moari arts and crafrt institute, we walked arround and saw boiling pools of mud,sulpher springs and geyzers. One gyzer was 20 meters high and flowed 99% of the time. We alsowatched

21/3/06
Brilliant, today were going on a adventure trip called,'RAP,RAFT AND ROCK' After arriving and gettin into all this special safety gear(wet suits,socks,rousers,grippy gum boots,harnesses and a mining hat with light and battery pack) we drove near and after our briefing we started with a short walk and then abseiled 100ft into mid air which was good scary, then sat in big car tyre inner tubes and floated down the caves and suddenly we could see what we came to see, millions of glow worms! Fantastic,they let off a lovely torquise light to attract little flys ect... We climbed through some very small tight gaps witch looked like u couldnt nearly fit but did. At the end of one of the caves well all switched off our lights and had a hot drink and some chocolate which was really nice and peacefull, it was pitch blach for about 20 mins, really relaxin.
After we headed out of the cave and our final task was a very hard high rock climb, that day was brilliant as was our group of 6 and our guide. After all thet we had another 4 hour drive to Rotorua. (See why weeny fell asleep so early the other night)

19/3/06
After a big brekkie we went to 'the adventure park' which was really close by, It was wicked fun, there was a massive Trapeze,Tight rope,Water slide,a massive inflateable slide(about 40ft high), a tarzane frameand trampoline, it was so much fun. Weeny loved it and made some friends with these lads, laura got chattin to there mum and it turned out she knew Tom Butler! She was called Dot, she invited to take us fishin later that night and we happily accapted. We met up with her and her sons about 7.30pm. Firsly we fished off the beach, we were havin a fantastic time,laura cought a fish and i cought three and a big eel! We fished for around 2 and a half hours and after she invited us to come back and cook the fish for our dinner,she de-scaled and gutted them in seconds! Then rolled then in flour and added a little pepper, they truley were gorgeous. We sat up talkin with her and her husband till gone midnight, they were lovely.

20/3/06
Today we done half day trip around the Bay of Islands, this place is beautifully stunning,and half an hour in was spotted a massive pod of Dolphins(300+), so we switched the engines off and drifted with them, they rubbed against the boat and jumped right out of the water next to us and came up for regular breaths with little sprays of water. After a bit we had to leave them and explore the islands,theres 144 of them and the 'Hole in the Rock' which was a hole in a massive rock created buy water crashin on it, our boat drove through it!
After our tri we had a huge 8 hour drive to get to the 'Waitamo Caves' We were lucky enough to find a hostel still open at gone 8pm and checked in,here was only one other Irish couple there who were lovely and we talked and exchanged storys and info that night.

Today we woke up nice and early and were excited because we were goin to New Zealand!! Our flight was at 11.40am from Sydney and was for 3 hours. Nz is 2 hours ahead of Sydney. Once we arrived and collected our luggage we took an airport shuttle to the center and checked in at 'The YHA City' We got a twin room which was on the top (7th) floor and had a good view over the city and Sky Tower. It was a gorgeous day, hot and sunny, about 24oc and a suprise to us, after unpacking our rucksacks we sorted out our hire car. We had done alot of re-search in Oz before and told them we had a quote for $20 a day(8 pound) and they regretably matched it and we got an upgrade to a good sized 4 door automatic with air con and all the extras, we were really lucky, we met some people who payed exacly double and had a really rubbish small car,they werent happy..
That eve we went for a meal in Nandos, which was nice and after walked around the city. We decided we were going to leave Auckland in the morning.

2/3/06 - Because it was another rainy day instead of spending the day in Port Stephens we thought it best to drive down to Syndey because we have to be there tomoorow morning anyway to drop off our campervans. It took around four hours to drive to Syndey and then we found a campsite around 15km from the city centre. So tonight was the last night the four off us had our campervans, which we were gutted about. Its been really good in the campervan you have so much freedom and it was nice to meet Amy and Alex to travel with.
In the evening we made a really nice meal of curry and baked a chocolate brownie cake for me because its my birthday tomorrow!
3/3/06 - My Birthday!
We all dropped our campervans off this morning. Then spent a while looking for accomdation for the night. It was different being in Syndey because its definetly the busiest place we've been and we found it pretty hard to find a room for the four of us because its Mardi Gra at the mo the biggest Gay festival in the world!! so almost everywhere was fully booked and they all put their prices up.
So in the end we stayed in the Vibe hotel $200 for a room with two double beds so the four of us could fit! Its was our last night with Amy and Alex and my birthday so that night we went to Darling Harbour and had the best night out.
4/3/06 - Today was sad we said our goodbyes to Amy and Alex who'd we'd become really fond of. They were going to stay with Amys auntie who lives in Oz in Tarie. We couldnt afford to stay in the Vibe hotel another night so went to look for some hostels. We found a pretty cheap one called the Hyde park backpackers, in a good location.The rest of the day we spent getting lost round Syndey.
In the evening we watched the Mardi Gra parade is was so busy their where thousands of people out that night and most of the roads had been closed off specially. It was fun to watch all the gays prancing about in all their costumes.
5/3/06 - Went sightseeing round Syndey today and to the aquarium. The aquarium was really good we got to see penguins, seals, crocodiles and loads of sharks.