The weather hasn’t been very kind over the last few days, as I made my way from the South to the North Island. After all the adventure in Queenstown our bus to CHristchurch left on Sunday 11th. As I started my trip in Christchurch and already had a few days there I only planned on stopping one night. On the Monday I left there for Kaikoura further up the coast. It’s here that I was looking forward to some whale watching but the bad weather called it off. On Tuesday it was time to say hooray (pronounced hoo-roo) to the South Island and kia ora to the North Island; we travelled up to Picton at the top of the South Island where the ferry departs for Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. I could also only spend one night in Wellington which meant I got to see two-thirds of bugger all. I scheduled three weeks for New Zealand but I should have allowed at least a month. What I didn’t realise beforehand is exactly how the Kiwi Experience works. You might think it’s not so bad spending one day in some places but in reality by the time you get there it’s usually late afternoon and your bus the following day leaves around 8am. So really you’re only getting one night. Which, activity and sight-seeing wise, leaves you with little options available. The upshot is I feel like I’m racing north now, missing things out so I can catch my flight out of here in time. Any who, we went to an Irish pub for a superb gammon steak on my only night in Wellington so that’s kind of an achievement.
Next stop was Taupo. Taupo is the place where everyone tells you to do your skydive because it’s the cheapest place in New Zealand (and pretty much the world.) Again, I could only spend one night here but there would be an opportunity late afternoon or early in the morning before my next bus to do it. That’s if the weather was fine. Of course, it wasn’t. The afternoon was too cloudy, and these types of planes aren’t allowed to fly through cloud. I rescheduled for the morning at 7.30am but woke up to more cloud, so had to give up and catch my bus at 9am. Annoyingly the cloud all cleared into a beautiful, sunny day just as our bus started leaving Taupo for Rotorua. There were a few of us that were still keen to skydive even though the price in Rotorua was double that in Taupo. It’s a measly 50 to jump from 12,000ft in Taupo and 100 in Rotorua. But the sun was shining so we did it anyway. Five of us went along but the plane could only take pairs up so I went up solo. The plane took off and began to ascend quite rapidly. It climbs 1,000ft about every two minutes so it’s not long before the red ‘JUMP’ light starts flashing and you find the tandem guy you’re attached to starts edging towards the exit. Then before you know it your legs are dangling over the edge and the guy throws you both out into the clouds. The initial rush is immense. Once you get a tap on the shoulder you can spread your arms out and you’re hurtling downwards at over 200kph and the g-force is making your face screw up like a bulldog’s. After about 40 seconds freefall the guy pulls the parachute, at which point you are yanked up as the resistance suddenly increases. Following this you simply float down to the landing zone taking in the views all around, in this case the 24 lakes that surround Rotorua. It was an amazing experience and I’m glad I didn’t pass it up before leaving New Zealand. The whole thing was filmed (I had my own personal cameraman..) so I have a DVD to show everyone on my return.
Since leaving most of the guys I was hanging around with back in Wellington my new bus has a lot of the faces I began my Kiwi Experience with so we’re all in a room together and spent last night at the Tamaki Mauri Village. It’s a makeshift village set up in woodland just outside Rotorua built to the specifications of an old Mauri living quarters. There was a good four busloads in attendance and we were all made to stand outside at first while the Mauri warriors came out to intimidate us with a ‘challenge of peace’. They danced around with spears, grunting and sticking their tongues out etc until they lay down a peace offering which has to be accepted by one of us nominated as a chief for the night. Once that’s over you get a Powhiri, or welcome dance, and you can enter the village. We wandered around the impressive village where proper Mauri’s were busy doing weaponry displays, chanting or playing musical instruments. We then entered a big meeting house where traditional greeting ceremonies and song and dance was performed for us, including the Haka you see the All Blacks do before a Rugby game. Following this was a massive buffet, all cooked under the earth on hot rocks for over three hours. Before we eat the food is blessed with a prayer and then it’s time to dig in. It was a truly delicious feast. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a backpacker at an all-you-can-eat buffet before but my plate was piled up like a stack of Jenga. I had chicken, beef, lamb, potatoes, stuffing, vegetables and gravy, followed by steamed pudding with custard, pavlova and then a fruit salad. Money’s worth springs to mind here. There was an official closing ceremony with speeches and song before we all borded our buses back into town. It was a good night, it all seemed very genuine and authentic and we all came away with a little more knowledge about the Mauri culture. Which was nice.