Wellington

Before arriving in Wellington, our driver Arius had made us aware of a rugby match going on in the city, and he said it would be a great Kiwi Experience to see a rugby game whilst in New Zealand. There was about 20 of us who wanted to go, and so the responsibility landed on Mark who offered to sort it out.

On the drive into Wellington, we had a very nervy Mark trying to ring round and book 20 tickets all in the same location for us and our new friends. Thankfully he managed to succeed, so he was a very popular man on the bus that day.

Wellington being the capital city of New Zealand, was very busy and built up and with plenty of things to do, however the city is only a minimum one night stop so Arius would be leaving with his bus the following day, along with Mindy which everyone was very sad about. Her catchphrases of "STAP IT" and "Oh Devil" had become contagious on the bus, and is something we all still say to this day. She promised us she would throw a big party at her place in Queenstown though, so it wasn't the last we would see of Mindy!

The chosen hostel for the Kiwi Experience in Wellington is Base, but we decided to try out Nomads, as they offer $2 dinners, and as we were all feeling the strain from Sky dives and other activities, we thought we would give Nomads a try.

The three of us were in a room with Iqra, Charlotte and Isabelle, and we FINALLY managed to get Mark to try on his vest we got him from Muscle Beach when we were in L.A.



We all relaxed that evening, especially Iqra who had suddenly caught a very nasty cold (one that we would all experience eventually!) and planned how we would spend our chosen 3 nights in Wellington.

Not only is Wellington the capital, it is also the capital city of Culture and arts, and there was lots of this on display throughout the city.




We decided the next day we would go an visit the museum Te Papa. It is completely free, so a great place to mooch around all day before we headed to the Rugby game in the evening.

The museum had a nature section where we saw a giant squid, a History section with dinosaur bones, a geography section with earthquake simulators, and an Art section. There was also a whole section dedicated to Maori history, AND free wi-fi so we could catch up with family and friends so as you can imagine, we spent a good few hours here. Unfortunately Iqra didn't come as she was feeling too unwell and wanted to save her energy for the match!

'more dinosaur' Louis age 6...... 'Agreed' Alan age 23

That evening, we were all so excited for the Rugby! We grabbed our $2 dinners from the bar at Nomads, and washed them down with a few pre-match beers.

Steph, Charlotte, Amy, Tom, Iqra and Izzy

We got to the match just in time for the game to start. It was Hurricanes vs Chiefs, and we decided we would support the Hurricanes as the chant was the most fun to do.

The game was great to watch and a really electric atmosphere. We drank lots of beers so we can't remember the final score, but we know we all had a great time.

Mark, Tom, Steph, Amy and Iqra

Our Kiwi Experience family! (minus Mindy :( )

After the game, we all decided we didn't want our night to stop there, and as Wellington's nightlife is meant to be good, we thought we shouldn't miss out on that experience either.

We went home, got changed and had a few more drinks down in the Nomads bar. 

They were playing some great 90s tunes, and the mood was so good, with people dancing on tables and cheap drinks.

We eventually ventured out into the city but found we couldn't get the mood going like we had in the last place. We decided to retreat back to the hostel but stop off for an obligatory Mc Donalds on the way back. Now we know Wellington is a big city and at that time of night Mc Donalds is a number one eating establishment, but there we found the MESSIEST Mc Donalds we have ever seen, so much so we had to take pictures!

The following day everyone was feeling fragile (a feeling we were getting a lot with this group of people!) We decided a day to the Zoo in the fresh air would make us feel better. It was a short bus journey away so all we had to do was find some hangover food and get on the bus.

We had a few casualties as Iqra wasnt feeling to well so she decided to see Te Papa, and on the way to the bus stop Charlotte had a wave of hangover sickness so had to abort!

We eventually got to Zoo to discover that it was a family day and was only going to cost us $2 to get in!

Jo, Archie, Mark, David, Steph, Annie, Tom,Amy, Wise John and Izzy

The zoo was a pretty standard zoo, although it did have wild kangeroos jumping around, and a huge pig that they had trained to "sit" which Mark was made up with. It wasn't a huge zoo, but a nice way to spend the day. We even got up close and personal with a giraffe whilst having his dinner.

After our visit, we decided to take a long walk back to the city which Steph was NOT happy about! After about an hour and a half of walking, we got back to our room. Some of the gang decided to go bowling, but Iqra was STILL unwell (earning her the name sicky Icky) so ourselves and Mark decided to stay in and have a take away curry.

The next day we would be leaving Wellington at 6:30 in the morning so it was an early start! Unfortunately for us, our friend David was going to be staying in Wellington to find work. The next morning he got up early and came to wave us off in the Lord of The Rings themed foyer of Nomads. It was sad to leave him goodbye, especially after some of his fantastic one liners on our trip and also sad to see his and wise johns bromance be broken up. John after all had earned the name 'Wise John' after convincing David that jumping from the balcony into the swimming pool in Rotorua was a bad idea.

Today we would be crossing over on the ferry to the highly anticipated South Island!

River Valley

After our slightly rainy time at Taupo, we were excited to be moving onto our penultimate stop in the North Island, River Valley. Arius our driver explained that River Valley was a tranquil slice of rural countryside that we would have all to ourselves! The whole place was a large barn on the river side, and it was incredibly cosy and a Christmas retreat dream. Although we would have the whole lodge to ourself, the privacy aspect could not be said for our rooms! River Valley was famous on the Kiwi experience for being the location with the largest dorm holding about 30 people! Very cosy!

Although we were happy to have made friends on the bus, a 30 bed dorm just screamed 'no sleeping here' so when they said there wasn't room for everyone, ourselves and Mark jumped at the opportunity to have our own private 4 bed lodge just near the river!

River valley really was beautiful, and we spent the afternoon looking over the clear waters and autumnal trees. We quickly spotted a little pully system over the river, so we all took it turns to hoist each other over to the other side.

 Once we were all over, we went on a very steep walk up the bank, and over a small waterfall to find a beautiful birds eye view of the place at the end.

It was really cold now, being the New Zealand winter, so lots of people opted to spend a little extra money and have the tasty roast dinner that was on offer at the lodge. As we were still strapped for cash and had the ingredients for a curry, some of us warmed ourselves us with a Tandoori treat.

After we ate, we nestled around the large wood burner in the middle of the barn, and played a few rounds of cards against humanity with our driver Arius and a few other people. It was Natalie's birthday who we had done the Waitomo caves with, so a few people were getting boozy at the bar just at the corner of the barn. 

Whilst all this was going on, Steph was nowhere to be seen, and was later to be found crouching outside in the fire wood cabin as she had found 3 tiny wild kitten, and she was in a desperate attempt to tame them and stow them away in her bag.



Whilst out there, one of the guys at the lodge explained that they often kill kittens as cats catch the rare native birds so are seen as pests. This made Steph want to catch them more! However she made the man swear that he wouldn't kill them, and tried to undo her work of taming them and shoo them away to safety.

The next morning, we heard all the horror stories of the 30 share dorm, whilst we smuggly sat there feeling very well rested. Some of the optional activities at the River Valley lodge are horse riding (which Steph was certainly not going to attempt again after the Pantanal incident) and white water rafting.

Unfortunately due to a heavy down pour the night before, the white water rafting wasn't possible and we were quickly feeling like the weather had something against us! We took one last walk down to the crystal blue waters, that after the storm had risen dramatically and turned a horrible mud colour.

 Before we left Steph had an emotional wave come over her, and felt very sad that she hadn't been able to cuddle a little kitten, however little did she know that down the line her dream would become a reality...

We waited for the horse riders to come back before we left country life and headed towards the large city of Wellington.

Lake Taupo

Our next stop on the Kiwi Experience was Lake Taupo, one of the largest lakes in New Zealand. Taupo is known as an activity hub, being a popular choice for skydiving but also as having the amazing Tongariro Crossing, a days trek and something loads of people told us to do.

Before we actually got to Taupo, our driver Arius also had some stops to take us too on the way, one being Huka falls, a beautifully blue waterfall that you can go on a jet boat up to as another activity in Taupo. It was a pretty miserable day but the water fall was still lovely to see.

We also stopped for a soggy walk through a forest with trees that towered over us. On this walk, we got talking to a guy called Archie, an 18 year old on his gap year who would end up being one of our best friends as he was so hilarious, and with him and Mark together, we were destined for some very good times.

Mark, Tom, Archie, Iqra and Steph

We arrived at Taupo and stayed at another Base hostel, Mark and ourselves were sharing a little 3 bed room to ourselves as it was a smaller hostel. Taupo was our first compulsory 2 night stop location, so
that afternoon we walked around Taupo, and went to look at the iconic lake, that could easily be confused as the sea as the other side was not visible.
The next day we planned to do the amazing Tongariro crossing, something we would have to wake up at 5am to start!

We woke up early and got our walking gear on, went downstairs only to be told that the weather was too windy so the walk would be too dangerous to do! We went back to bed feeling relieved, however when we woke up later we were at a loss at what to do, and disappointed that we couldn't do the number one activity for Taupo.

Our friends that we had made on our bus decided to make the most of the day and opt to do a sky dive. Tom and Steph unfortunately didn't have the funds to do a skydive after our jolly in South America however Mark was coming round to the idea and we managed to convince him to literally take the leap!

That day was a very uncertain day. As the weather had been too windy to do the Tongariro crossing, it of course wasn't ideal weather for sky diving either. The sky dive company would turn up in a limo and take all of our friends to go to the sky dive centre, kit them up, then told that the weather wasn't going to make it possible for them to jump, so they would come back. This happened a couple of times, and they must have been knackered from the up and downs of adrenaline. They were still unsure if all this waiting would be worth it, and the sky dive experience was being held in the balance...

Whilst this was going on, Tom and Steph decided to have a look around Taupo itself. We took a walk to the marina and walked along the front of the lake and came across a golfing driving range. They had a small pontoon a few meters out in the lake, and if you managed to get your golf ball in the hole then you would win 10'000 dollars.



With hopes of being able to join our friends up in the air we had loads of motivation to get the hole in one!
Unfortunately after plenty of tries, we didn't manage to get the whole in one, however Steph dramatically improved her golfing skills so it wasn't all bad luck!



We had also read that there were some natural thermal springs along the front of the Lake somewhere, so we took a stroll down only to find an over sized puddle filled with duck poo. This wasn't really what we had envisaged, so we took a sad walk back to the hostel just as it started to rain. Although Taupo has lots to offer in good weather, it is just a quiet town with not much else to do when it rains! We got back to the hostel and drank tea and napped!

We still weren't sure if the others had been able to do the sky dive, so when they got back, we were worried they would have had a whole day wasted waiting around.

Thankfully, they all came back sporting Skydive T shirts and large grins.
We sat down and looked at their photos and laughed at their flapping faces in the videos they had bought. Taupo certainly looked even more impressive from the air, and we were jealous but also so happy for them all.

Our friend Amy skydiving over Lake Taupo

That night we decided to celebrate with some Kareoke as the Base bar attached was hosting one that evening, We all got sufficiently drunk in order to perform our best and Steph and Iqra took charge of the request list, and added a few suggestions for people who were blissfully unaware. It all got a bit messy.



They managed to get some of the boys up singing Britney Spears, and Arius our driver shocked us all when he smashed 'Baby Got Back'. It wasn't until the girls rendition of the Spice Girls did we realise the speakers were out in the street so any passers by could hear us screeching along inside!



The next day we were to leave Taupo and head to River Valley. Although Taupo wasn't the best it could have been for us, everyone certainly had a great time and it is one of the places we have fond memories of with our friends.