Whale Rider

Today we got to stop by the small Maori village were the film Whale Rider was set and filmed. We got a tour of the Marae (meeting house) and got to see a bunch of props from the film. We also were learned in a lot of the history of the area. It was really cool to see.







After this we went to this hostel in a place called Rangitukia which is in the middle of nowhere as far as I am concerned. I made friends with a guy on our bus named Simon and we played Ping Pong for the better part of two hours before our whole bus watched "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" in black and white because we couldn't get the TV to work properly.



The weather we had here was insane. It's the closest thing I have seen to proper rain since I left Victoria. The water was coming down with a vengeance. Some poor sod even had his tent flooded and had to relocate.



Today I also got to enjoy my first meat pie (these things are very popular in NZ). It was delicious.

Tatapouri and Stingray Feeding!

Today we drove from Taupo to Tatapouri on the East Coast of the North Island. I was hoping to do Shark Cage diving here but it got canned due to choppy seas. I ended up doing Stingray feeding instead which was still pretty awesome. These things were quite big and would swim right up and eat out of your hand and everything. It was a great experience and worth all $25NZD ($16.61CAD) for sure.





Our new bus driver on this trip is all kinds of awesome. He is in his 70's and his name is Rex. He reminds me so much of my own Grumpa. He is hilarious and totally random.

Lake Taupo

I didnt really accomplish much during my stay in Taupo but I did wander down to the lake and took some photos of New Zealands largest lake. It was a gourgeous day in Taupo but I wasn't really in the mood for swimming and the other stuff in Taupo didn't really interest me (ie bungy jumping, sky diving, walking). I may try to do the Tongariro Crossing next time I am here as it referred to as the best one day walk in all of New Zealand. It even crosses Mt.Doom from Lord of the Rings.

Raglan Out.

Today I headed out of Raglan on a little bus back to Taupo. I met some new people who will apparently be on my East As Bus tomorrow. There is three of them from England named Mike, Lisa and Robin. I have two nights at the YHA in Taupo now before heading to Tatapouri - our first stop on the East As Bus.

Surfing in Raglan

Today I took a bus to Raglan. Raglan is the surfing capital of New Zealand and has according to the brochures has the best left hand break in the world. The hostel we stayed at was a really cool and quiet laid back place with very friendly staff. Initially I hadn't planned on surfing but I ended up giving it a shot using a friends board. I never actually managed to get up on the board but it was fun anyways.

I am only here for the one night and tomorrow I am off to Taupo for two nights before heading to the East Coast.

Farm Show & Caving in Waitomo

Today we left Rotorua and stopped for a farm show where I saw all sorts of sheep. I also got to see a sheep get sheared and sheep dogs move sheep around. It was an entertaining morning.





After the show we drove through to Waitomo where we got dropped off at the black water rafting place where we got suited up and then drove to the caves. After a brief explanation of absailing we made our descent into the caves. After a short walk through some narrow tunnels we got to the zip cord which would take us to lower level. One of the guides thought he'd be funny with me because I was first in line and said "Push the red button when you need to stop" just as he let me go when in fact there was no button to push. It was good for a laugh. After this we jumped off a rock ledge with innertubes and then began floating down the under ground river.





On our journey up and down the river we saw lots of glow worms and got an explanation as to what they actually are. After this we ditched the tubes and did some wading through more tunnels of water and went down a small slide. After more wading/swimming we reached a run of three water walls we had to climb to get out. The whole experience was really cool and I am glad I opted to do it.

Onto Rotorua

Today we drove to Rotorua stopping at an old mining operation and going through some caves. The walk was cool and I got some neat pictures. We also stopped in "Hobitton" from the Lord of Rings and I got a picture with an odd looking Gollum statue.



Rotorua is an interesting place. It is supposedly the part of the earth where the crust is the thinnest which means there are lots of places where steam is just coming out of the ground. In addition to this they have a lot of natural hot springs and thermal mud pools. There was an option to do a cultural night with a Maori tribe but I had to pass as I am saving my money for Waitomo Caves.



I am staying at the YHA in Rotorua tonight and it is definitely one of the nicest hostels I have stayed at in NZ. In other news I met my first Austrian today.

Whitianga (Mercury Bay)

I woke up at stupid o'clock this morning and was able to book myself on a bus going south. I was quite relieved at this and got my stuff ready and headed down to catch the bus. We got loaded up and rolled out making a stop at the Kiwi Experience Office where I have booked the rest of my buses for the North Island which means no more making phone calls I just have to show up.



After this we stopped at Mt.Eden somewhere I stopped by a few months ago with John and Ruth. I did some panorama photos with my new camera Krystina brought out.



After this we began our journey south. On our way down we made a stop at Cathedral Cove were I took some cool pictures and made a new friend (a Scottish guy named Matty) we also did some swimming and jumped off a rock a few times. It was a cool place to stop.



The hostel we stayed at was really nice and I decided to pay for the spaghetti dinner they offered which really good. After dinner I played a couple games of pool with various guys off the bus. I made friends with a guy from Chiliwack, a few more dutch guys and a french guy from Quebec named Mike. After that Matty and I had a few beers and played cards with two Danish girls. When they left we went back to playing pool before I finally packed it in when people went off to another bar. Tomorrow we are off to Rotorua for one night before heading to Waitomo.

A series of unfortunate events.

We arrived tonight in Auckland in the pouring rain. I helped the bus driver unload all the bags and then took $100 out of the ATM. I proceeded up to reception to check in and was stuck near the back of the line because I stayed behind to help and went to the ATM. I let some people going to an Iron Maiden concert go in front of me because we were late into Auckland and the show had already started. Following this I went to call Kiwi Experience to book my bus out of Auckland. I had to do the booking myself because the travel desk was closed. Kiwi Experience has no toll-free number so I had to use my laptop. I couldn't get the internet working and missed the cut-off to call them now I have to get up at the crack of down tomorrow and hope I can book on the bus in the morning. As a result of wasting so much time trying to call Kiwi Experience I missed the free drinks night at the bar. I was hungry and frustrated so I went to Subway to get a Meatball Sub to cheer me up. The subway nearest base didn't appear to have any one working at it despite it still being open. I decided to make the trek down Queen St in the rain to the next Subway as I really wanted a sub. I finally made it to the subway and placed my orders and was informed they were out of meatballs and it would take 15 minutes to make more. I said go for it. I really wanted the sub and was willing to wait. By the time the meatballs were ready other customers had ordered the last of the cookies I wanted so I was unable to get cookies with my sub. When I finally went to pay for my sub and drink I discovered that I had managed to drop three of the twenties I had taken out of the ATM somewhere between the hostel and subway. Needless to say at this point I was pretty fed up with how things were going. The sub cheered me up a bit and I managed to get the internet working after a 15 minute phone call to the internet company.

Hopefully I can get on the bus tomorrow if I get up early and call when they open at 6AM.

Heading back to Auckland

I am at the YHA now and am quite liking it. I have decided to skip working and just get on the bus and head south and spend one night in Auckland and then continue on to Whitianga. It's raining in Paihia again today making this trip up to Paihia a bit of a dissapointment.

Back in Paihia

I am back up in Paihia for the third time and possibly looking for work at a hostel doing cleaning or something. Failing that I am going to get on the Kiwi Bus and head south back to Auckland and finally start exploring the North Island.

I am going to be staying at two hostels whilst I am here this time. Today I am at the Bay Adventure Lodge and tomorrow I am staying at the YHA and after that I need to either get work for accommodation or head south. I have my bus south tentatively booked just in case.

I got into Paihia tonight around 8PM and sadly it is raining.

Captain Canada!

Last night they made an announcement that they were giving away $1000 worth of free drinks in the bar if you wore a flag from your country. Luckily for me I got Krystina to bring out a Canadian flag when she came out. So I dawned my flag as a cape and headed down to the bar. The timing was perfect because as it stands I can't afford to be drinking so free drinks are good. After the free drinks ended I decided I needed to have more to drink but I had no money so I went upstairs and had two mugs of Vodka and Sprite which were probably mixed a tad stronger than they should have been.



When I went to go back downstairs to the bar again I ran into a Canadian guy named Zach who asked me where I was from in Canada because he saw my cape. I said I was from Victoria - he was from Toronto. We ended up chatting in the hall before heading down to the bar were he bought me another beer and we chatted some more.



After some exhausting Globe Bar we went to another bar with Thomas (promotions manager for Globe Bar) and Wes (one of the bar tenders). For reasons I still don't understand Tom bought a bottle of champagne and poured us all glasses. Me drinking champagne at this point with all the other stuff I had consumed was a terrible idea but at the time it seemed innocent enough.

After our champagne Zach said he was heading to bed and I decided to do the same. We made our way back to the hostel and I crawled into my bed without even taking my cape off (I woke up with it on this morning).

Now I am checked out of the hostel and sitting in the lounge waiting for my bus and feeling the most hung-over I have felt since New Years. I need to work on not mixing vodka and champagne.

Krystina flies back to Canada

I saw Krystina off at the airport tonight for her flight back home. We stopped at Brookylyn bar one last time and split a western burger before heading to the airport. I am now back at the hostel in Auckland where I am going to spend the night in the lounge watching movies to save some money by not booking a room. I have a room for tomorrow though. Should be an interesting night.

Last night on Beach Comber!

We went out with a bang last night. Dancing up a storm and rocking out during the "Bula Dance". The funniest part of the evening was when Krystina wandered off somewhere and I got fed up waiting for her to come back so I wandered off to the beach with a Japanese girl I'd met and joined up with one of the dive guys and an Australian and we sat and chatted and looked at the stars. After about half hour Krystina walked by and tweaked out because she had been walking "All Around the Island looking for me" (keep in mind it takes less than five minutes to walk around the whole island). Fortunately Yu (the Japanese girl) backed me up because Krystina left first. After another fifteen minutes or so Krystina and I and one of Yu's friends helped her back to her room because she had no idea where it was and couldn't walk very well.





Today we are catching the ferry back to Port Denarau for our last night at Smugglers Cove and our last night in Fiji! Our bill when we left Beach comber for diving, drinks, food and other activities was a whopping $1700JFD around $1156CAD.

Conclusion of Advanced Open Water + more snorkeling!

Today I got to do my navigation dive which I successfully did without overshooting anything this time. After that I did my photography dive and took all sorts of cool photos of stuff underwater. There is even a few of me!

After the dives were wrapped up I got another photo taken for my new PADI card and now I am a certified PADI Advanced Open Water Diver. Woohoo! At this point I think I am all dived out for now. Doing nine dives that close together was pretty tiring. I think I will stick to snorkeling for the rest.



On the topic of snorkeling I went snorkeling after my diving was done today. I got abused by jelly fish again but I am getting mostly used to it. I finally got some pictures of a sting ray when I went out. I saw two of them chilling out in the sand a short swim off the shore.

Crab Racing & Revenge!

After I finished my sandwhiches they announced they were going to be having crab races. You could buy a crab from the auction thing they were doing. There was a crab for most countries you could expect to find backpackers from. I bought Team Canada for $10FJD. Apparently Canada wasn't popular because no one else bid against me.

Unfortunately my crab didn't win. That being said the whole race was entertaining to watch. I have it on video and will post it whenever I find a way to successfully post videos from shoddy hostel internet.

After the crab race we headed back to the room for some drinks. I wasn't too keen on drinking as I had a bit of a headache from all my diving. Krystina on the other hand was hitting it pretty hard. I think she was trying to get revenge for my antics the other night. I was going to go to bed at 10:30 because I had a headache and was diving again in the morning. I told Krystina should could go back to the bar but shortly after she tumbled backwards into the bathroom and fell into the shower so I cut her off and told her she had to go to bed too. I wasn't letting her out in that condition especially with stairs involved.

Night Dive

The night dive was really cool. We dove at the same reef I did my first ocean dive at only we did it in near total darkness. It was a whole different experience being only able to see where you point your light. Unfortunately we didnt get to see any of the fish you usually get to see at night. I guess we just were unlucky. I got to see a ton of stingrays as well as a reef shark. We dove off the boat and swam back into shore which kind of fun. We had potential to really scare some people that were walking out in the water a little bit but we spared them.

Unfortunately because our dive ran late I missed dinner. It looks like I will be having toasted sandwiches for dinner. I am off to the bar now to order food and find Krystina!

The Trifecta!

I have done 2 of my 3 dives for today. I started the morning off with my wreck dive on Salamanda which is the sunken cruise ship. A little while after that after dropping some people off and changing over equipment I did my deep dive and got down 28.5M which was kind of cool. Saw lots of neat fish and even got to see a reef shark!





After these two dives I had the rest of the day to screw around because my next dive is at night. Krystina and I decided today was a good day to go Jet Skiing. We hired the Jet Ski for 30 minutes which cost a small fortune but it was worth it. We ripped around the water at mach 5. I drove at first and succeeded in sufficiently scaring Krystina with my complete disregard for keeping the Jet Ski on the water. After we'd been out for about five minutes it started pouring rain and we got abused by the really heavy rain. It was suprising how painful the rain could be when it was coming down that hard and you were driving into it that fast. I made a point of maxing it out a few times just to see how fast it could go. But mostly I was trying to get as much air as possible off the waves or the wake from the Jet Ski. We eventually traded up after snapping some pictures. It was weird jumping into the ocean in the rain and the water being bathtub warm. It was warmed in the ocean than out during the rain. We switched back and forth and had a blast for the half hour we had the Jet Ski. It was tempting to hire it again but it's just too much money.



I am looking forward to my night dive in a few hours!

The dangers of rum.

Last night was an absolute gong show. It started off with us having some drinks at the bar and listening to the band. After a shortwhile they announced a limbo competition. As we all know I love a good limbo showdown so naturally I was the first one to volunteer. I was a little hesitant at first because it was on sand and I've never competed on sand before so I had to use the first few rounds to gauge the best strategy. I also wasn't wearing shoes which made it more challenging to walk on the inside of my ankles. None the less I came first out of all the guys by several ones and lasted a handful of rounds against two girls much shorter than me. I finally folded after getting a do-over on one bar I failed because I had so much support from the crowd. Following my sucess in this I had some more drinks while we watched the "Bula Dance" and then spent the next several hours tearing up the dance floor and watching people do random stuff.



The real trouble started when I went to grab my bottle of rum and bottle of coke after the bar closed down. Due to a miss communication I thought we were meeting at the eating area but apparently I was supposed to go back to the bar area. So I sat at the eating area with a bottle of rum and a bottle of coke drinking away all by myself figuring Krystina had gotten into some kind of hijinx. So I sat there drinking rum and coke for about an hour before I polished off one of the bottles of coke and took it to the bin when Krystina saw me and called out for me to come join her little group.



So I wandered over (more of a stagger than anything else) with my rum and my coke and joined them and had one more drink. Unfortunately for me that one more drink turned out to be the tipping point. That last drink marked a bit under half the bottle and it was finally starting hit me. For awhile we were playing random trivia just asking each other questions about various things from questions about our countries to disney movies. PArt way through this I kind of faded out and was sitting with my head on the table partially conscious. I would randomly contribute to conversations in short spurts of words and go back to where I was. I even managed to blurt out a goodbye when the others went to bed. Krystina decided it was time for us to head back to our room but I didnt feel like moving and asked for some gatorade which she actually went and made me. I drank some of this before starting the crawl back to the room (I was unable to stand anymore at this point) part way Krystina managed to prop me up under one arm and help support me back to the room.



When we finally made it back she forced me to take a cold shower to try and sober me up a bit. I didnt really work but got most of the sand off of me I'd collected trying to crawl back. I finally go to bed around 4AM. Krystina woke me up at 8:30 to see if I wanted to go for breakfast but I was still too drunk to really go and get breakfast so we skipped it. I ended up getting up around 10:30 throwing on my bathing suit and going for a swim where Krystina eventually found me. It was an entertaining night to say the least.

More diving ahead!

Today I decided to book my PADI Advanced Open Water course and will be starting it tomorrow. I am doing a Wreck Dive, Deep Dive, Navigation Dive, Night Dive and Photography Dive. I start tomorrow morning with a dive on Salamanda's Wreck which is a sunken cruise ship. I am looking forward to it. Tonight I have to start working on more questions. Yipee!

Parasailing!

Today Krystina and I spent a boatload of money parasailing. It was pretty cool though. The view of the island and reefs from above was pretty awesome. The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes and made for some really good photos. I just need to work on not putting my finger in front of the lens when taking pictures!

PADI Open Water Divers!

Krystina and finished off our course today with more ocean dives. We got our pictures taken for our PADI cards and also got a picture with our instructor. Our dives today were a lot of fun. We got to see some more stuff. We had to do our navigation test today too which was entertaining because I was so focused on my compass I swam right past Krystina where I was supposed to stop and I think she just about died of laughter at that point.



Now that the course is over I think I am going to take a one day break and then start my Advanced Open Water Course because it's half price too. I think Krystina has decided she doesn't have money for anymore diving but wants to try diving in the Dominican when she is there next month.



Tonight we are going to celebrate finishing our dive course. Should be fun.

OCEAN DIVE!

Today we got to do our first two ocean dives. The ocean dives started with us practicing skills we'd learned in the pool in the ocean. After that we got to swim around and see the fish and corals and so on. On the second dive I took my camera and got some cool photos.

Tomorrow is the last day of our Open Water Course. I am on the fence about doing my Advanced Open Water Course afterwards as I am really enjoying diving so far.

Diving Day #2

Today we watched the last of the videos and did more skills in the pool. Tomorrow we get to do our first ocean dive. I am going to see if I can bring my camera along to snap some pictures.

Outside of diving so far we haven't done a whole lot. We've been keeping the evenings low key so we are in peak condition when we do our diving. The food on the island so far has been pretty good. Breakfast is pancakes and a variety of egg options as well as fresh fruit. They also have this delicious dessert type thing of shaved coconut over bananas which seemed to be served with pretty much everything. The pineapple here is the best I have ever had in my life. Lunch is two curry options, some vegetable options, salads, a bread, and a meat and then the dessert stuff. Dinners are themed with a different one for every night of the week.

The bar is good but a bit on the expensive side but I guess that's just part of being on an island. The beer in Fiji is pretty terrible which is unfortunate because it's cheapest. I've mostly been drinking Daiquiri as it goes good with dinner. They also do really good toasted sandwiches. The dangerous part of this whole operation is that everything gets charged to the room so you don't know how much you've spent. We need to make a point of keeping tabs on it at reception so it doesn't get too out of hand.

Day one of our PADI Open Water Course

Today we slugged through some really dull videos on diving before getting to do our first two pool dives. We learned how to set up the equiptment and use everything and then worked on skills in the pool with our Japanese diving instructor Eiji. He's a fun guy. Both Krystina and I are really enjoying the lessons so far.

Beach Comber Island Day #1

Today we packed all of our goodies up and got on the bus to Port Denarau for the third time. The boat ride to Beach Comber was about 1 1/2 hours and I slept for most of it. We got to the island and proceeded to reception where we were served orange juice whilst we waited in line. After we got checked in we headed to our room with the luggage carrying guy. Our room looks really nice and is shaded which hopefully means it will be cool. We have a fan too!



After getting settled into our room we headed down to the dive shop and booked our PADI Open Water Dive Courses. Lucky for us it's half price diving right now so the course was really cheap at $370FJD ($249.14CAD) each. We met the dive guys and got our material and questions to answer for that night. We start are course tomorrow morning after breakfast.

After diving was set up we decided to go for a swim in the 30C ocean water. The water here is incredible. It's super warm and crystal clear. After our swim chilled on the beach and did some reading and just generally hung around until dinner time.



Tonight we are working on our diving homework. Should make for an exciting evening.