New Zealand!!
So here we are in Auckland!! capital of new zealand, the main thing we noticed was how empty the streets were - cars and people! nz only has a population of 4m people - and is twice the size of the uk! auckland is know as the city of sails and we saw loads of evidence of that with boats everywhere! we arrived in auckland to a cool 22 degrees which felt cold compared to the high 30s of sydney - however in our dorm were 2 canadians who had just come from -30 so i guess maybe it was warm! auckland was where we joined our tour and our first stop was the auckland sky tower - one of the many high rise buildings you get a view over the city so heres gav and i with auckland in the background! this was the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and whilst up their i also used the highest toilet!! hehe!
we weren't in auckland that long before we headed to Rotorua, really nice place but it has plenty of evidence of new zealand literally being in a ring of fire of volcanoes - the earths crust is only 18km from the core compared to the average 1800km!! so you can imagine the heat coming to the surface creating the natural hot springs leading to warm rivers and boing mud pools. this may all sound very nice but the sulphur ferments on its way to the surface and creates a very bad eggy smell and because its smokey it makes it even harder to breathe! just when you think you're used to it the wind blows the smoke your way and nope you're definitely not used to it!! the first pic is of us up a volcanoe - live but not about to erupt - and what an amazing view it gave all over rotorua. in the background you can see the hundreds of small and large volcanoe hills created over time - these are always moving, i think around 1cm a year!
while we were at the biggest mud boiling lake in new zealand our maori guide collected some mud for us - this stuff costs a fortune in the shops - at first we were a bit unsure not wanting to smell like the sulphur but we were soon slapping in all over us and rinsing off in the hot spring/lake - who needs a sanctuary when you can have it o-natural for free!
the tour we went on was really good, we visited a maori villiage and they told us the history of their people coming to new zealand and finding the lakes and the hot springs, feeling very lucky to have so much hot water readily available. they also told us of how agressive they were when europeans came over which is probably why they have regained their land whereas aborigines and indian americans are stil fighting for much of theirs. the second day we went to visit a second village which was great because we got to compare 2 villages that were so close together, had similar beliefs but were totally different. in the second village they are brought up to respect the body and have open baths - they reckon they are the only place in the world where a wife could bath with her neighbours husband and neither respective partner would mind - yeah i reckon too! (nobody has a in-house bath they are all communal!) whilst there we also had haki which is maori food steamed from the hot air coming through the earths crust - the veggies and puddings were great but i wasn't so keen on the meat, not sure i'd recommend steamed beef but hey you gotta try everything once!
So here we are in Auckland!! capital of new zealand, the main thing we noticed was how empty the streets were - cars and people! nz only has a population of 4m people - and is twice the size of the uk! auckland is know as the city of sails and we saw loads of evidence of that with boats everywhere! we arrived in auckland to a cool 22 degrees which felt cold compared to the high 30s of sydney - however in our dorm were 2 canadians who had just come from -30 so i guess maybe it was warm! auckland was where we joined our tour and our first stop was the auckland sky tower - one of the many high rise buildings you get a view over the city so heres gav and i with auckland in the background! this was the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and whilst up their i also used the highest toilet!! hehe!
we weren't in auckland that long before we headed to Rotorua, really nice place but it has plenty of evidence of new zealand literally being in a ring of fire of volcanoes - the earths crust is only 18km from the core compared to the average 1800km!! so you can imagine the heat coming to the surface creating the natural hot springs leading to warm rivers and boing mud pools. this may all sound very nice but the sulphur ferments on its way to the surface and creates a very bad eggy smell and because its smokey it makes it even harder to breathe! just when you think you're used to it the wind blows the smoke your way and nope you're definitely not used to it!! the first pic is of us up a volcanoe - live but not about to erupt - and what an amazing view it gave all over rotorua. in the background you can see the hundreds of small and large volcanoe hills created over time - these are always moving, i think around 1cm a year!
while we were at the biggest mud boiling lake in new zealand our maori guide collected some mud for us - this stuff costs a fortune in the shops - at first we were a bit unsure not wanting to smell like the sulphur but we were soon slapping in all over us and rinsing off in the hot spring/lake - who needs a sanctuary when you can have it o-natural for free!
the tour we went on was really good, we visited a maori villiage and they told us the history of their people coming to new zealand and finding the lakes and the hot springs, feeling very lucky to have so much hot water readily available. they also told us of how agressive they were when europeans came over which is probably why they have regained their land whereas aborigines and indian americans are stil fighting for much of theirs. the second day we went to visit a second village which was great because we got to compare 2 villages that were so close together, had similar beliefs but were totally different. in the second village they are brought up to respect the body and have open baths - they reckon they are the only place in the world where a wife could bath with her neighbours husband and neither respective partner would mind - yeah i reckon too! (nobody has a in-house bath they are all communal!) whilst there we also had haki which is maori food steamed from the hot air coming through the earths crust - the veggies and puddings were great but i wasn't so keen on the meat, not sure i'd recommend steamed beef but hey you gotta try everything once!
posted by Sara & Gav @ 11:33 PM
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