Ciarán & Elaine's Travelog

Saturday, January 21, 2006

January in NZ

Well, we've had a great start to the year - it's amazing how much happier everyone is when it's not constantly raining!

After New Years in Wellington we spent a week or so travelling back up the north island to Auckland. We stopped in Taupo and went for a walk through a beautiful forest which ran alongside a river that was heated by a natural hot spring, the water was scorching! It led us up to a fantastic waterfall called the Huka falls where the water coming through it is so clear it looks ice blue. We're looking forward to going back there to take one of the cycle trails through the forest.

We also spent a couple of days in Rotorua which is famous for being covered in thermal hot springs - everywhere we went there was steam coming out of the ground...
I went Zorbing which involved me diving into a giant plastic ball, getting a bucket of icy water thrown over me and being pushed off down a hill. Being flung around as it raced to the bottom was so much fun!! Here I am coming down the hill...


We also went to a Maori Hangi one of the nights which was fantastic - first we were treated to a Maori concert in one of the tribes villages then a Hangi meal, and of course we saw the famous Haka which is cool! Those guys are pretty intense when they're that close to you!. On the way out of Rotorua we visited 'Craters of the moon' which is a small national park that is completely full of steaming geysers and bubbling mud pools - really amazing to see.


The drive through the North Island was beautiful - very Lord of the Rings! We can't wait to head off again when we finish working. Here's a photo of a waterfall we were swimming under - just a typical day in NZ!

Speaking of work, we've both been in our jobs for a couple of weeks now and it's all going well - but, work is work so no point boring you with the details! Suffice to say that we're both happy with what we're doing.

It was Elaine's birthday last Monday and we headed into town to meet up with a few others. We'd planned on a fairly quite night out - dinner and a couple of drinks - however, it all turned fairly crazy and we ended up still partying at 3am - had a brilliant time but had to get up for work at 7.30 - Tuesday was a washout!!

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone back home from Wellington. We've spent the past few days travelling down the west coast through Raglan, New Plymouth and now we're in Windy Wellington. We had a brilliant night last night. We were out with a gang of people from the hostel and of course we were in an Irish bar. Feeling fairly rough today but by the looks of everyone in the hostel we're not the only ones.

2005 was a brilliant year for us and we've so much to look forward to in 2006.