Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, be ashamed of yourselves. New Zealand is much more amazinger.

We opted to hop on board the famous Kiwi Experience; big green tour buses that transport 18-35yr olds across New Zealand, stopping at all the top locations along the way. They pretty much do everything for you so keeping up with where we went day to day has proven difficult – Here is a little list of destinations so nothing gets left out:

Auckland – Bay of Islands (Paihia) – Cape Reinga – Auckland – Hot Water Beach – Waitomo – Rotorua – Taupo – River Valley – Wellington – Kaiteriteri- Westport – Franz Josef – Wanaka – Queenstown – Dunedin – Invercargill – Milford Sound – Queenstown – Lake Tekapo – Christchurch – Kaikoura – Auckland (via Wellington and Taupo again)

Auckland is not a particularly remarkable city, I don’t intend that as an insult, it’s just not… the hills around it are pretty, or at least you think they are, until you get out into the rest of the country and realise that the views surrounding Auckland barely scratch the surface of how beautiful NZ is. Kiwis from outside of Auckland think the city is a bit of a joke and they call native Aucklanders JAFA’s – Just Another Friendly Aucklander – then they suggest substituting “friendly” for something less polite, tut, tut. Of NZs 4.5 million population about 1.5 million live here in this city, leaving a tinyyyyy population of 3M to fill the rest of the vast country – hence why its scenery is so incredibly untouched. Personally I had no issue with the JAFA’s, they made some outstanding burgers. Anyway, we had a proper look around Auckland later on in the trip…

First actual morning we were straight on a small Kiwi Experience bus up to Paihia (pie-hea). Waiting at the stop we recognised a couple of guys who had been sleeping in the terminal when our plane was delayed out of Sydney. They were easily recognised by the rugby ball they doted on, keeping it as close and safe to them as possible… They later became our friends but at this point they were simply referred to as “rugby ball boys”. Also on board were Trish and Mic, I may have mentioned KE being a 18-35yr olds tour, but these guys were an older Irish couple whose Daughter lives in Queenstown, did the tour when she was 19 and suggested they did it to get a good look at the country. Such a great suggestion, they were hillllarious. The drive up to the far north was phenomenal. Half the idea of the Kiwi Experience (KE from now on) is the views you see on the drives. Although it sounds tiresome to stare at a country through a coach window for five weeks, this has to be the best way, unless you can charter a private chopper perhaps. Its such a good view in fact, that I have very minimal photos of the scenery because I was always so in awe of what you can see on the road that I rarely took the time to pick up the camera and shoot/also I broke my phone in an ice bar in Queenstown and lost most photos :(. The buses always have a few stops along the way for walks or famous spots and viewpoints, so on the way up to Paihia we hopped off at a sweet little beach to get a look at the mental Tasman sea, it’s violent! Paihia is a tiny town with not all that much going on, but the highlights are Russell Island (home to NZs oldest pub), the Bay of Islands, an airfield (skydives) and a mesmerising day trip up to Cape Reinga (re-enga) the most northerly point of the country. Paihia is where the “rugby boys” became George and Alex… For a while anyway, they are also known as Simon and Kirke and altered our names to Underneg (Jade) and Overneg (Rose) – another long, weird story but think of it as ying and yang?! Although I quickly became Jeanjé as in ginge, because thanks to the auzzie sunshine I’m now a massive ranga, cheers ‘en (orrr she was always ginger – from Jade) So, we swapped travel stories and mutual friends – Dimeck – over cider at ze pub on Russell and decided to be best fwiends on the trip…

Several drinks later and after Rose fell flat on her arse, it was bonfire on the beach time. Mildly successful. We dressed up the sacred rugby ball, now called Gertie, so she looked fabulous in Jades cat hat, fluro trainers and birthday glasses, and thoughtfully left her as a welcoming present for the boys. Not entirely sure if Rose remembers this or HOW she got into her top bunk…but day one in NZ was already shaping up to be awesome and there were 34 to go! Start as you mean to go on…

Cape Reinga is the most northerly point of Aotearoa (Ou-te-rua, Maori name for New Zealand, meaning “land of the long white cloud”) and is beautiful, with strong Maori significance. Maori’s are the native people of NZ, they have a very rich and interesting culture which is kept alive and current throughout the country. Ancient Maori’s believed that when a person died their spirit came to cape Reinga, clung to the cliffs of the hills and beach, turned back to take one last look at the world then disappeared over the other side of the Cape and onto the afterlife. It’s also where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean – if you want to see a fist fight between two huge bodies of water then come here. As part of the day trip we walked through a forest of Kauri (cow-di) trees – bloody enormous – apparently they have healing powers and we were rather hungover (understatement, sorry mum) so we gave them a big friendly hug… Didn’t help much but they were cool. Obviously we also saw the cape itself and walked down to an old lighthouse with stunning views out to sea and back toward the hugeeee forest covered hills. Easy to understand the Maori idea of the spirits last look, I wouldn’t mind that being my last view. We also drove along neighbouring 90mile beach, coach battered by waves, and tried out sand boarding. Oddly we seemed to be the naturals of the group and went FLYING down the dunes, hangover cured then. Also included was a visit to “NZs best fish and chip shop” … Much like Auz, NZ is not the best when it comes to this dish, their fish is great but good luck finding a hand-cut-chip and don’t expect to be offered salt and vinegar…

This is Jade FYI – the fact Jeanjé gets so riled up about the fish and chips Is hilaaarrious. You can tell which one of us grew up near the coast! It’s food. She ate it. Next. Waking up at 6am that day was an absolute shocker – Sara put the idea in our heads that we could just go the next day instead, but it was one of those “if we can do this, we can do anything” moments. Off we went. It’s at the lighthouse I took a photo of Rose which was to become an absolute GEM for the rest of the trip…think grumpy hungover teenager with their hood up wanting to be anywhere but where they are. Fantastic.

Sunny day three in Paihia and we had no plans. The following day we were meant to be doing a skydive but at about 12pm we spoke with the dive company and they told us nope, the weather will turn tomorrow, we’ll pick you up in an hour, you’re going today. Ohhhhhhhhhkay. Not much time to be scared then! Getting kitted out is nerve racking and obviously the tandem divers take great pleasure in winding you up, pretending it’s their first day, that they forgot the parachute, that being the last divers of the day is bad luck, that the planes broken, your harness isn’t on correctly etc etc. Getting in the plane is horrid because its tiny and loud and climbs extremely steeply and I HHHate flying. We were jumping from 16,000 ft and when we reached 7000 they pointed out that this wasn’t even half way… It already looked ridic high, brilliant. I was jumping first, after a few deep breaths on an oxygen mask we slid forward, dangled out of the plane and stared at the ground, this is the point where the fear disappears. Your brain can’t actually figure how high up you are so theres no ground rush and you’re just thinking that it’s too late to turn back now anyway, the instructor strapped to your back starts to countdown from three but goes on two and then you’re free-falling for a minute and 5 seconds, reaching speeds of 120mph. Its freezing and also you can’t breath buttttttt THE VIEW and obviously the feeling of plummeting through the air toward the ground. When the parachute goes theres a huge feeling of relief, not only can you breathe again and your cheeks (hamster Jade) stop flapping but you can concentrate on the views a bit more, take control of the chute, spin around if you like and of course, pose for your SHOCKING photos 😉 … Mine are all hideous, scalp cap and chin strap not my finest look. Whilst in Paihia we also met fellow passenger Sara, who was with us for the entire trip. She’s Welsh, and we love the Welsh 😉 Sara did the Bay of Island boat trip which is highly regarded as a must do, it sails around all the tiny islands and you can swim with Dolphins. We saw the islands from the sky instead 😉 True to the dive companies word the weather the following day was naff. I mean constant torrential downpours. Luckily a little movie triplet and a few others you might have heard of were filmed here in NZ, umm does Lord of The Rings ring any bells? Every hostel in the country has the films so we basically had a lazy movie day. Later on in these NZ chapters we will explain the perils of exploring NZ during torrential rain so excuse us for having a day off adventuring this time.

After a brief overnight stay back in Auckland it was time to get on the reaaaal big bus. We know a few people who have done KE before and its widespread knowledge that the driver-guides help to make to your trip. Our first glimpse of our driver revealed what we referred to as a “legend beard”. I’m pretty sure George and Kirke fell in love with him instantly. Mac was our driver, he’s the youngest KE driver, the same age as Jade lollll. He basically taught us everything we know about NZ, some of which is definitely utter bull but was entertaining enough to pass. He also seemed to adopt himself as Mic and Trish’s new son, so basically our driver and his new irish parents drove us around New Zealand on their big green coach. With 30 or so passengers on board we headed off to Hot Water Beach.

Jade- First we stopped at Cathedral Cove to do one of our numerous walks on the trip. It took about half an hour to walk there, trying not to constantly stack it in the mud (i’m not exactly the outdoorsy type slash why am i in NZ then?!), but it was so beaut once we arrived at the cove. Gertie the rugby ball made a solid appearance again, and Mac donned an orange primary school sports day cap to protect his poor kiwi skin (yes this is the man who is responsible for us.)

So, we carried on to Hot Water Beach…NZ has A LOT of geothermal activity and at low tide on this beach you can dig yourself your own hot pool to lay in!! The place we stayed was really decent, three modern lodges on a camp site with a communal kitchen lodge too. In our room we became acquainted with Clare and John, a couple from kent, later known as John and The Rig Keeper – all in good time. Darius, a swiss lad who had a fairly spectacular wardrobe, Dowa who wasn’t with us for long and Laura, another welsh girl who funnily enough came from the same tiny town as Sara and were just a few years apart at school… Laura is a geography teacher, NZ is geography heaven, she became known as Teacher, obvs, and I swear ask me anything about glaciers because she taught us everything along the way. Totally ready to sit a geography A Level on our return. The hot pools thing isn’t a joke by the way, we ventured down to the beach in the dark, dug a bunch of people size holes and stayed there until the tide turned. Well, I say WE dug, myself Neg and Teach invited ourselves into Hannah and Christina’s pool for a little bath and a bit of deece stargazing… Weirdest thing ever, some of the water was actually scoldingly hot.

The following day was a big one. Off to Waitomo, home of black water rafting. Black Water Rafting is a bit like the canyoning we did in Vietnam, jumping and or climbing off waterfalls, but the key difference is that it’s done in the dark, in deep underground caves! We opted for the slightly tamer of the few options they had going, essentially tubing through the caves and jumping backwards off a few water cascades slash waterfalls (makes us sound braver). We donned some of the sexiest outfits you’ve ever seen after the worlds biggest struggle to get them on (no photographic evidence, soz) and as it was about 5pm, the trip started in the dark…CHEERS. It was really fun, but FYI it’s the deep mid winter in NZ, absolutely freezing, so being in cold cave water wasn’t a great treat. Imagine 13 twenty somethings fumbling their way through a cave with numb hands and feet and threats of giant eels getting lairy, I’m pretty sure most of us behaved a little like whiney toddlers… Also, Cave Wetas, google them, grim. In the caves we met Caz and Adam, aka Mother Hen and Gollum, a couple from Nottingham, grrreat people. The other highlight of these caves are the glow worms, we switched our lights out to float along and watch them, apparently its their poo that glows? Either way it was verrrrrry pretty and made all the more enjoyable by Adam whistling the Harry Potter theme… The cave itself was odd looking and had grimy orange walls in some places, GOOEY, plus of course your standard stalagathingys. There is a part of the cave where you look up a 65m natural chimney out to day light. This is basically a funnel up the mountain that you are underneath – underneath a mountain!! Unfortunately it was pitch black outside so we couldn’t see the light, but earlier groups promised it was true. Waitomo gets a thumbs up…once we had regained feeling in them and did the most tragic high five attempt you’ve ever seen.

Next stop – Rotorua (Ro-tow-rua), R rolling optional. Rotorua is the cultural hub of NZ, having the highest Maori population in the country. It is also the most geothermically (that is a word) active place in the country. There are steam giezers all over town and it smells like rotten eggs due to the release of sulphuric gases, not very pleasant but you do get a bit used to it. On route to Rotorua is a little stop called Hobbiton. All LOTR/Hobbit fans please don’t yell at me, but I opted out of this… Budget constraints/try as I might I’m not the biggest fan and it ain’t cheap – that’s one lucky farmer though, Peter Jackson literally stumbled upon the place…well, in his helicopter. Jade went along while myself Caz and Teacher had coffee and cake in town. Her review: “a weird little hobbit land in the middle of nowhere, I want the Green Dragon to be my local pub. I felt quite at home because everything was really small. I think I might be a Hobbit. The bus journey home was funny, I boshed 20 questions, thanks Gabrielle and your eyepatch” … Thank you Jade, enlightening.

Soooo anyway, Rotorua, home to the Tamaki Tours Marae – the big draw for us here was the Maori cultural evening and optional overnight stay on the Marae. This was exxxxcellent! Having chosen the overnight stay, we headed out early afternoon, were welcomed into the tribe with a prayer and song, elected our chief, James, aka Chief, obvs, and had to reply to their prayer song with a tune of our own. Apparently Sweet Chariot is a popular choice, so we chose Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, jokers that we are. Hilarious and awkward all at the same time. We settled into our beautiful and traditional sleeping house, had a few history lessons about Maori heritage, some factual stories, some myths and legends, ate afternoon tea (cake HELLO) and briefly argued about the pronunciation of Scone. FYI its Scone like Stone and if you care to differ then take it up with my 103 year old great grandmother who comes from the birth place of Scones and made the best in the world, end of. The rest of our bus joined us for the evening part, which started with a traditional Haka, grass loin cloths, tribal face tattoos and feather robes included, quite intimidating and arguable amusing however you are naaaaaaat allowed to laugh or smile. The faces they’re able to make with the bulging eyes and sticky out tongue are insaaane! Then there is the offering of a silver fern leaf, a Maori tradition, the ancient idea is that they lay it before new people (the invading british for example) and if they accept it, whilst never breaking eye contact with the offerer then they are accepted and welcomed as guests. If your elected chief does not accept it or you turn your back at any point during the ceremony then you are attacked by the battle trained Maori warriors and their highly specialised wooden machetes… I mean, we’re just tourists. That would have been harsh?! Fun and games right…guys…guys?!

Tamaki make the absolute most of visitors time here by moving swiftly onto a circuit of lessons about Maori life, teach some men the Haka and everyone traditional games. Then put on a spectacular show, lots of singing and dancing and more Haka. Dinner is a traditonal Hungi; a Hungi is an earth oven that harnesses natural geothermal activity, super-white-heats special rocks and is then filled with the food, layered in woven flax cloths and covered on top with dirt. Sounds bizarre but the food was stunning (dahhhling), the stuffing they make is unreal and everything has this strange but delish smoked flavour. Plus there was dessert, winning. The evening visitors left after dinner (and got suitably drunk, sumo zorb wrestling we are told) whilst the remaining KE passengers at the Marae took part in traditional rope making. I absolutely failed at this; you use the sharp side of an empty mussel shell to strip back a palm leaf until its just fibres (I basically desiccated mine) then you use your shin to roll it into a string, weave everyones string into a much larger rope, then plait them all together (I bossed the plaiting part but watching the men try it was entertaining) … The resulting rope has been made entirely by KE passengers who have visited and stayed over night and the rope is only allowed to be added to by the Kiwi Experience, so despite my awful contribution it’s pretty sweet! Thennnnn we had a LARGE bonfire, toasted marshmallows, has some fairly worldly discussions until it was suitably frosty and time for a dip in their naturally heated hot pools. Sorry, not sorry.

We had a lovely breakfast and said our goodbyes, all feeling fresh and relaxed, picked up the very hungover remaining passengers from their town hostel, apparently the night had ended in a strip club, where the strippers mainly consisted of George, Kirke and Gollum… Deeelightful. Rotorua actually has loads of other stuff on offer so we did a few morning activities, some went luging on a super long track that got shining reviews meanwhile we stuck with the learning experience and went to tour a geothermal park – Te Puia – highlights of which included eating a boiled egg cooked in a boiling giezer pool, seeing a real live Kiwi…bird, not person or fruit, witnessing the largest giezer in the southern hemisphere and some boiling, spouting mud pools – does wonders for your skin appaz! We’ll bring some home for you, Mums…

Taupo (tow-po) was to follow Rotorua. On the way we stopped off at the impressive Huka Falls. Three waterfalls, not high ones at all, but instead violent white water shooting down over the three cascades. All NZs rivers, streams etc have an incredible blue colour, which Teacher informs us is because they are all derived from melted glaciers which deposit tiny rock particles into the water which creates blue/green tones in the water. It’s beeeeeautiful, making this water fall extra stunning. It was here that everyone opting to skydive in Taupo was being picked up by the company. Some nervous people we were nice to and explained how unscary and amazing ours was. Others we took the opportunity to wind up, because they deserved it, and I believe my rephrasing of the company’s slogan “fear is temporary, achievement is permanent” to “fear is temporary, death is permanent” saw Kirke empty a bottle of water over my head. George meanwhile was GREEN, shock. Teacher and Caz didn’t seem phased at all..go gurrrlz.

Taupo, home to the great lake Taupo, is a wonderful, if not freeeeeeezing place. KE makes this a two day stop as there is loads to do and one activity in particular takes 8-11hours to complete. This being the legendary Tongariro crossing and Mt. Doom climb. The evening before our crossing should have taken place we took a sail boat and some drinks out on the lake. Mac and Trish did an adorable “Jack and Rose” stance, Sam also attempted this and near on stacked into the freezing water, which apparently would have killed him in no more than 8 minutes… Cold then. Someone blocked the mariners toilet so no one could break the seal however most of us sensibly took it quite easy as bad weather saw our crossing put on hold overnight and we had to be up at 5am to call and check on the situ. Hugely annoyingly it was called off for the day due to high winds. We were particularly unhappy as we had played the Tongariro gamble cautiously the previous night and gone to bed early 😦 (I won’t lie, i was THRILLED not to be getting out of bed at 5am after a bottle of wine the night before to trek up a volcano for 11 hours – From Jade, like i had to clarify) Jeanjé, Neg and Teach opted out of the many adventurous activities Taupo has to offer and got haircuts instead, with a bit of retail therapy chucked in. Ummm, yeh. We made up for the ‘not getting quite drunk enough the night before’ that night though and discovered the following: Teachers increddddible dance moves and a hilarious photo of the guys reaction to this, the local Karaoke joint and an empty green lit club. I’m pretty the night ended with some stories not for the grand kids on certain individuals parts – pun intended?

The following day sort of made up for the lack of crossing. Mac played some highly appropriate choonz to sum up the night before (“because some of you would have had a crack”), and how we were all feeling that morning…hanging then. He took us into the Tongariro national park, where we had perrrrfect weather and snow capped mount Ruapehu (rua – pay – who) and N-something aka Mt Doom. Everyone walked to Tawanaki (ta- wan – aki) Falls on the approach to Mt Doom where we had a picnic and witnessed true New Zealand rugby obsession whereby Mac spent the day totally on edge because his home team were playing a big game. I’m not kidding at all, we had to say a communal prayer… They lost. Awks. Whilst on the subject of Mac, he is an Eminem/Lion King obsessive, so we will all forever associate the music of either with this great country ;). He also pulled over at another waterfall/pond, I can’t remember its name but it’s the on set location where Gollum first discovers the Ring. Boyband photo shoot later and our eventual destination after this day of exploring the Tongariro National Park and all its wilderness, was River Valley…

I don’t really know where to begin. The place was reallllly nice, like an alpine lodge with a roaring fire on the banks of a river at the bottom of a huge gorge, hence River Valley and is particularly known for its white water rafting opportunities, of which we chose not to participate in, partly due to costs but also the cold/deathly nature of it. The evening here escalated quickly… from all 30 odd of us settling into the weird, two GIANT bunk bed dorm (cuddly), to a lovvvvely roast dinner, to the creepy barman basically giving every female free drinks all night…no ulterior motives there then! The less said about this the better I think.

Myself, Neg, Sara, Teacher and Emma headed out horse trekking in the morning. The River Valley stables practice natural horseman ship, which basically means they use rope bridles and reigns instead of bits and the horses don’t wear shoes. Everyone had ridden in the past but not for awhile so we were a little nervous I think its fair to say… Several of the horses tried to play some tricks having already ridden once that morning. Natural horseman ship means you ride with loose reigns and try only to guide them by squeezing with your legs and raising the ropes in either direction rather than pulling or kicking. They are supposed to “feel your energy.” It was different, but the horses, for the most part, were very responsive. Jades horse, Maggie loved the grass (shock, always trying to eat like its rider) and kept her head down as frequently as possible, Teachers horse Pedro followed Emma’s horse Rio anywhere it darted off to, uninstructed, Sara’s behaved perfectly, meanwhile mine swapped between being impressively obedient to jumping over everything to prove she was boss, near enough throwing me off a few times and trying to bite Pedro’s behind. The ladies running our trek, Janey and Nicole were lovely and very impressed with our riding considering the horses rogue attitudes. The views from the rolling hills were also beaut and despite being a slightly random choice of activity for us it was soooo much fun.

Back on the bus smelling of horse and onward to Wellington… The coach needed some spring cleaning after the dirt road leading to River Valls… Mac requested some help with this and of course first to volunteer were the three passengers he had most intensely seduced, utterly infatuated by him, eyelashes fluttering and ready and willing to strip down to bikinis and give the bus a good spraying over were… Adam, George and Alex… Dressed/spilling out of Caz’s swimwear, scaring (scarring?) a coach load of school girls in the process. Kiwi Experience poster boys. The more attractive quality of the lunch break was the town, Bulls. Kiwi sense of humour shining brightly here, each establishment in the town had somehow altered its name or slogan to include the word Bull. For example – the police station, constabull, the pub, sociabull, the bins, recyclabull, the bank, bankabull, estate agents, rentabull etc, etc.

When we eventually arrived in the country’s capital city, gateway to the south island, it was dark. Of course we pretty much set about having some “sociabull’ drinks immediately, what else?! Obviously you aren’t supposed to drink in your dorms, but the hostel bar was closed sooo what were we to do? This is about when we met Rich… An interesting introduction during which he insulted both myself and my mother, prompting Jades feisty side to appear in an incredible moment of back-having. Rich actually fast became one of our favourite people despite this opening incident. Adam strolled into the room with his arm around one heavily inebriated Paul Lin/Yin, our Taiwanese friend, passionately queering “WHO, got Paul Yin hammered?*” When the rest of us were sufficiently “Yinned” and Gollum and George had used excessive amounts of each others saliva to style their hair into curtains, Squidworth – the annoying hostel worker, came knocking on the door to kick us out. Gollum called him the fun police among other mild insults and after some pleading with Squidworth, from those of us who were in a slightly less “witty” stage of drunk, to let us back into the hostel later, we headed to the Welsh bar up the road. This where John became The Rig and Clare The Rig Keeper – basically Johns body was accidentally exposed, revealing an unexpected abercrombie-model-esk figure. The boys, yes the boys, stared at it and discussed it for hours while the girls congratulated Clare. I think George and Gollum got intimate in the pub at some point. George gave Jade a piggy back…but ran towards a moving car, and then later on a bag of spinach was cast around our dorm room and ground into the floor. There was spinach EVERYWHERE (see video), followed swiftly by chicken bones and cold chips, “A-Paul-ing” behaviour. Lord knows where Jade was at this point, perhaps taking a shower? Then at some point everyone slept for a few hours before being rudely awakened to cross the Cook Strait in a painful haze. This is actually a beauty of a ferry crossing through the Marlborough sounds. Saw some Orcas then the backs of our eyelids, heard reminiscent cries of “WHO… whooooo got Paul Yin, HAMMERED” coming from Gollums direction then some lasagne and finally Picton, the entrance to the South Island….

What a night.

Boys and girls, the South Island is up next…

Rose and Jade x

* To answer the age old question “who got Paul Yin hammered?” (Never mind that his surname is actually Lin, unbeknown to us at this stage) it was none other than Teacher who had led astray the young, innocent Lin, giving him, apparently his first, sweet taste of vodka and wine. Bad Teacher… Her behaviour continued to lack proper decorum for the remainder of our Kiwi nights…