Drenched in Durgaville!
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2004
1
20
47
Trip End
Oct 01, 2005
Durgaville, New Zealand
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Well we've finally made it to New Zealand and it isn't exactly what we were expecting...RAIN RAIN AND MORE BLOODY RAIN!
After the last entry we spent a couple of days more in Singapore, being lazy and sleeping a lot! Then on New Years Eve we flew down to Auckland - we were hoping they might do something fun on the plane since it was New Years, but the pilot was a boring old git and just told us when it was New Years in Brisbane, how relevant!
The next day my dad, brother, sister (Stephanie) and her boyfriend (Ian) arrived - my dad was gutted when he saw the hostel I'd booked us into! I always thought he wasn't too bothered about such things, but it seems an immensely cramped 6 bed dorm with communal showers, situated in the red light district next door to the 'BJ Bar - a good place to come and HANG OUT' - 'Rent rooms by the hour - anyone, anything, anytime', wasn't his style!! That night we went up a tall tower, which had some pretty good views over Auckland.
The next day we hired a minibus and drove down to a place called Waitamo, where we found a cool campsite and had a BBQ and a few (quite a few actually!) drinks. The next day we got up far too early to go down into a gloworm cave for a couple of hours - it was really cool, we had to put on wetsuits and helmets and go squeezing through tiny gaps and floating down underground streams - the water was freezing but it was really good fun!
The next day we started our 8 day cycling tour of the north island, which so far has been a bit of a let down! We have a group of absolute idiots with us and it is absolutely pissing down - really not the best when you are supposed to be cycling all day and camping by night! The first day was ok, we drove up to the Bay of Islands and had a bit of a cycle, but yesterday was a bit of a disaster. After a nice long lie in, we eventually got on our bikes and about 10 minutes after we left the campsite, the heavens opened and we got soaked to the skin - we just turned back, showered again and got a taxi into town. Today we have spent the entire day on the bus as it's too wet to cycle or do any of the activities we'd booked like sandboarding - we're really hoping the weather improves or we're gonna have a very dull week ahead!
Anyway, enough moaning! My dad and brother are heading over to Oz tomorrow and then it'll just be us, Stephanie and Ian, and a whole bus full of overly enthusiastic, boring weirdos!
