We left Rotorua and headed to Taupo, a one hour bus journey south. The route was through foggy valleys with mountains either side, one word best to describe it? Beautiful. The smell of rotten eggs started to fade as we left the geothermal hostpot of Rotorua (although our clothes definitely still had a hint of sulphur which we were told could take months to go away.. looks like you guys at home will get to experience this delightful smell as well!). We passed a few more springs and steam filled lakes en route to Taupo. It was certainly one of the most picturesque journeys I have been on since beginning our travels and is definitely how I imagined New Zealand to look like.

When we arrived in Taupo it was cold and resembled Rotorua a great deal. The bus dropped us off in the town centre and we wandered the streets with our heavy, heavy backpacks looking for our next hostel. Through crossroads and long streets, we finally arrived at our next home for three nights; The Rainbow Lodge. This hostel was immediately busier than Cactus Jacks in Rotorua and came equipped with a lot of common room areas, a big clean kitchen and our spacious 9 bed dorm (shotgun single bed!). The staff are very friendly and there’s a great deal of Germans here. The noticeable difference about these hostels to ones such as Base and Nomads (which are chains, there’s usually at least one of them in each city) is that the staff actually care about your stay. They take the time to show you around the hostel and to your room and are always willing to answer any queries or help you find the best deal on excursions. The free coffee is also a great bonus as well!

This hostel also boasts a small sauna. Nathan, Heidi and I decided to try it out and whack it up to full temperature straight away. We can deal with a 125º dry sauna right? I, of course, was first to start sweating. We amused ourselves with a few games of ‘I spy’ then jumped straight into the A to Z memory game of ‘I went on holiday and in my bag I packed…’ … ‘an aquarium’ followed by ‘an aquarium, a broach…’ … ‘an aquarium, a broach, a clock…’ and so on (I won’t bore you with our complete A to Z list). This game started out fun but as soon as we started getting to the latter end of the alphabet (‘an STD, a T-Rex, a Unicorn’), the time-consuming nature of repeating all 18 previous words and adding on the next became difficult, especially when you’re sweating out of every single pore of your body and the humidity is at an all time high. We were determined to finish the game though and weren’t content until we got to ‘a Zebra’ to then run out of the boiling pit and straight into a cold shower. Won’t be rushing to do that again anytime soon!

In the afternoon we explored our new surroundings. Our hostel slightly resembles a little holiday resort in the country and it definitely feels like we should be sleeping in log cabins by the fire. Especially when the weather is cold in the morning and at night (in the daytime, however, the sun definitely heats you up). Lake Taupo is a strong focal point of this small town, except this lake is almost 30miles long. We decided to find a patch of the lake, which actually looks like the sea, where we could lay for a bit. We managed to find a spot with a pebbly beach and a lot of seagulls and ducks. The sound of the waves crashing onto the shore (surely lakes aren’t meant to have this description?!) was incredibly relaxing causing a few naps to be had. Heidi and I then wandered the streets of Taupo town to shop for Josie’s birthday presents. In doing so, we inadvertently entered the “World’s Coolest McDonald’s”. Honestly, it was proudly displaying this title on the entrance doors. Why? Because it had a real full size plane in the kids play area for you to sit and dine in!! They definitely earned that title and I’m proud to have bought at 60cent ice cream from that establishment. After getting Josie’s amazing presents (and accidentally buying things for myself) we headed to Pak’nSave to purchase our necessary food for our stay. Pak’nSave is a cross between a bulk buy store such as Makro (it also resembles it a great deal) but with the cheap prices of Asda, for example. Nathan and I decided to make a meal that’d last our three night stay. A meal that would not only feed us for the duration of our time in Taupo but probably a family of ten as well. Beef mince, potatoes, onions, carrots and beef stock to create a quick stew or deconstructed shepherd’s pie.

The following day saw us go on a two hour return walk to Huka Falls. The walk was not as bad as expected and again, stunning. We passed the Taupo Bungy and Cliffhanger (Giant swing) site and were in awe of its beautiful location over the Waikato River. Unfortunately no one was about to endure the freefalling activities and so we only had the structures to look at. We continued onwards with our walk through the Thermal Spa park walkway. This took us over a few hills and back down to the hot springs location. A little footbridge led us across the thermal pools where tourists and locals bathed in the 37º water. It is an absolutely amazing sight to see and we were definitely going to have a dip in there after our mini trek to the waterfall. The walk was nice; a few hills on the way but they were balanced out with descents and lovely views of the river and surrounding areas. It took us just over an hour to reach the Huka Falls viewing area which was definitely worth it. When approaching the waterfall, the river got increasingly faster bringing back memories of studying rivers in geography at school. The water level can be ridiculously high at certain times in the day when they open up the dam further upstream. I think we missed this but the falls were still a beautiful sight to see and the constant rush of water through the narrow valley made me want to go white water rafting again. After many pictures and gazing at the falls, we started our return journey. We stopped off at the hot springs and bathed in the natural thermal water where areas of the river were extremely hot whilst other parts were freezing (well, relatively). There was a small waterfall going into this part of the river which was completely hot water. Think of running a bath and only running the hot tap and sitting underneath this hot tap for a few minutes. It was like that. The transition from this area of the river to the colder parts was amazing. These hot pools were the most natural ones we have visited and were definitely a highlight of our trip to Taupo. You could see the hot patches of water from the rippling effect and catch a perfect spot to bathe in; not too hot, not too cold but warm, tepid (or similar adjectives) and just right (this is sounding an awful lot like Goldielocks now). A friendly dog with two completely different coloured eyes then appeared and we spent a good twenty minutes stroking him wondering where his owner was (we came to the conclusion he just wandered off down here to relax and watch the world go by.. he had his usual spot). We left after some lunch and sun bathing and headed to Burger King by the lake to use their free wifi and browse bookme.co.nz (a discount website for all the tourist attractions) to book onto doing the extreme river swing the following day. We also spent a good hour and a half in the blistering sun looking for a hostel in Wellington. There were only five to choose from ranging from the dirt cheap with bad reviews to the pricy ones with moderately good reviews. We finally booked one though and headed back to our current hostel for dinner, beer and card games.

We awoke the following morning with mixed emotions (this keeps happening in New Zealand). These emotions were once again a cross between nervous and excited. Nathan, Josie and I were about to partake in the Taupo Cliffhanger, an extreme canyon swing over the Waikato River. We found it online for $60 cheaper than through the company themselves. I wore my walking shoes for only the second time since England (honestly, no matter how many times you read about bringing walking boots, ignore it. You don’t need them!). After completing the usual safety checks, Nathan and Josie were advised to pair up for a better swing whereas I was heavy enough (all of this muscle weighs a lot alright!) to still get a good swing. We approached the platform which hung over the river below and were kitted out in our harnesses. The only thing holding us in above this fast flowing river. The river leading towards the Huka Falls we had seen the previous day. Nathan and Josie were first. They were secured in by the two instructors (who claimed to be hungover from the previous night. Brilliant) and then hung over the river by a crane. They were then told to wave to the camera and then to look behind and wave to Heidi who was filming this on Nathan’s GoPro. This is where the instructors were mean. Whilst innocently waving to Heidi, they suddenly dropped. The 45metre freefall and begun and neither of them had a chance to even think about what was happening. It’s evident from the video footage Heidi got that she probably screamed more than they did. Josie was apparently speechless in the descent whilst Nathan exclaimed that it was the most he has felt like a bird in his life. I, however, had just witnessed the two of them drop in a split second and then swing up the valley and back down a few times. It was my turn next and now I was definitely more nervous.

Nathan and Josie returned safe and sound. I slowly approached the launch platform and was secured into the harness. The crane then moved to the left and I hung over the river like a toy in the grabber about to fall out. I knew their trick now though and so when they told me to wave to their camera and then to Heidi with the GoPro, I was expecting the worst and the sudden drop. They didn’t do it straight away though. What was now worse was that when I was expecting to fall, I didn’t. What were they about to surprise me with? My heart was beating fast and this only increased when they told me to let go of the harness rope and put my hands behind my head. They thought I was too ‘soft’ to not go through with it. I hesitantly released my grip from the harness and started to put my hands behind my head and lean back. I was shitting myself (pardon my French) but this just didn’t feel natural. In a situation like this you want to hold on, especially when you’re about to fall 45metres before the rope takes your weight and swings you back up. Reluctantly my hands were now somewhat placed behind my head. I looked down a few times and could see the rocky bank of the river. Mistake. Then bam they dropped me. I lasted approximately a second without holding on and screamed at the top of my voice. And swore. But the experience was unbelievable and my hands were soon up in the air as I soared above the river and parallel to the cliff face full of pigeons.

As we’re in New Zealand, we thought it’d only be right to watch the first Lord of the Rings. I had never seen it before (I know.. but I have seen the first two hobbits) and I loved it! It prepared us for our 6hour bus journey the following day to Wellington. We checked out at 10am and waited. Waited in the hostel common room until our 1pm cheaper-than-the-9am bus to the capital.

The coach left Taupo at 1pm and was fortunately pretty empty like our previous two bus journeys in New Zealand. This meant the four of us spread out occupying two seats each for maximum comfort. Halfway into our journey saw us stopping at a remote, small, old service ‘station’ called Flat Hills. It housed a café, souvenir and convenience shop and two chickens. One chicken was very heavy footed and walked as though it had wooden legs. We continued onward to Wellington and half an hour later, drove through Bulls town. It was definitely a very unforgeta-bull place to drive through (I would normally say excuse the pun but there’s really no need because they liked to have a joke in this town. Wait, it gets better..). On the local pub was a ‘remark-a-bull’, ‘love-a-bull’ on a pre school, ‘bank-a-bull’ on the bank, ‘consum-a-bull’ on McDonald’s, ‘const-a-bull’ on the police station and ‘unmiss-a-bull’ on the bins. There was also a large cardboard cut out of a bull with the slogan “bet my bulls are bigger than yours”. Excellent.

The journey was incredibly pretty and picturesque. We passed loads of small towns with barely any shops, cafés or people. Experienced many winding roads and no motorways. Just long stretches of beautiful countryside. When approaching Wellington six hours after leaving the small town of Taupo, the bundles of lit up houses on the hills and the harbour sitting in the sunset was reminding me of when we would drive through Port Talbot, Wales when we were younger.

We trekked for a good half an hour from the bus drop off point to our hostel with all our possessions on our backs. On arrival to our hostel, it was a little less beautiful than the coach trip. A window of the adjoining bar was smashed in, the entrance looked like we were going in to a crack den, the communal toilets resembled grotty public ones and our 8-bed room was a nice tight squeeze. The atmosphere of the whole hostel was odd and unlike any we’ve experienced in any of the hostels we’ve stayed in… but us being the budget travellers we are, we obviously opted for this accommodation over any of the others due to the price tag, $16.

Our first night in Wellington was spent away from our far from homely hostel. We decided the best way to deal with this change in comfort was to drink and so went on a mission to find a pub. It didn’t take long to find a nearby strip of pubs, clubs and fast food joints. We settled for an Irish bar where a live band (well, duo) were playing. All was going well; we had pints, a few card games on the go and two men singing Bruce Springsteen and other such classics. Then there was the solo drunken guy who went and made it weird. With his Guiness in hand, he approached the stage with some sultry moves you’d expect to see in a seedy film and not some classic Irish pub. After much hip gyrating (him, not us) the band went for a break and we got out of there. Welcome to Wellington! We hadn’t eaten since our plethora of snacks on the six hour bus journey and headed to find our dinner… until we got sidetracked by a Kebab shop which had Shisha for $20. Where did we do this shisha? Right outside the kebab window with a backdrop of chicken and lamb. After five minutes we were getting asked by a Māori man what we were doing. He had seen stuff like shisha on TV before but couldn’t grasp why people did it or why we didn’t have anything stronger and illegal in there. After a lot of repetition on why people do shisha and what it is, he called Nathan Ricky Martin and left.

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. It is known as the cultural capital and prides itself on its quirky cafés, indie pubs, mountains of restaurants and cuba street; a street not far from our hostel reknowned for its out-there style. There’s a plethora of coffee shops, vintage clothing stores and busy bookshops nestled in a street full of cool fountains, talented buskers, artists painting via puppets and even an adult playstore. We spent the first full day in Wellington on this street walking up and down, browsing what the shops had to offer and looking at tattoo parlours. After a lunch at the best coffee shop in Wellington, we abused the free city wifi and headed to get quotes for tattoo designs for Nathan and Josie.

I really like Wellington. The only downside to this city is our hostel. It’s bearable but the people who are staying here (whether long-term or short-term like us) are unlike any I’ve met before. There’s a mix of loud, messy and odd individuals who have no respect for their surroundings. They leave dirty dishes everywhere, smoke in their rooms and generally don’t clean up after themselves. Luckily the four of us are staying with nice roommates; a Chilean girl studying in Wellington to become a yoga instructor and three guys, two of whom are working at the hostel to earn their stay. We, however, have spent so much time outside of the hostel experiencing the vibrant life of the capitial that it hasn’t been much of an issue.

Friday the 4th April. A normal day for many.. but not Josephine Atkinson. She was turning 22! She awoke bright and early to Skype her family whilst we wrapped her presents, blew up balloons and drew faces on them (one for each of us and her family members), decorated her cake and made a lollipop trail for her to follow from the hallway to the room. We sand happy birthday at 9am in the morning (much to the delight of our sleeping roommates) and let her blow out the magic candles which never blow out. This bit didn’t exactly go to plan though because the candles gave off so much smoke that we had to put them out in a bottle of water incase that we set off an alarm (pah, as if there’s any alarms in this hostel).

After cake and sparkling wine for breakfast and Josie loving her presents, we headed out for a wander down the harbourfront and to find a restaurant for her birthday lunch. One immediately stood out amongst the rest; The Crab Shack where their slogan was “we’ve got crabs, do you?”. Josie and I ordered the slow roasted lamb shank, Heidi ordered the cajun fish of the day whilst Nathan opted for 1kg of crabs. Smelly crabs. It took him the best part of an hour to munch through this mountain of crab and even gave him crab scented farts. We were all suitably full (the food was absolutely delicious) and headed to a pub for a birthday pint in the sun. Then came the ice skating. There’s a temporary rink on the harbourfront which costs $20 for however long you wish to skate for. We were all (well, not Nathan) displaying Bambi-like footwork on the ice to begin with whilst holding on to the sides for dear life and going 2mph to ensure we didn’t slip up. But once we got used to it, we were professionals. I was skating around happily, speeding up a little and then crash. I fell. Straight onto my derrière in an awkward slump on the wet ice. Confidence knocked complete with a sore knee. Josie was growing in confidence by the minute and after a few laps holding on, she was soon enough gliding around without a care in the world. After an hour and a half of skating, we headed to the liquor store to prepare for the night ahead. Josie’s birthday celebrations were, you could say, a very drunk affair.

The following morning saw a few groggy heads and empty wallets. We were up surprisingly early though and on the hunt for refreshing beverages to cure the dry mouths and sore heads. Nathan and I decided to head to Zealandia, an eco-sanctuary experience just a ten minute drive away from the city centre. It is the world’s first fully-fenced urban eco-sanctuary with its aim to restore the valley to its pre-human state. The fence stops any inference from predators such as mice and possums (your bag is checked prior to entering for any rats or similar) and thus ensures these rare birds and reptiles are safe in recovery of this beautiful valley. The whole park is breathtaking and really is like paradise. We saw a range of rare birds and lizards, including the flightless Tahakē, the Tuatara; the ‘living fossils’ reptile that was extinct on mainland before being released in the sanctuary and the Kākā, a large parrot which we got to see feeding. At the top end of the valley was the upper dam. Now the view from this part of the sanctuary was absolutely incredible. Looking back down the valley and seeing all the surrounding wildlife in its natural state was an awesome experience and one that I would greatly recommend to anyone on the North island.

We’re now getting ready to leave Wellington and head back up to Auckland for our flight to Los Angeles on Monday. Now the most difficult thing about this journey is the length. It is going to take us 13hours to get back to Auckland via ‘the naked bus’ (we’ve told Josie that a requirement to board the coach is to in fact be completely undressed, I’ll let you know how this pans out). I have loved Taupo and Wellington and although I am gutted we didn’t manage to make it to the south island, we have managed to fit so much in and been to some pretty amazing places in the past two weeks here in New Zealand that I guess I’ll just have to come back at some point to explore the southern half.

Ciao for now and hopefully the next time I blog I won’t be stinking of rotten eggs!