The Misadventures of Craic and Doyle!: The Misadventures Continue....

Hello again! Right, first to previous blog amendments!! Turns out we did have an incident with belongings, namely me (Doyle) breaking my sunglasses on the plane!! Whoops! Have a lovely new pair since though so all’s good.

So where did we leave you? Ah yes, it was our night at the match. The next morning we made our way to the Sky City bus terminal and boarded a bus for lakeside town of Rotorua. It is known as the tourist capital of New Zealand being the centre for Maori culture, adventure activities and thermal sites. So what did we do on our first day? Went to the supermarket ‘Pac n Save’, had a Thai curry for lunch, napped in the afternoon and watched the All Blacks in the hostel that evening. Very cultural altogether! Well the rugby part was anyway.

The next day we branched out and did the walking tour around the town as recommended in the Lonely Liar. It proved interesting as we saw a Maori village, Ohinemutu in which there was St Faith’s Anglican Church. It was an interesting building that fused Maori and Christian iconography including Jesus, dressed in Maori costume.He was carved into a window overlooking the lake in glass depicting him walking on the waters of Lake Rotorua. Our walk then took us to Kuirau Park which was a maze of steaming thermal ponds and interesting plantlife.

We continued sightseeing the next day, paying a visit to Whakarewarewa Thermal Village. This is an inhabited Maori village which effectively utilises the thermal field on which is situated. The hot water is used for cooking, bathing and heating. Tour guides are very important in this community and a large part of the exhibition is dedicated to those who expertly communicated Maori customs and culture over the years to visitors, including the first Maori woman to attend Oxford University. We saw a cultural performance which included the Haka, some singing and a poi performance. We ate some amazing sweetcorn that was cooked in one of the pools and it was DELISHIOUS!!!! That afternoon I went up to the Polynesian Spa, a collection of hot mineral outdoor pools. Craic didn’t join me as she had ‘been there, done that!’ In truth, she just couldn’t stand the smell anymore so we looked to our next destination.

The following day we took the hour long bus journey to Taupo by yet another lake and an area synonymous with adrenaline-filled activities. We wandered around in the lashings of rain the first day and so retired early to the hostel and had their chilli meal with a drink for 7.50! Bargain. We chatted to some of the hostellers including an Irish civil servant who was on his the second year of his travels due to the government incentivised career break scheme. The less said about that the better! We watched some beer pong which resulted in one of the finalists having to run out mid-shot to puke and her partner having to finish the game solo. Kinda glad we didn’t take part in that one!!

So the next day we decided to finally partake in an adrenaline-filled activity. Our activity of choice was the Rapids Jet on Waikato river. It’s basically a high-speed boat that tears up and down the river, over rapids and does a few 180 degree turns. It was nearly as hair-raising as a Chinese taxi journey and my hands were very much claws at the end after holding on furiously for half an hour!

On the final day in Taupo we planned on walking to the local landmark of Huka Falls but got sidetracked on the way by the Taupo Bungy! It’s the only cantilever (for all you architectural buffs out there who are reading i.e. Suzanne!) jump in the country. I was half-tempted but I had already made a sort-of agreement with Lucy to do the Auckland Bridge Bungy. So unfortunately we have no bungy tales to relate as yet.

Our first blog could be defined by a quest for cash, this time it was our quest for Wifi. It’s very hard to come by in the country, well for free anyway. Some of the unaccounted time above has been spent hanging around McDonalds or drinking copious amount in cafés that offer free Wifi with purchases. The lack of Wifi has meant that we haven’t been as consistent with the blog as we would have liked (yeah right I hear you saying) but it’s the truth!

Anyway as the Craic will soon be leaving we’ll be lashing out a few more blogs over the next few days so stay tuned!