Day 2 - Mt Mangonui to Auckland - L&P and Shopping

On the way to Auckland on day 2 we passed through some interesting places, one of them being almost a pilgrimage for a lover of L&P such as myself. The first stop, however was a small gold mining town which had a huge open cast gold mine just outside. It was so deep that you can't see the bottom when you'r standing on the rim of the pit. we spent a short time there before heading onwards to Paeroa, which is the birthplace of the world famous (in New Zealand) soft drink, Lemon and Paeroa, more commonly known as L&P. I love the drink, which is like lemonade, but it has just something which makes it taste superb. The whole town is covered with the L&P brand, it's even on the 'welcome to Paeroa' sign and, pride of place in the village square is a giant L&P bottle. I posed for a photo (in my kilt, of course), before we moved on to the cafe, affectionately known as the L&P cafe, featuring another (not quite as big) giant L&P bottle, and selling such delicacies as L&P milkshake and L&P icecream (I didn't try these, settling for just L&P instead). We then climbed back aboard the bus for the trip to Auckland, I was sitting up front, next to the driver, Rangi, who kept tossing me Turkish Delight sweets from his pack of Cadbury favourites, which pacific Coast had given him. I was too polite to tell him that they weren't exactly my favourite, and ate them anyway. We arrived in Auckland about midday, and we got deposited at our various hostels. I was staying at base ACB again. After dumping my bags, i decided to go shopping for a rash top, for swimming. I found very little success in the CBD, with masot of the shops' stock peing either prohibitively expensive, or prohibitively small. In the warehouse, however, I did find a top, which was too small, but I was informed that the warehouse in parnell had one. I took a bus over, and I was really tempted by the top, which was on sale, but it was just that little bit too small. I then decided to go shopping, and found that there was a New world in Newmarket, and so I hopped on another bus to there. I got off at the Victoria park market on the way, and took a look around before deciding that I could have easily blown my entire budget there on one item, and I left shortly after. I popped into New World and picked up the essentials for a good dinner before heading back to the hostel to eat. After tea i decided that, having placed my watch somewhere in my bag in mount mangonui, andf that it wasn't going to appear for some time to come, that I would go out and try to find a cheap watch. i scoured all of the souvenir shops to no avail, before deciding to have a look in the warehouse. i found a very cheap watch for $15, and used one of my christmas presents to pay for it, a gift card (thank you Amy(or is it Amie or Ami)). I then headed back to the hostel to chill for a while longer before heading to boed, only to find that my phone (which doubles as my alarm clock) was out of batteries. I ran down to reception to be told that I could get an alarm clock from the shop donstairs. I bouth one for $4, and I really should have spent more, because it managed to lose 15 minutes in the course of the night, and I nearly didn't get up in time the next morning.

Day 1 - Napier to Mt. Mangonui - Changed plans and new friends.

Day one of my big trip, which also happened to be boxing day, was hectic. I was also the day my Aunt and Uncle were going off to Oz for a month with my cousin Aaron. We had to get the christmas decorations away, pack lunch and get all our bags together ready to go in an hour, befor my other Aunt turned up to take them to the Airport, and me to the bus stop. we got the the airport early, and I waved my aunt and uncle off before we turned and headed off to the bus stop. The bus didn't take long to arrive, and I said goodbye to my Aunt and cousin before embarking. I headed to the back of the bus, where I got talking to a couple of guys, named Al and Jo. The first stop of the day was a lookout over a bautiful watefall in the valley below. We then headed over to Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland. Although I had been there before, there wasn't much elso to do there, so I decided to head in. It was onlt $25, anyway. I walked round with al and Jo, and we saw some really great geothermal features, such as the champagne pools, which were red, devil's hole, which was bright lime green, and the blue lake, which was (can't you guess) bright blue. After Wai-O-Tapu we headed into Taupo and Rotorua for a quick stop to pick up and drop off passengers, before heading out to the Zorb site. I had been zorbing before, and although no-one else wanted to go, Rangi, the driver had to drop us off there so that he could go and fill up the bus with diesel. al, Jo and myself decided not to go zorbing, and we jumped into the neighbouring field and played a game of hacky sack, which is surprisingly more difficult than you would expect. When the bus returned, we all embarked agin to head towards Tauranga and mt Mangonui. i was supposed to be staying in Tauranga, and I would hve been if Rangi hadn't told us all how great Mt Mangonui was at this time of year. I manged to cancel my reservation at YHA Tauranga without penalty, and I manged to get a room at the Pacific Coast Backpackers in the mount. When we arrived, Jo had to go to another hostel, and we all agreed to meet up to go to the beach to bodysurf. It was great fun, and the sea was brilliant for it, with the occasional huge waves coming over to wipe us out. after a good few hours of swimming we all headed back to our hostels, and Al and I agreed to go halves on dinner, so we headed up to the supermarket. We had Sausages with chicken and tomato pasta. We then just chilled around the hostel, and I watched Armageddon in the TV lounge before heading to bed for an early start the next morning.