This post is about our days in Auckland, Waitomo and Rotorua! 🙂

1st day – Friday (05/25/2012)

We arrived in Auckland around 1am on Friday morning. When we arrived at the airport, which was all decorated with Maori decorations, we exchanged our US dollars for New Zealand dollars and went in search of transfers until ours hostel, which was 23km from the airport. We took the company's bus AirBus, very comfortable indeed.

He left us in Queen Street, main street of the city, very close to the corner with City Road, where our hostel was. The problem was that we had to climb a very steep hill, with backpacks on our backs, at 2 am. We arrived very tired and to make matters worse, we came across a very bad-looking guy on the street, all hooded, which scared us a little, but nothing happened. thank God.

We arrived at the hostel, we did the check in, We bought noodles and juices at the reception and left our backpacks in the room, which was private, with two single beds. What a horrible musty smell! =(

If we weren't so tired and were only going to sleep there for two nights (this one included), we would have changed hostels. The bathrooms were shared with the other rooms on the same floor, one for a shower and two with toilets. We went down to cook our super dinner, got some pamphlets about tours and attractions and went to sleep.

We woke up around 9am, got ready and went out for a walk without having breakfast, because there was none at our hostel. Very close by, we came across a protest by locals with some oil company, from what we understood. They were standing in front of a hotel and there was a lot of police there.

We kept walking, we crossed the bridge Grafton Bridge, we passed in front of the National Women's Hospital, and we stopped for breakfast at Grafton Campus , from the University of Auckland. It was good to be back in an academic environment. I even missed it. 🙂

Then we walked a little and entered the Auckland Domain, huge and very organized park, which has several fields for practicing sports. We even saw people playing soccer, despite rugby be the country's main sport.

Still inside the park, we walked to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, quite imposing, but we didn't go in. Afterwards we visited the Winter Garden, It was quite nice, by the way, and we continued walking through the park and ended up leaving it where Grafton Road meets Stanley Street. We walked around there and I confess that we didn't like it very much. There wasn't anything very pretty to see, just shops and shopping centers, not very different from what we have in Brazil. We continued to Beach Road and turned left, to return to the more touristy area. It got a lot better there... lol

We passed the docks, the Ferry Building on Quay Street, we stopped to buy a sandwich at Subway nearby and we sat in a place with a fascinating view of the bay.

Then we enter the Freddy's Ice House, a bar made entirely of ice, where we dressed warmly to withstand the freezing temperature of the bar (they provide appropriate clothing). We drank the drinks which were included and we enjoyed the whole ice environment, including the tables, chairs, sculptures… I thought it was really cool! We asked the lady to take pictures of us with their camera, because we couldn't bring our own cameras. We bought the pictures later, for extortionate prices, but they were worth it! =D

We left there and headed towards the National Maritime Museum, where we saw on the way a boat more luxurious than the other. We didn't go into the museum. Afterwards we decided to walk along Queen Street, full of cool shops. We bought the chip from the cell phone to have Internet, we had another snack and we went towards SkyCity, a huge tower with several restaurants, a casino and shops. We went up to see the view of the city, which is so beautiful, and we made a reservation for the only free time at the revolving restaurant. While we waited for our time, we went down to see the casino, which is amazing! Huge, super luxurious, with lots of entertainment options. We almost lost track of time there. We went up for dinner and got our orders exactly right (I don't remember what they were...). The dishes and wine were wonderful and were recommended by our Indian waitress, whose name was "Nanda", my namesake...lol. We left there super happy and went to play for the first time together, very excited about the experience.

We won money at roulette, believe it or not, and we couldn't leave. When it was 3am, we decided to stop and took a taxi back to the hostel, because we knew we had to wake up relatively early. That's when I discovered that I'm a person who easily gets addicted to gambling. 🙂

2nd day – Saturday (05/26/2012)

We woke up at 9am, we did checkout from the hostel, we took a taxi and went to the car store we rented from Brazil, EuropCar. We got the Toyota Yaris, which was very cute and belonged to the simplest category. We thought the car was excellent.

The coolest thing is that there, because it is English hand, the car is all upside down and it took us a while to get used to it. We made a mistake by not renting a GPS, because we only had a poor map, which made us lose a lot of travel time.

We had to drive to Waitomo, where we had scheduled for 1 pm one rafting with the company Black Water Rafting. We got really lost when we arrived in Hamilton, because we didn't have a map of the city and the city is relatively large, with no one on the streets to help us. We called the company and rescheduled our appointment for as late as possible. Our phone froze a few times and only when it finally started working properly were we able to use the GPS and get to Waitomo. We almost missed our scheduled tour.

We arrived at the company 10 minutes before the tour started. They called us to put on our wetsuits, boots and gloves and explain the whole tour. We thought it would be a rafting inside a cave, with rowing, waterfalls and other things, but in reality, they give you a black circular float (like those you get at a water park) and you sit on it and are carried along by the river that runs through a cave. It's much calmer than we thought, but I have to say it was a UNIQUE experience!!

We entered the cave with headlamps, which were super useful when the ceiling was very low or the sides were very narrow. When we entered the river, with the water incredibly cold, even with the appropriate clothing, the guides gave us chocolate bars to eat so we wouldn't get hypothermia. You could feel the cold, right?

We started the tour by going through places so narrow that we had to push ourselves against the ceiling to sink deeper into the water and be able to continue. When we reached wider places, the guides asked us to turn off our flashlights so we could see the glowworms stuck to the ceiling. These little creatures are fluorescent lava, which give a magical tone to the cave... they look like stars on the ceiling... so beautiful! There are thousands of them and the silence of everyone made the tour even more enchanting. The highlight was when all the floats were lined up in the river, being carried by it, and the guide started singing Disney songs, which made us feel like we were inside the cartoons. It was SO WORTH IT, even with the absurd cold! (for more photos, go to company website)

After we got out of the water, we took the van back to the company and took hot showers and had a snack to warm up even more. We hit the road again and drove to Rotorua, despite the fatigue.

The road was pitch black, with no cars passing by, which made us sleepy at times. We even considered sleeping in other cities beforehand, but none of the places we passed seemed to have a hotel, they were so small. We stopped the car a few times to walk around and wake up…it was tense.

When we arrived in Rotorua, we stopped at the first motel we saw, the Pohutu Lodge Motel, which, luckily for us, was excellent!!! We got a room with a hot tub and a wonderful bed. The room was actually an apartment, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen… pure luxury!

As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by the owners, who also live there. They are two very nice gentlemen who gave us several tips and made us a snack outside of the permitted hours, since they saw that we had been driving for a long time and needed something to eat. They prepared a snack with lots of toast, cheese and cakes that satisfied our hunger. We took advantage of the bathtub and sprawled out on the super soft bed. It was the best night's sleep of the entire 30-day backpacking trip!

3rd day – Sunday (05/27/2012)

We woke up around 9am, had an excellent breakfast and went to the Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland see the geyser highest point in the park erupts. We were told that we needed to be there around 10:30 in the morning and we wondered why it was so precise, since it was a natural phenomenon. When we got there, we understood why – it was not a natural eruption, but rather induced by a park employee who threw soap into the hole. It lost a bit of its charm, but it was still worth seeing. geyser splash water a few meters high.

After this geyser, we continued walking through the park, which has a lot of thermal activity. One landscape more beautiful than the other... the trails are well explained and there is a lot to see... we stayed there for many hours, enchanted by what we saw, despite the strong smell of sulfur everywhere.

We left the park and went to a hot waterfall recommended by the owner of our motel. Given the cold weather, a hot bath was welcome at any time of day, especially in a waterfall, which was new to us. We parked the car and went to the waterfall, still bundled up. We came across some people taking a bath, super relaxed…we really wanted to go in. We changed our clothes right there in the cold and got into the very hot water. It was delicious! The problem was the smell of sulfur, which really bothered us a little. We started to wonder if it would be good for our bodies and decided not to stay too long.

We got back to the car, very cold, and went straight to the motel to take a hot shower. We got ready and spent some time in the motel's backyard enjoying the view. geyser and we went for a walk around the city, which is very pretty by the way. We stopped at the supermarket, bought our dinner and went back to our apartment. A relaxing day, for sure.

4th day – Monday (05/28/2012)

We woke up at 9am, we did checkout from the motel and headed towards the airport, where we would catch a flight to Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand. We dropped the car off at the airport and spent time waiting until our flight time. The airport is lovely, super small, and the plane we took was also small, with external propellers, to my surprise and panic, of course.

If you want to know more about our trip to Australia and New Zealand, check out the links below:

• Summary of 30 days in Australia and New Zealand
• Itinerary – Sydney and Blue Mountains (5 days)
• Itinerary – Auckland, Waitomo and Rotorua (3 and a half days)
• Itinerary – Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Franz Josef and Fox Glacier (4 days)
• Itinerary – Queenstown and Milford Sound (4 days)
• Itinerary – Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, Philip Island and Yarra Valley (7 days)
• Itinerary – Brisbane, Surfers Paradise and Gold Coast (5 days)
• Itinerary – Alice Springs (Australian outback) (5 days)

If you want to book tours safely in New Zealand, be sure to check out Civitatis' options: