I love New Zealand!

Heipparallaa! Vihdoin sain kayttooni tietokoneen, netin ja valokuvat kaikki kerralla joten paasin kirjottamaan tanne reissusta Uuteen-Seelantiin! 9 paivan reissu Uuden-Seelannin pohjoissaarelle oli aivan upea! Kirjotin Facebookiin pitkan selostuksen viime viikolla ja aattelin paastaa itteni helpolla ja copy pastea saman jutun tanne, joten pahoittelut etta teksti on talla kertaa englanniksi. En vaan jaksa suomentaa samaa juttua kun kaikki kuitenkin ymmartaa englantia. :)

Nyt oon siis taas Sydneyssa, 5kk jalkeen. Saavuin vahan yli viikko sitten ja oli aluksi kylla outoa olla taalla taas. Tai on edelleenkin. Kun mikaan ei kuitenkaan oo niin kuin ennen. Benny tuli Brisbanesta viime perjantaina ja asutaan nyt sit sen serkun Amandan ja taman poikaystavan luona ennen kuin loydetaan oma kamppa.. Kaytiin heti viime lauantaina kattomassa paria asuntoa mut ne oli aika kamalia.. Haluisin kylla loytaa kampan mahd pian kun ei oo kauheen kivaa asua toisten nurkissa... Alotin toidenhaun heti tanne saavuttua ja olisin saanu duunin Australian toiseksi suurimmasta surffivaatekauppaketjusta, seka yhdesta Darling Harbour kahvilasta, mutta sit mun vanhan tyopaikan (Brazilian Collection) pomo teki niin hyvan tarjouksen etten voinu kieltaytya siita.. Noissa muissa hommissa olisin ainakin aluks ollu vaan osa-aikanen, ja olis joutunu tekene iltoja ja viikonloppuja mutta mun vanhassa tyossa on illat + vkl vapaat ja sain aika ison palkankorotuksen ($2,5 enemman kuin viimeks, vahan alle 2e siis kai), seka teen hommia lahes kokopaivaisesti. Surf dive and ski'ssa ja kahvilassa olis ollu tyokavereita kun vanhassa tyossa on yksinaista, tylsaa ja hirveet paineet myyda myyda myyda... Mut raha ja vapaa-aika voitti.. Yritan etsia kyl viela jonkun iltatyon kun oon ihan pa..

Taalla oli viime viikolla tosi lampimat ilmat, 24-26 astetta! Sunnuntaina taalla meidan lahella yhdessa isossa puistossa ilmainen Earthdance tapahtuma, jossa oli vaikka kuinka monta eri lavaa ja ihan tajuttomasti porukkaa. Kuvittele Helsinki-paivan konsertti Kaivarissa mutta 5 kertaa isompi ja elektronisen musiikin eri lajeja. Yes please! Niin ja eilen olin koko paivan L'Orealin (tai itse asiassa Matrixin) hiusmallina. Joku artisti Perthista tuli ja varjas ja leikkas 7 mallin hiukset. Nyt on taas uus muodikas(?) tukka. Punanen muuten mutta paalta vaalea. Siihen meni koko paiva ja illalla oli sit Darling Harbourissa show jota varten meidan puettiin upeisiin mekkoihin ja maskeeraaja tuli ja teki upeet dramaattiset silmameikit kaikille. Ja sitten kaveltiin lavalle 150 ihmisen eteen. Mun hiusten leikkaus viimeisteltiin lavalla. Lainasin Bennyn serkulta mustat korkokengat ja olin ihan paniikissa etta ihan varmasti kaadun kun en IKINA kayta korkokenkia mutta se meni ihan hyvin.

Siina suurimmat kuulumiset ja seuraavaksi siis tarina Uudesta-Seelannista.

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Ok, I thought i'd write a little something here about my trip to NZ, in case someone is interested to read.Well where to start.. NZ was amazing!! Awesome! What else. Fantastic. I loved it! It is by far my favourite country in the world (where i've been of course). It was green it was friendly it was interesting and there was so many things to do! You could never get bored. But of course you needed some money to be able to do something.. Nothing came for free in that country, altho nothing was too expensive either.

We (me and Benny) spent 9 days in the North Island of New Zealand. (wasnt enough.. wouldve needed another 9 days.) For the first weekend we stayed at Benny's auntie's mansion (yes, a mansion) in Auckland. Didnt like Auckland very much.. quite a boring and ugly little city. Dodgy people everywhere who looked like they were from the country.. Benny jumped from the sky tower which was probably the highlight of Auckland. Oh and of course Gatecrasher and Dogzilla! Was interesting to see the clubbing scene in NZ. Quite a nice little scene and nice people. Spent more time chatting with random people than dancing i guess. :D

The rest of our holiday we spent driving around the North Island. Or not that we went around it much cos we didnt really have time.. But i guess we saw the main attractions. Our base was the little beach holiday town of Mt Maunganui where B's auntie had a luxury holiday apartment. We stayed there every night except one, and made little day trips to the nearby attractions. One day we drove to the Coromandel peninsula where we saw some nice coastal scenery and beautiful green hills/mountains. The highlight of that day was the Hot Water Beach, where 2h before and after low tide you could dig yourself a hole in the sand and have your own natural hot bath!! Was amazing! In some places the water coming from the ground was so hot you couldnt stand in it! Being a pretty big attraction in Coromandel peninsula, we of course weren't the only ones on the beach, but was funny to look at all the people sitting in their little hot water holes some drinking beer or wine. :)

NZ being on the edge of two tectonic plates, I was really excited about seeing some volcanic stuff and the best place to see geysirs, thermal springs, thermal lakes and fumaroles was Rotorua. We had planned to spend 1 day in Rotorua but soon realised that wasnt enough at all so ended up going back the following day. Rotorua was highly commercialised town and you had to pay to get to see that thermal stuff, and everything else as well. But it was well worth it! Luckily it was still a pretty quiet time for tourism in NZ so in some places we were the only ones on a tour and didnt have to listen to loud Japanese tourists (NO offence!!!). Rotorua was, (despite the commercialism, and the SMELL!) prob my favourite place in the North Island. I will never forget the sight of steaming lakes and boiling mud pools. Was amazing to walk around this one park and just see a hole in the ground and steam coming out of it. Or a little pond where the water was boiling. We also went to these Polynesian Baths to relax in the mineral hot baths. Twice.

What else. Rotorua is also the action capital of North Island. Equivalent to Queenstown in South Island. There wouldve been so many things to do, but we decided to choose only one, and what a good choise it was. Zorbing!!! Zorbing is one of the funnies things i've ever done. You basically go inside this big rubber ball and roll down the hill in it! doesnt maybe sound that cool but it was! Glad Benny talked me into it. We did it together and because it was raining that day, we had to do the wet zorbing where they dont strap you to the ball with a harness but instead you're free and they put water (warm!!) inside the ball. Was soooo fun! If you ever go to Rotorua you HAVE to go Zorbing! In Rotorua we also went on a little tour to find out more about the weird endangered Kiwi bird, and we saw them too!, and also went on a tour to Kiwi fruit plantations. Was pretty interesting! Didnt know that there were male AND female Kiwi trees. If there isnt a male one, there's no fruit. So there you go. A bit like us humans dont you think? :)

Well then we finally said good bye to Rotorua and headed to Taupo (South of Rotorua, Lake Taupo is the biggest lake in the southern hemisphere, and its actually an old huge crater of a volcano!) where our (or at least Benny's) main goal was to do a bungy jump. (Taupo is apparently where they invented the bungy jump!) We stayed the night in a hostel in Taupo (nicest hostel where i've ever slept, and still cheap!) and in the morning we were all ready to face the bungy ropes! We ended up spending like 2 hours there, cos it took me a while to decide what i was going to do.. jump, or not to jump.. Benny went first by himself, and soon after that i decied to JUMP! I was terrified but i knew i would regret it if i didnt jump... so off we went.. I was shaking, bad, when we got to the platform and they started tying the harnesses around my ankles.. I actually started crying a little bit cos so terrified i was.. I couldnt have done it alone so we actually jumped a tandem jump with B!! When we got to the edge and i looked 47 meters down to the beautiful green river i was saying to Benny in tears, 'i dont wanna jump benny no no no' and he was just laughing. and they two staff guys where saying you'll be fine you'll love it. The other guy actually had to undo my fingers from the rope that i was holding on to. And he gently pushed us off the platform. And i screamed! I screamed so loud i'm surprised B isnt deaf. ;) It was the hardest (and craziest!) thing i've seriously ever done. Jump off that platform and free fall for a few seconds. But after the rope finally took our weight i was laughing and so proud of myseld i did it. Was almost going to do it again but decided not to... Benny went for a third time tho.. So yay! I've jumped a bungy jump! always saod i would never do it.. Next its skydiving i guess. haha.. never!

Rest of that day we drove around the Tongariro natinal park which consists of 3 volcanoes, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. That area was actually used in the movies Lord of The Rings, and Mt Ngauruhoe was used as Mt Doom, where the eye of Sauron was. So was pretty cool to see that. The scenery of those snow topped volcanoes was prob the most beautiful i've ever seen! And we actually drove to the snow in Mt Ruapehu where there are a couple of Ski resorts. They were already closed so no skiing for us but had a little walk on the snow. Havent seen snow for1,5 years now so it was fun.

On our last day we drove thru the little town of Matamata where they once had the Hobbiton from LOTR but decided not to go on the tour cos it was sooo expensive and apparently there isnt much left of the place.. Took a few photos in front of the Hobbiton sing and a statue of the weird creature.. Klonkku, Golom or whatever it is in english. We had a little bit of excitement before arriving back to Auckland cos for some reason we didnt get more petrol in Matamata and then we didnt see any petrol stations anywhere so we were literally driving on the fumes untill we finally saw one. I'm sure the car wouldve stopped running in a few minutes... what a nice ending for a holiday that wouldve been..

Well sadly we left NZ after our short holiday.. We didnt get to go to the Bay of Islands north of Auckland, which apparently is one of the nicest places in the N island with amazing coastal scenery.. We didnt get to climb a volcano of go horse riding or white water rafting but I guess theres now a good reason to go back. Definitely next summer! Even if that means i have to quit my job in Sydney... :) Almost wouldve preferred to stay in NZ and not come back to Oz at all. ;)