New Year, New Zealand

After saying goodbye to our parents, and sending Chris down to stay with his mate, fellow Bridgend escapee, Mark Chapel (now living in Auckland with his girlfriend, having found life in Swindon too much to bear), the plan was to do some diving at Poor Knights Island (we were getting cold turkey, and Santa had got my a shinny new marine casing for my camera). Unfortunately the weather was foul and with a 30 knots wind and 2 metre swell the trip was cancelled.















Next stop was Kirsten's cousin Hamish's house at Whangarei Heads. He has a great place with yet another gorgeous deck looking over Little Monroe Bay which is entertainingly next to McLeod Bay. We sat out the end of the bad weather with an afternoon playing pool in the local pub, before settling in for an evening of drinking scrabble.

The weather turned again, and we spent a few hours on Ocean Beach, getting thrown around in the surf and playing beach cricket. Early evening was spent boat fishing with one of Hamish's mates Danny (obviously I gave this a miss, but was there as an humanitarian observer). The first fish out was a rather large Red Snapper, which had managed to swallow down both hocks, and was in some distress. A quick whack with the brain spike, and it was all over. Despite a rod swap, and a couple of position changes, the final score was Danny 5 – Kirsten 0.

After parallel parking two boats outside the house (a sight that seems to draw little attention in New Zealand), we settled in to an evening of drinking and eating barbecued Snapper (haloumi for me). We started New Year's Eve with some piss poor attempts to wakeboard. I sat in the water, knees bent, and board in front of me, as instructed. There then followed a few seconds where I ploughed several tonnes of water in front off me before the rope was finally ripped from my hands. We repeated this half-a-dozen times, with some variations, like me being dragged completely underwater, but at no point did I “just pop up”. Kirsten faired a little better, and on the high speed photos, she almost looks like she's standing. Needless to say, the sensation the next day, is that someone has tried to rip your arms out of their sockets.














It was sad to leave the beach, but we had a prior engagement in Auckland (and more free accommodation with Kirsten's oldest friend Kiri). So it was off to Mission Bay with Chris et al. One average meal, and a couple of hours in some medical fund raiser later, and it was all over for another year (Chris decided to start drinking again in time for the British New Year). Meanwhile Kiri had got back from the beach (she'd abandoned us for New Year), so we barbecued yet more haloumi and forced her to watch our video.















Next stop on the grand tour was Rotorua. The place really stinks. Or more precisely our hotel, the Ambassador Thermal Motel, with its three outdoors thermal pools, really stinks (still nice to be able to fart with impunity). Besides the eggy smell, the town has a downmarket feel (it's known as Rotovegas on account of the number of casinos), and is decidedly unlovable in the rain.
We did the geothermal areas, with the geysers and the bubbling mud, the Maori cultural show, and the Polynesian spa. However all this paled next to the short but exhilarating white water rafting on the Kaituna river. This involved a 7 metre waterfall (the highest you can pay to be taken over), and while our boat, with its superior crew, stayed upright, the following boat finished upside-down.