John's Around the World Adventure 2005/2006

Following what felt like two days of solid travel, it was wonderful to arrive in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. Fuelled by huge optimism and expectation, excitement levels were sky high in anticipation of the adventure that would now begin to unfold over the months ahead.

Auckland certainly did not disappoint, initially anyway. Everything was so green and clean making our way from the airport. We arrived in Auckland city at 5am, desperate to find our home for the next few days, to soften the jet lag blow.

It certainly was an experience, sleeping in a huge hostel with many like minded people around. Dorm beds were to be the new reality, leaving the luxuries and creature comforts we so take for granted at home. We had expected Auckland to typify New Zealand. How wrong were we!

Despite this, there were still a few things to see and do to keep ourselves occupied for at least a few days. Named the "city of sails" we thought it appropriate to visit the modern Viaduct Harbour, walked to a pleasant Aquarium and explored the marvelous Sky Tower complex.

After leaving Auckland with our rental car (nicknamed the 'hound' due to its extreme prowess), our first stop was a sleepy old gold mining town called Thames, on the eastern Corromandel Peninsula. From here, we stopped at the port town of Tauranga where we spend a nice evening sampling the local beers in an Irish Pub.

Next was the University town of Hamilton, modern, clean and fairly impressive. From here we also paid a visit to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, sailing below the masses of glowworms on a narrow boat. Our next stop was a trip to 'Sulphur City', the very eggy Rotorua. Here we visited some truly spectacular thermal reserves, exploding water geezers, mud pools and even had time to learn about the traditional Maori culture.

From here, my next stop was the skydiving site of the Great Lake Taupo, caused by a huge (and I mean huge!) volcanic eruption many thousands of years ago. I persuaded Sol to join me in braving it for a 12,000 ft tandem skydive, a freefall of 45 seconds (it felt like a lifetime until the parachute ejected). My instructor kindly chose to tell me afterwards that 'at least we had a good parachute this time' Aww!!!

Weaving through the hills, mountains and national parks was amazing (we hardly saw another car around, maybe due to the fact that sheep outnumber people 5:1??). The scenery and driving challenge was indescribably getting better and better the further south we traveled (a trend we later discovered was consistent all the way south).

Our next stop was Palmerston North and then on to the lovely coastal city of Wellington, New Zealand's capital city. King Kong was just being premiered here as we arrived and this was just one example of the many things to keep us occupied, making the city very vibrant at our time of visit. We also took the spectacular cable car up the mountain to a lookout over the City. Spectatular!