Rolo on Tour

(38) Crunchtime

28 07 2011

In a basketball game the last quarter of a game is often referred to as ‚Crunchtime‘. For me the last 3 month of my 1year-trip started when I set foot on New Zealand (or Aotearoa as the Maori call it). So we can say that the Crunchtime of my travels has just started and the last energy is needed to finish the trip in a good way. Lets see if I am a crunchtime player!

Arriving in Auckland I entered a different world from what I have experienced the 9 months before. And something felt especially weird when I was walking in the city. After one day I realized that the problem were the cars which were driving on the ‚wrong‘ side of the road. As that fact can just not enter my brain I kind of look everywhere now every time I cross a street. Always it’s a relief to reach the other side :-).

Auckland and its landmark, the Sky Tower

Of course there are lots of other differences. First of all the people coming to travel here are different from the people I met before. Especially the following groups have a lot of members here:
Asians who never speak a word, 20 year old Germans who talk all the time about how good they were at school and spoiled british guys happy that the party buses organize everything for them and that they can sit next to each other on them ;-).

A pretty nice thing about New Zealand is that it is such a green country. Of course the reason for that has to be taken into account as well: It rains a lot…

Everywhere you look, it’s green

Also the bus rides here are quite different. First of all the bus takes so many breaks, it is unbelievable. 25% of all travel time is needed just for the coffee/breakfast/2nd breakfast/lunch… breaks of the driver.
Being well fed maybe that is why they have still so much energy left that they are all trying to be entertainers. One for example started a snowball fight on a break 😉

A good place to throw some snowballs at your passengers

So let me tell you a bit about my travels on the North Island. From Auckland I went to a small place called Waitomo, which has many caves nearby. On the way I could see an eel beeing feeded, but of course the highlight was to come later.

No, the finger is not part of the food

And that highlight consists of the many glowworms who live in these caves. Once all the lights are out they produce a quite amazing sight:

I want them on the ceiling of my bedroom!

Afterwards I got to know a place called Rotorua which has a smell of sulfur all around caused by the geothermal activity in that area. I wonder if that causes thirst:

„Let’s all meet up at the lake for a drink or two“

Next was the capital of New Zealand: Wellington. There I spent a whole day in their national museum ‚Te Papa‘. It has many interesting things to offer and it was free – a rare thing in New Zealand. Also I could visit their national parlament and have a quick insight in how their democracy works just before catching the ferry to the South Island.

Arriving on the South Island just in time for the sunset