I tried to come up with a tricky, funny title for our first post about this country but New Zealand kept whispering over my shoulder to keep it simple like much of their country, so here we are.  Part 1.  I have no idea how many parts this will take but welcome to the story of our journey of what we reckon will be the most beautiful country on our journey.  Cheers!

We decided to book a bus tour for our trip around New Zealand with a company called Stray, whose motto is “Off the beaten path” and they delivered.  We got to see the north and the south island and even Stewart island off the southern tip of the south island.  New Zealand is an amazingly beautiful country…everything you’ve heard about it is true and seeing it in person was overwhelming at times.  And even with that being said, I doubt we’d ever do a tour bus trip again.  That’s not a slight at Stray!  We got exactly what we paid for. The drivers were amazing, and we met some awesome friends along our journey! Mandy kept referring to it as “Church camp”, and even though I’ve never been to any sort of summer or church camp, I’d have to agree.  We also realized that we are independent travelers and the rigors of the bus schedule was something we had to get used to. If we had to do it again, we’d happily rent a car and go on our own pace.

When we first landed in New Zealand from Los Angeles, we took a bus to a little town called Mt. Eden, just south of Auckland, and stayed there for a few days while we waited for our tour bus adventure to begin.  We were within walking distance to the hilltop which the town is named after and ended up climbing it a few times while we were there to catch the breathtaking views from the top.  The town was small enough to walk and had only one main street, where we had the best Italian dish we’ve ever had in a little boutique shop, ate fish & chips and drank beer during happy hour at a local pub, but most importantly…we got caught up on our sleep from the time change.

Crater in Mt Eden

We moved to a downtown Auckland hostel 30 minutes north since our tour bus was leaving at 7 in the morning the next day.  We met our bus driver, Lolly, at a meet-and-greet the night before and we immediately liked her.  We all went out for pizza and beers and got to know each other a little bit.  I entered a pool tournament and was knocked out about halfway through and I blame the small balls they use over here.  Our balls are bigger in Texas.

Our first driver, Lolly, in Wellington

The next morning we got on our bus which was a big coach and seated about 50 people.  Mandy’s motion sickness pills would be her savior throughout New Zealand because the bus sways in the wind.  We also mostly tried to get a seat at the front, which also helped her.

The first stop on our route was in Ragland.  As we got closer to our destination, Lolly got on her headset and started telling us about all the activities we could do there.  The main one was surfing and people signed up for it despite the fact they’d be in a wet suit in the freezing cold water.  Mandy did yoga here from a hilltop overlooking the Pacific ocean and it was just as serene as it sounds.  We all went down to the beach later to watch the surfers and play soccer…excuse me…football on the beach and mostly just chill out.  Lolly was excited about the nighttime activity which they apparently only do when her bus pulls in.  We would have a trivia/challenge night and everyone would dress up in crazy outfits, and then we’d have a huge barbecue.

Our team came in third that night thanks mostly to Mandy, who volunteered to do most of the challenges that night including dancing to Michael Jackson songs, pretending to be a Yak while screaming “YAAAAK!  YAAAK!”  For my part, I downed a beer and then dumped the empty bottle over my head to prove I had drank it all.  I had not, and the remaining beer drizzled onto my head.  I also did a haka ‘dance’ which was really just a pose I had seen on the TV here.  It was a ton of fun and we all were complaining about our faces hurting from laughing so hard afterwards.

The next day, we would get up early onto the bus and head towards Mourea, with a stop along the way in Waitomo to see underground caves and glow worms. Farmers in this part of New Zealand began discovering these caves on their land when their cows would fall down a hole and they would pay someone to descend into the abyss and see if the cow could be saved.  They began charging people to come and tour the caves and when it got to be too big of an operation, they contracted out work through tour companies that now bring people in and out.  They’ve also built wooden walkways and lights throughout the structure so you can see better.  I took some pictures while in here, but none of them do the cave system justice.  You have to see it for yourself!

Next, we got in an inflatable boat in a dark cave to see glow worms.  These guys hang a string from the ceiling that lights up at the end to catch insects that fly into the cave and then see the light and go towards it.  As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you begin to see millions of these lights hanging from all parts around the cave.  Some are darker than others because they are younger and it was magical.

Glow worms

After all this it was back on the bus and on to Mourea, which would be our first “Uh -oh, what have we gotten into” part of the trip.  We would all be sleeping under one roof, in a huge meeting house of a local Maori tribe.  The Maori are the local indigenous people of New Zealand and endure similar issues as the Native Americans back home, or the Aboriginal tribes in Australia.  It’s an honor to be invited into their home and most New Zealanders have never done anything like this, we were told.

A nice young lady introduced herself and explained that we would walk onto their property with all the women going in first, and we would stop halfway through and pause for a moment of silence for the deceased.  We were not allowed to wear our shoes into the meeting house, and had to leave all food and water outside on the porch.  After being greeted by the brother and chief of this tribe we were asked to greet each other with the typical Maori greeting, which consists of touching the tip of your noses two times and shaking the other person’s hand.  I’ve never heard so much  nervous laughter in my life.  This was something none of us had ever done and it was so far out of our comfort zone.  Once I sat down, I saw that Mandy was still up there with a few other people and she was  just shaking hands with people.  It was a bit too much for her and I don’t blame her one bit.

We all had dinner which they made for us, and then they put on a little show.  There was dancing and singing and juggling and then they dropped the bomb on us.  The girls would all be learning how to do a Poi dance, which they would then present to the guys…All five of us. (This is the part where I get to mention that, on average, there were about 10 girls for every guy on the buses – and that’s all I’m going to say about that because I am married to a beautiful woman whom I love and adore very much.)  And the guys would be learning a haka dance and presenting it to the girls (All 37 of them). The haka we would be learning was apparently the one performed by the all blacks – the local rugby team, which they perform before every game (match?).  It’s supposed to intimidate, and done correctly, it does.  Performed by 5 goofy dudes in front of 37 girls, well…this is the stuff of nightmares.  Video of this exists somewhere on the facebook but I’m not linking it here because duh.

The next day, we were back on the bus and on to Rotorua, which has earned itself the non-official title of “RotoVegas” due to it’s popularity.  This is the town from which you can take the Hobbiton tour, where you can go see where they filmed the Hobbit movies.  We willingly turned in our nerd cards when we decided not to do this excursion but were more than happy to keep the $$$ it would have cost us in our pockets for the remainder of New Zealand.  If you’re a fan of the movies, you should go see it.

We decided to take a mud bath and see natural hot springs instead.  They stunk like sulfur but it was interesting to hear the history of the previous princesses who had willingly jumped into these pools, whose acidity meant that their bodies melted immediately, in order to avoid being married to their arranged partners.  They didn’t have Tinder back then, it seems.

After we showered and got back on the bus, we were on to Lake Aniwhenua.  On the way towards the lake, a Maori gentleman got onto our bus and explained that we were driving through the largest manmade forest in the southern hemisphere, and indeed it seemed as such. We’ve never seen that many pine trees aligned in a row for hundreds of Kilometers. We stopped along a road and entered a little path that was carved into the forest.  It lead down to where some of the original inhabitants of New Zealand had carved into stone pictures of the boats they had taken on their journey to this country.

When we made it to Lake Aniwhenua, we were disappointed because the lake had been drained, so we wouldn’t be able to Kayak out onto it or any of the other lake activities.  We stopped along the way to swim in some hot springs, or in Mandy’s case…stand in some hot springs.

Hot springs

So what do you do when you’re at a lake in New Zealand and your hosts are literally cooking food in the ground for you, but there’s not much else you can do?  Happy Hour!  And this was where I would make my mark on the Stray bus.  I walked up to our driver, Lolly, and asked a simple question, “Do you like Cider beer?”

My American friends reading this are nodding their head, awaiting an answer.

Every person from every other country is laughing because they don’t refer to it as Cider beer.  It’s just a Cider.  It would be like asking for a Lager beer.  Of course it’s a beer, it’s a lager.

Anyway, Lolly began laughing hysterically at me, and for the rest of (at least Lolly’s bus), I would be called “Cider Beer”.

The next day we got back on the bus and headed to Whakahoro, where we would be staying at Blue duck station, a remote (remember ‘off the beaten path’) hostel/retreat.  We got lucky and had our own ‘private’ room which consisted of two bunk beds, so we slept wherever we wanted.  Along the way we would stop for lunch at lake Taupo, where Mandy would regret not paying money to go up into an airplane and then jumping out of it, even though it wasn’t on fire, and it was still perfectly functioning.

That night at Blue duck station, everyone expected us to start the fire since we were from Texas.  Luckily, Mandy knows how to start a fire from scratch.  I know how to start a fire.  You throw a gallon of lighter fluid on something and then light it and it’s on fire in seconds.

Lolly had suggested everyone buy ‘old people’ clothes while we were in Lake Taupo, for a dress up party that first evening.  She even had some makeup to put on us all to make us look like we had gray hair.  She didn’t have to use that much on me.  : (

The next day, we had our choice of activities to occupy our day since we wouldn’t be leaving until the following morning.  You could  go skeet shooting, horseback riding, go for a walk, or just hang out and read a book.  We decided to go for a stroll and get away from the group for a few hours.  The ranch we were staying on had all sorts of cows, sheep, goats, birds and just amazing scenery.  On our second night, we had signed up for a group meal and got to try bbq goat for the first time.  And probably the last.  Little gamey. But the bbq pumpkin was amazing!  They cooked those things for hours over the coals.

I think that’s about it for part 1! Sorry this took so long to get posted!  In part 2, we’ll talk about why we had to unexpectedly hop off the bus in Wellington, what it’s like hopping onto a new bus with new people and a new driver, and then it’s on to the South Island, the most beautiful part of New Zealand!