NZ Tour Blog

Friday 9th July

Today we woke up at 6:30 for a 7:45 breakfast. Pancakes and bacon was on the menu and toast to go with it. After breakfast we packed up our bags and loaded the coach for what was ahead of us. It was a tiresome and hilarious bus trip to Auckland (the country’s ex-capital) as it was filled with lovely ukulele music and the beautiful voices of the South Canberra Youth Wind Orchestra.
The bus trip was 3 hours long, so of course we had to have lovely and thrillful breaks along the way. These included a lovely ice-cream and souvenir shop which had some very interesting products like some lovely possum-skin nipple warmers :P . Also at this place they sold very delicious ice-cream for a very reasonable price  which a few of us over indulged in this fantastic offer. (People paid for three scoops but received six!!)
Before we got to Auckland we were finally able to get inside an ACTUAL shopping mall which many took the experience to buy more clothes and accessories and various musical instruments. We had lunch during our one hour shopping spree and hopped back on the coach to present our very beautiful musical performance (We think Jodie and Nathan need NEW hearing aids).
The tour guides took us to the wonderful and very dinted mount Eden (a dormant volcano). We took many photos and headed back onto the coach. About ten minutes later our lovely tour guide surprised us with a wonderful visit to the Victorian markets, where several of us bought some New Zealand Beannies!!!!! But we also saw some very strange and interesting products too, including willy warmers and willy soap.
When we arrived in Auckland we stopped at the beach before the hotel. Many people took advantage of this and took their shoes off to enjoy the cold sensation of the New Zealand waters, leaving people very sandy and cold (and they then enjoyed ice-creams from the ice-cream gallery).
When we arrived at our hotel we quickly hopped into the elevators and went up to our rooms and saw our lovely entertainment unit (which was quite hard to figure out). We didn’t have much time before we had to set out for dinner at La Porchetta. We were given quite generous servings of chips and garlic bread before our meal , leaving us already full before we even started our mains. After seeing the starters we were expecting quite large mains and our expectations were only partially correct, as the plates of food were not only just large but they were enormous. Many people barely even ate half of their given meal.
This now concludes our wonderful adventures of IZZY, GEORGIA AND LIZZY for today and we hope you aren’t TOO cold in Canberra as New Zealand isn’t as cold as we expected it to be!!!
Talk to ya soon!!!!!

Written by: Izzy, Georgia & Lizzy

Jodie’s Comments – After we checked into the Hotel a number of members visited the Sky Tower. This was a very fun but scary experience for some. We had the opportunity to watch the sunset over Auckland and see some people doing a free fall from the top of the tower.
After dinner we took a group of members on a walk around the centre of Auckland to wear off some of our food. At the end of the walk 6 people had the opportunity to do the reverse bungy – what can we say – Hermione..........

Thursday July 8, 2010

Well today is day 6 of our tour of New Zealand, and Jess is getting pretty desperate for a cuddle (as Nicole, Heather and Leanne are finding out.) We woke up after a night of visits from the drunken French Rugby team knocking on our window trying to take photos of us, and headed down to breakfast in the conference room. After breakfast, everyone decided the thermal pool sounded like a good bet (again), so we all jumped in and took underwater photographs and enjoyed the bathwater temperature for a good part of the morning. By the time we got out, we resembled prunes.
Our sandwich making army was hard at work in the kitchen, making unusually healthy sandwiches for our lunch today (inclusive of a peanut butter sandwich with a stray piece of lettuce in it which Sam J seemed to have scored) It was then time to dry off and make our the way on our coach to transfer to St Lukes Anglican Church, Rotorua. Our performance was the best yet. We had a massive turnout and sounded really awesome (or as they say here, sweet as!!).
After our lunch, we headed back to get changed and get ready for the fun-filled adventures to be had at the Luge!! Basically, the luge consists of a mountain which you ascend in a gondola, and then pelt down on a concrete track, inside a plastic board with wheels and a handlebar. The aim, was to do this as fast as possible without going ass over tit. We then got to ride the chairlift back up to the top, very slowly at times (as poor Nicole, Christine, Sarah and Nathan found out, two of whom have a fear of hights!!) Everyone had a blast, though we could have done with more time and maybe some gloves, there were many frozen fingers to be had.
We then came back to Kiwi Paka and added on about 20 layers of clothing each, and wombled back out to the conference centre for delayed birthday cake and to wait for our Maori shuttle with Chinese writing all over it. We arrived at the Mitai Tribal dinner at a little after 6, and even with all our layers, we still froze. Our leader’s name was Jimmy, and he gave us a run down on the events to happen, and told us we needed a Chief for our tribe. SCYWO, having taken up a little more than half of the dining hall in all our white jacketed glory, eagerly awaited the criteria. The Chief had to be male. The Chief had to be willing to lead us. The Chief had to be over 25. The Chief had to be Nathan.
All our shouting worked, and Nathan was appointed Chief of the tribe of 12 nations (mostly Aussie), and we headed out to the river to face the other tribe of 13 nations and wait for the canoe filled with the Maoris to come down the river. After a good few minutes of banter, they came around the corner, rowing and chanting and overall looking fierce. After reversing and paddling past everyone a few times, they walked through the near freezing water (OMG!!!) and we followed them into the sacred Mitai Village, lead by Chief Nathan and Chief Luke. A rather nervous looking Chief was intimidated by the tribe, one of which did a warning dance in his little grass skirt and dared Nathan to pick up the twig (a peace offering) whilst still looking him in the eyes and not running away. He succeeded, as did Chief Luke, and much to the delight of the audience, we were well on our way to being accepted into the Mitai Tribe. The Chiefs bumped noses with one another and Nathan and Luke said speeches of greetings and thanks, then we had to sing a song of gratitude and acceptance of our new chiefs. We had made peace and were accepted by the Mitai Tribe.
They then did some dances for us, and showed us their weapons and musical instruments, including the Koy-Tah, which was a very modern and definitely not sacred guitar. After singing and dancing and tongue poking, the most exciting part of the evening was over, and we headed back to devour our Hangi dinner – (editor’s note: we got to enjoy the full Haka being performed for us which was quite an experience to see live!).
The hangi dinner was phenomenal! (And it helped that the exceptionally hot shirtless Maori dancer sat RIGHT NEXT TO US so we could drool over him a little longer!!) Once dinner and photos with the hot Maoris was over, we put our beanies back on and grabbed a torch and started down a path to see the glow worms. Well, they turned out to be fairly lame, but the spring and the fish were pretty cool. Jimmy then took us back up, and after a brief tour of the gift shop, we were ready to come home.
Which brings me to now. Leanne is sitting on the bottom of the stairs, knitting again, Heather is rummaging through her backpack, Christine is waiting to proof read this so she can go to bed, and Nicole is playing gameboys in the corner. I’m on the floor, trying to decide who to annoy tonight, I’m thinking Leanne is looking pretty good!!!
-Written by Jess, with the help of Leanne, Nicole and Heather-
P.S Patt, I love you!! <3
P.P.S. (From the editor): Patt, I think you’ve been replaced by a hot shirtless Maori dancer...

Wednesday 7th July – Sarah’s Birthday!!!

HI MUM!!!!!! Now to get started we being the responsible young adults we are decided to set our alarms for 6.20am for a 6.45 start, but being the reasonable adults we are decided 7 was a more appropriate time. Then these three strapping young gentlemen decided to go for a shower... individually, but found out that the early birds got the hot water, so we set records for going in and out quickly. Breakfast was uneventful save Christine (trumpet) being generous and sharing her breakfast with her UC jumper. We packed then shoved our junk into the bus, then rode all the way to the sheep show.
On the way we passed a geothermal plant, which uses steam produced from underground hot rocks to drive a turbine for electricity. This steam can move at up to 200 km/h, and the plant used 1400 tonnes of steam per hour! Now that’s a hot fact! On the bus we started to get this rotten egg smell through the air-con, and postponed blame on Hermione as large grey lumps erupted from nearby steaming mudpools. This was the sulphur smell being let off that we encountered earlier and though it was stronger it would seem that it was only a taste of what’s to come. Later we found that the mud is good for your skin and many of us bought soap bars of it.
As we were travelling through the green countryside, we saw some sheep in a field, and near here we heard of the one word to describe what New Zealanders do in their pastime. Zorbing is a sport where one is encased in a large inflatable ball, and rolls down a grassy hill at tremendous speeds.
Unfortunately we were not able to do this activity, but quickly forgot this as we arrived at the Agrodome and the show started. A large sheep shearer gave us a presentation about various sheep types, and a younger guy sheared a sheep, but the highlight was definitely when Hermione was chosen to milk a cow (while wearing her newly acquired sheep-hat-thing). It turns out she was a natural, and all the Aussies gave her quite the cheer. After the show we all had a look in the store, which stocked possum fur beanies and sheep related merchandise. The store was interesting, and many people decided to buy some souvenirs for loved ones, and Aleks and I had our eyes set on some soft woollen features (and wanted to embrace some New Zealand traditions). Then just before we left, many SCYWO members decided to ride a large dog together, all of which was lovingly photographed by the player with the biggest horn (Sam on Tuba).
After all of this activity, we went our different ways for lunch in Rotorua, and many different food types were consumed. The food of choice for the authors of this amazingly awesome story of epic proportions, plus Margaret and Caroline, was an Indian dish called Biryani. It was great, but the lack of originality in this choice was evident with the fumigation of our new room.
We then went to a Maori museum, and got to see more geysers, plus some interesting flora, and got to see some of the tools and clothing of the native population, which was informative and insightful. Since they heard that all of us were from an Orchestra, they gave us a special treat. It was an instrument similar to a trombone but made out of wood and sounded like an elephant, and some of the players especially our brass section managed to get a few notes out.
We came back and were able to have a swim in the thermal pool at our hotel, which is kept to a temperature of 39 degrees! We entertained ourselves with Marco Polo and shoulder wars and then some synchronised swimming. We then declared Rain to be the breath holding champion.
For dinner a special treat was given to us, and we went out for dinner to a Mongolian BBQ. The idea was to collect raw meats and vegetables and sauces and bring that to the chefs, four of which were standing around a large metal hotplate at 600 degrees, searing the food, and this way we could indulge in any weird tastes that we possessed. It was amazing to see just how efficiently the chefs could cook and clean and serve up all the food. And they were male?! This was then followed by pancakes and ice cream, which left us all extremely satisfied.
Which brings us to your three heroes writing this blog in bed... individually.
By Yuri, Kit & Aleks (and heavily censored by Nathan).

Tuesday 6th July

Ah, the wonders of New Zealand, where we are, and you aren’t. Today was particularly wonderful due to the lack of things that needed to be done. I know that sounds pretty bad, but things have been pretty hectic with all the rushing around and performing! With a relaxed breakfast in the morning of fruit, cereal, muffins and a variety of yogurt, everyone was up and about nice and early in the morning. Okay, that was a lie. Most of us were awake from anytime in between 8 and 8.30 which many would say is early, but in comparison to our other wake up times, is a decent sleep in. Tomorrow we have to get up at 6.30. Kill me now.
So we’re in this lovely town known as Taupo. Our very well versed bus driver, Wayne, told us that the lake, Lake Taupo, is the size of Singapore. Driving around it, I would believe it. And just to add to its glory, it’s as beautiful as it is massive. From our hotel it’s a good five minute walk straight to the shore. In relation to things that are five minutes from our hotel, New Zealand has these crazy things called Pak N’ Save!! It’s the equivalent to Australia’s Aldi...BUT BETTER. Don’t ask how it’s better, but it is. Ask any of the Tour kids. They all know. They have lime flavoured milk and kiwi (fruit) flavoured chocolate.
Sorry, back to today. So anyways, after breakfast we enjoyed some free time till 10.30. In this time, I found out that Paige was busy with her head down the toilet bowl expelling the contents of her stomach, which I can imagine wasn’t the best of fun. So with Paige sleeping in bed, we all boarded Wayne’s bus and went on our way to explore the wonders of Taupo and the surrounding area. The first stop on our mystery tour was the Glass Blowers. Now this was pretty awesome. I’d always been curious as to how they coloured glass and shaped it. I guess it’s one of those things where you may have a general idea of how it’s done, but you don’t truly appreciate the skill and effort involved in the creation of something that appears to be so simple, until you see it yourself. And that’s just what we did. The demonstrator made some craaaaazy little glass sea urchins. The colours were gorgeous. After watching him show off some of that glass working talent, we viewed a small collection of glass artworks that were for sale. These art works ranged from actual framed wall hangings to vases and jewellery and fish.
Following that we were on the bus again and moving about ten minutes up the road to “ADVENTURE LAND!” . As the name suggests it contained adventures, lots of adventures. Adventures such as Annie smashing everyone at free for all Lazer tag. I’m pretty sure it said something along the lines of ‘Accuracy: 5250%’. Go Annie. Our scores were slightly less impressive with myself on 13% and Kinley 32%. Yeah, it takes skill to rock Lazertag the way we do. Not only did we participate in running around a room wearing ridiculously tacky plastic chest plates, while pretending to kill each other, we got lost in the maze that never ends until you’re just about ready to give up. The whole reason I even went in the damn maze was so I could get to the amazing four story slide in the middle. I saw what they did there. They stuck the slide in the middle of the maze so they could laugh while the unsuspecting victims wondered around aimlessly, in a giant circle. I went in anyway... and it was so worth it. Kinley disagrees slightly due to the mild problem that is the miniature humans that we had to share ‘ADVENTURE LAND’ with. She got kicked in the back and face repetitively by some kid screaming ‘ FASTER, FASTER! GO FASTER!’. I mean come on, clearly it’s an adult themed attraction, especially the petting zoo.
Soon after, we were all exhausted from ‘ADVENTURE LAND’ and moved on to this freaking gargantuan dam. Three times a day the damn releases all the water it’s built up since the last release. AND IT IS AWESOME. We have video recordings ;)
After watching a miniature tidal wave filling up what was an almost empty, slow flowing river, we once again packed up and jumped on the bus. At this stage, most of us were starting to feel the rumblings of our stomachs and set out to find some food! But before any of us managed this, we all ventured out to the escapade that is known as ‘SUPERLOO!’. Yep. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a toilet. Or I suppose I should say, a bunch of toilets. To cut a lengthy story short, about twelve of us wasted 40 cents each to use said toilets. All I can say is, my toileting experience was indeed, super.
We all got food then got on the bus after being informed that if we weren’t at the bus by a specific time, we were walking. When we arrived at the hotel again we had 25 minutes to get ready for a performance. It was very much get off the bus, walk inside, get dressed, walk back outside and get on the bus again. We then made our way to the Church which was our performance destination. I must say, with the combination of the church’s amazing acoustics, and our great sound, the audience was easily impressed, so impressed that the lady who organised our performance even gave us a special thank you gift. It was a book containing photos from all over the Taupo region.
Feeling good after a great group effort, we left the church for dinner at Breaker’s for our second night in Taupo, and let me just say, the pasta was brilliant. Finally, after a long day, we returned home, some of us retiring to bed, others not quite THAT tired. Those that remained awake spent their time packing for tomorrow, playing pool, and cards and in Kinley and my own case, watching ‘MIGHTY MORPHING POWER RANGERS’, because we are just that cool.
KBai.
Written by Hermione and Kinley

Monday 5th July

'This is your wake up call, Good Morning!’

This was, of course, our wakeup call. Groans echoed through our small hotel room. This was the third day of our trek through New Zealand. We dug through our suitcases for the first decent clothes we could find and toddled down stairs to have our eggs, bacon and hash browns. Once we were full, (due to some several trips to the buffet), we packed up our clothes and necessities, packed up the coach and were destined for Taupo.
However, we hadn’t got very far before making an unexpected u-turn and ending up back at the hotel. We saw a suitcase emerge from the front doors. Leanne’s lost suitcase had had been found. Leanne was very grateful.
We headed off again. Our bus trip consisted of Mario Kart comps and off tune singing to Stacy’s Mom (again). We stopped at a park to grab a coffee. We again were on the road and stopped in a small town called Taihape to pick up a spot of lunch at the many fast food shops and cafe’s they had to offer. We then were once again on the coach headed towards Taupo. Most of us had the chance to sleep which resulted in many hilarious photos of certain people *cough* Nathan *cough*.
We arrived at Huka Falls and saw the amazing natural wonders of this part of New Zealand. Yet these wonders were not at a shortage because our next stop was at the Taupo thermal valleys (craters of the moon). It, in one word, stunk (really and truly). But apparently taking hundreds of photos of stinky steam was the thing to do. We took the bus to the hotel and lugged our cases up the steep stairs. We cleaned ourselves up and went to dinner.
Dinner was at Breakers cafe & bar. Our dinner was mainly chosen as schnitzel, roast pork, pie and the “MONSTER BURGER”, followed by ice-cream or doughnuts. We walked back to the hotel and finished our evening with pool on a miniature pool table, card games and Cluedo. Goodnight to all from Taupo!!!
Written by Sam Junor
Notes – The hamster wheel at the playground......... well what do we say......... Best playground ever!!!!

Sunday 4th July

The day started with a strange phone call saying ‘this is your wakeup call’ at 6.45 in the morning; having had 5 hours sleep everyone hated the idea of leaving their warm comfy bed. We turned on the TV and saw the strangest kid's show about rabid clouds that were very stubborn - New Zealand TV is weird. Soon enough everyone was bright eyed and bushy tailed and down for buffet style breakfast.
By 8.30 we were out of the hotel and off to discover the morning markets. Turned out they were only open on Saturday. So, instead we ventured to the farmers markets and looked at many varieties of fruit and vegetables. Highlight was definitely going to the local supermarket ‘New World’ they have electronic price tags, red mountain dew and they stack their carrots!!
Our bus driver told us that they have a single's Tuesday at 'New World' Supermarket. If you’re single you shop at New World and put bananas in your trolley, signalling you’re available.
Afterwards, we went to the ‘Te Papa’ museum. It was really interesting, especially all the artefacts, skeletons, strange nude statues and a creepy baby mould. After everyone had looked through the museum and bought a sufficient amount of postcards we got back on the bus and headed towards the cable cars. We got on, and rode it up a hill (wasn’t as exciting as everyone thought) but when we got to the top the view was amazing!
We all got changed at the hotel soon afterwards and headed to the performance venue, a Methodist church. With everyone being a little jet-lagged we didn’t play our best, but we played well enough to make a lady cry tears of joy when she heard ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.’ It made the performance a lot more rewarding.
We got back on the bus again and got a mini tour of the area, seeing some incredible views. Everyone lives on hills here and need little cable cars to get up the steep incline. Everyone's houses are so colourful; there were pink, blue, yellow, orange and green houses everywhere. After our tour we got back to the hotel and got to just take a breath for an hour whilst dinner was being made. Dinner was delicious, everyone ate as much as they could at dinner and then we got awesome brownies for dessert.
Seeing as New Zealand is the home of Middle Earth we were lucky enough to watch a video all about the film and production that a member of the hotel staff got for us especially. Everyone crashed soon after that, needing to catch up on some well deserved rest.
Written by Sami van der Sterren and Margaret Harrison (proof read by Kit Sharman)
Other notes – in place of trombone music apparently we needed extra cymbals – well done Sam J and Kit on your diligent packing..... but please don’t pack the hired equipment!

Saturday 3rd July

Today we met at the church at 11:30am ready for the trip up to Sydney. We were all very excited and many people seemed to arrive very early! After many photos and saying farewell to our loved ones we got on the bus and started the long trip up to Sydney. It was a nice pleasant drive up, although a lunch break was needed by many!!!!!! As well as a loo break – I don’t think anyone braved the bus toilet. We enjoyed the beautiful singing once again on tour, although did many people know all the words?
At the Airport we were met by Marilyn our tour guide who checked us in, luckily enough for all (especially those who over packed!) we came out under the weight limit!!!!! I guess that means more shopping for me!
Then it was time to move through customs – thank goodness for those white jackets – we were unable to lose anyone. Although many were distracted by all the pretty shops........
Once at the gate people had the opportunity to go for a quick wander and have something to eat – mmmm food - and be back for check in at 5:15pm. By 5:45 we started to get on the plane. Lucky for Sian and Margaret having to sit either side of me. After watching the best safety movie (who doesn’t enjoy full body paint on chubby men?) we settled in for the flight. I managed to watch Harry Potter during the flight – just finishing it in time to land. It was nice to have a TV to watch, it made the very short flight seem even quicker. For dinner we had a choice of shepherd's pie or fish – I hear the fish was not great – glad I made the right choice.
We landed in Wellington at 11:10pm and proceeded through customs to collect our bags. We managed to take someone else’s bag by mistake – I think they will not put purple ribbons on their bag again! However Leanne’s bag was lost in transit. The customs offices thought that Yuri was the conductor – watch out Nathan!
Our adventure wasn’t over, the bus driver had issues just getting out of the airport!!!! A quick drive later and we were at the hotel and checking in to our rooms for a much needed sleep. NZ TV on midnight Saturday was very exciting.
Other Notes – apparently keeping an eye on some people’s luggage is just way too difficult, Izzy - do you have your passport???? How about your flute??? Jess did you forget that you had a cabin bag?
Written by Jodie Higgins