Riding the Magic...Bus

Bright and early (ie. before 7am) on Friday, Nov. 20, after a quick breakfast of multi-grain toast (a kind roommate had left me an entire loaf of multi-grain bread - not cheap - because she didn't feel like taking it with her when she left the day earlier, and I ended up leaving the rest for the others) and some of my free yogurt, I set out towards the Auckland CBD one more time to the Magic Bus head office to await the bus. I sort of didn't want to leave the hostel behind because I knew I probably would not find another hostel in NZ with dorms rooms so spacious and beds that were so comfy (it was $30 NZD/night, but well worth the price). The bus finally arrived around 7:30, pretty on time, and after we finished pick-ups, we were off on our way to the day's stop at the town of Rotorua.

First photo aboard the bus. There's a Denny's in Auckland!


View of Auckland from atop Mt. Eden, a dormant volcano and cinder cone in the middle (relatively) of Auckland, offering great views of the city. Something that stuck out to me right away was just how green the city was - they must really like their nature! If I had pointed the camera down a bit more in the 3rd photo, you'd be able to see the entire crater. And of course, there's a shot of the bus!


Mt. Eden Prison...and there's a train stop just outside...um? Hahaha


A brief pit stop at the small town of Thames. You can see the sign for the i-Site in the first photo - the tourist info centre - like I said in my earlier post, there's one in almost every town except for the really small ones. Didn't see much except for the shops around the gas station - it was a pit shop. I did grab a quick sandwich in the cafe which you can actually see in the first photo.


Another brief stop in another small town at Matamata, now also known as Hobbiton as it was the site for the filming of the Hobbiton scenes in the Lord of the Ring movies. Yup, another i-Site! I grabbed yet another quick sandwich, this time at the Subway hahaha. The great thing is they also have the "sub of the day" deal for the same numerical price, so after exchange rates, it's actually cheaper than in Canada!


Passing through another small town, with a giant statue of a sheep herding dog, a shepherd, and a sheep! Lots of sheep in NZ.


One of many winding roads lined with bush and greenery.


Another brief stop, at "Agroventures." I'm notsure how to describe it, I guess a small "farm" with adventure activities? None of us on the bus that day bothered to try the activities there - on the recommendation of our awesome bus driver Thumper (obviously not his real name hahaha) - yet more touristy activities that offered little thrill. They had a freefall swing (in the background of the 1st photo) - think the giant swing ride (Xtreme Skyflyer) at Canada's Wonderland, but about half the size, and a lot pricier - a freefall simulator, a jetboat simulator, and something they called the "Schweeb" (in the 1st photo) - where 2 people in separate pods hanging from rail tracks race each other by pedaling to make the pods move. Like I said, not the most exciting activities. The best part was the free stuff - the animals they had: the sheep (okay, nothing exciting, but a lot of sheep), the ostriches, and the cows with a pattern I've never seen before (it's a breed known as the Belted Galloway)!

According to the Magic Bus buidebook, we were supposed to stop somewhere along the way to grab a photo with the giant L&P bottle (lemon and paeroa, a unique NZ soft drink) but we never saw it. Finally, we got into Rotorua in the afternoon. Of course, we had a couple tourist trap stops. First, a stop at the visitor's centre for Whakarewarewa Village - a recreation of the traditional villages of the Maori. Obviously another tourist trap, and I doubted I would get to see anything really authentic, but it was pretty much the only way I'd get to experience something cultural in NZ, so I decided to sign up for the show and dinner activity later on that night (as did most of the bus), where you get to experience a Maori Hangi (a "feast" with their traditional foods) and concert. It came with a heavy price tag of $85 NZD (about $68 CAD). And then a stop at a local greenstone factory (called pounamu in the Maori language; related to jade, and is considered something of considerable value NZ) where they showed us how they carve their pieces (obviously to try to get you to buy something).

Trying some traditional Maori food at the Whakarewarewa Village centre - some pickled root on their traditional bread - I don't remember what it was called.


At the greenstone store.


One more stop before we got dropped off at our hostels, a brief walk (less than 30 minutes) through the nearby Redwood Forest. Finally, some of that famous NZ nature!


Exploring the small town of Rotorua. There was a gypsy fair going on but I didn't bother checking it out since there didn't appear to be much activity going on around there.


A short walk through the hot springs park in Rotorua - though I stupidly didn't walk all the way to where the hot spring vents were. Rotorua is known for it's distinct smell - sulphur - because of the numerous hot springs in the area. Obviously set up as a tourist attraction, and they really set up the traps with hot spring spas and mud baths. Didn't bother me at all though - I didn't even really notice it after the initial smell - I smelled worse at the hot springs in Japan hahaha. I think the rock mounds are old vents that were covered up.


I stayed at Blarneys Rock hostel, in the centre of town. It's not on the list of recommended hostels by Magic Bus, but while in Auckland I read up on reviews of hostels along the way so there were a few stops on the route where I chose not to stay where the Magic Bus recommended. It was a nice hostel - close to one of the drop off points (they don't drop you off at the hostel if you don't stay where they recommend), small (but not too small), clean bathrooms, and not crowded at all (as I imagine the other hostels would be since Kiwi Experience and Magic Bus generally used the same hostels along their routes). I actually met a girl there from Ottawa who looked like she was still in high school but was there on a working holiday! And I met another guy from Marseille, France, who offered to see if I could stay in his girlfriend's loft in New York during New Years when I told him I was planning to go to New York during that time (unfortunately that didn't pan out, he never emailed me!).


At the Whakarewarewa Village. They performed the traditional Maori welcoming dance and greeting as they would to visiting tribes back in the day (called the powhiri) - this was probably the best part of the whole night because it seemed the most authentic. You'll have to see the bigger photos to catch their facial expressions. Very aggressive motions and sounds - from hissing to chanting. Basically they perform the greetings while the visiting tribes' chiefs (the 4 guys standing still in the 2nd photo who were chosen by their bus drivers) stand and watch. It's a big tourist thing - there were many tour groups there.


Entering the village. Lots of older tourists - I got stuck on the bus (along with some others fr the Magic Bus) with an entire seniors tour group.


Explaining and showing off some of the tools and activities in the daily lives of the Maori people. It looks dark, but it was just a heavily wooded forest (so I couldn't capture much light).


Entering the concert hall.


The performance of song and dance (called haka). The 1st photo turned out the best - I just happened to take the photo as another person's camera flash went off, so I ended up capturing enough light without the nasty flash effect. The performance was decent - they told us at the visitor's centre it would focus on telling some story, but it was just random dancing and singing. They did the "story" in less than a minute of acting - yet another tourist trap ripoff. The worse part was one of the women was obviously a new performer because she didn't know a lot of the words and movements - but she kept looking over at the other women and laughing while she tried to keep up...really authentic eh?


The Hangi feast - basically a buffet of their traditional bread, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken, and stuffing. There's corn on the cob too, but I didn't take any. This is what the Maori diet consisted of (of course the chicken would be other birds back then), and it was supposedly cooked in the traditional method where everything is cooked in a big underground oven (I imagine pretty similar to how the tribes in the Middle East traditionally cook their food) - which pretty much limits what foods they could cook. Pretty bland meal; they had some salad, gravy, and canned fruit desserts too. So basically, a very cheap meal to serve (and they limited the "buffet" to one trip - you could try and get one round of extras if you ate fast) - probably around $5-6 CAD per person if you put this together yourself with precooked chicken from a supermarket.


A shot of the area outside the food hall. I like how the crescent moon came out in the photo. And this marked the end of the night. A tip to anyone travelling to NZ - unless you're really looking forward to see something like this, avoid it, it's a big rip off. The ride back to the hostel got pretty interesting though. Our bus driver for the Whakarewarewa Village knew how to keep us entertained (even though it took him forever to explain anything), and he had every nationality on the bus sing their own anthems, so me and 2 other Canadians on the bus got to share "O Canada" with the rest of the bus haha (and honestly, we did the best job despite there being over 10 British adults who sang their anthem together).


The bone pendant I won earlier at the Whakarewarewa Village visitor's centre for answering a question right. It's carved from cow bone and is called hei matau in Maori - the fish hook shape represents strength and good luck. There are several other typical carvings that greenstone and bone pendants take which each represent something different.