Dan's World Trip: 'East As' trip on the Kiwi bus

NOOOOOO I'm going home today! Beginning my journey home in less than 3 hours :'-( I don't wanna go home, it doesn't feel real... plus all the people I've travelled with have just been telling me "You'll be depressed when you get home" and "It sucks" etc etc. Someone just suggested I say I have a bomb on the plane and I could stay a bit longer, the police would even show me more of the area for free... anyway, time to start catch up:

The 'East As' trip on the Kiwi bus was quite different from the rest. For a start, the bus was smaller with only 20 of us on - myself (sat in the front seat the whole time), 2 other English guys and 17 girls from around the globe! We made 3 overnight stops on the trip - in Te Kaha, Rangitukia and Napier.

At the first, Te Kaha, there wasn't another house in sight from the one we were staying in. We were staying with a Mauri family and were given the traditional greeting, of rubbing noses together, and then were sung a song. They had quite a big back garden in which I played some football with the two other guys and their own private beach with canoes for free! I went exploring a little and found an old abandoned factory where I took some photos. After dinner we sat round talking and drinking for a while then went into the hot tub on the beach to watch the sunset over the ocean. That was at around 7pm and we ended up staying in the tub until around 1am! Needless to say I was very wrinkly, but my skin felt so smooth the next day!

On our drive to Rangitukia we stopped at a church in the middle of nowhere and at a couple of random bays. Then we walked hundreds of steps up a hillside to a lighthouse and viewpoint. Our stay was again with a Mauri family, and again in the middle of nowhere, though there were about 3 other houses! Some people went horse trekking so while they were doing that a few of the rest of us went to the beach and collected firewood for later on. We spent that night toasting marshmallows and playing table tennis.

We woke very early the next day, at around 5 am to climb a small hill and watch the sunrise. It was well worth the early wake up call. I think I went back to sleep after that for a couple of hours before cruising on. We stopped off at the longest pier in the Southern hemisphere and walked to the very end. Then I had the (not so) ingenius idea of jumping off the end and swimming back. If you ever go, don't do it! When we arrived in Napier we went to a chocolate factory followed by a winery, both with free tasters and DAMN it was good! Napier itself though was a pretty boring place; we went out in the evening and the town was pretty dead...

After the trip I had a good night partying in Taupo with the bus driver and some of the girls from the trip. Then I carried on up to Auckland the following day ready for my flight out. I met a couple of people from the Kiwi bus there, Caitlin (Team America) and Stefan and Kai who live there and we went to a concert one day and night where Roger Sanchez was the headliner!