New Zealand - Part 4 - Taupo Bungy

Sunday 3 April 2010

After saying goodbye to Debra, Jason, Juliet, Zac and I headed to Taupo Bungy!

I had always wanted to do a Bungy Jump, but with my leg never thought I could, I decided to give it a try anyway. As Jason didn't want to do it and Juliet having already done one, me and Zac paid up and waited our turn in line.

As the line got shorter the more nervous I got, OMG what am I doing, ok so I jumped out of a plane - well helicopter actually - I can do this. But the thing with skydiving is that you don't have to push yourself your instructor does.

As I go up there, I was feeling even more nervous, as I got closer to the edge and looked down I thought WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING. One count down goes by with a little nudge from the instructor, before I grab onto the rail, ok, ok I can do this, give me a minute. She tells me its only going to get harder the longer I stand there, but when you are looking down at a little elastic band that is supposedly going to hold your weight and not let you die, the harder it is to convince yourself to jump off the edge.

After a couple of minutes I told myself to stop being so stupid and I couldn't back out, what would my friends say - Wussss - so I sucked it up, did the countdown, she pushed me a little harder this time and wwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - well if you watch the video you know that is not what I said - but it was fantastic, great, excellent and would totally recommend it!!

The videos I have below - one is from the pack I brought and the other one is kindly taken by Jason and Juliet.

This movie is me at the top, getting ready to jump

This is me jumping - from spectators view

This is Zac jumping - not quite taking as long as I did!

Trip to New Zealand - Part 3 - Taupo

Friday 2 April 2010 (Good Friday)

Zac picked me up on Friday morning and after a quick stop to the chemist and servo we were on our way to Taupo. I used to drive the Hamilton Taupo Road all the time when I lived in Taupo and its always a nice scenic drive.

View of Lake and mountains from our batch
Upon getting to Taupo we meet up with Debra, who had come from Tauranga and went to explore our abode for the next couple of days. The batch we hired was really nice and if you are going to Taupo let me know and will give you the details. It was a lockwood home but was toasty warm, especially with the fire and had plenty of space. The only thing wrong with it was I am sure there are GHOSTS, there were a lot of strange noises ... although more "less believing" people put it down to the fact that because it was a lockwood home there was a lot of wood creaks especially when it heated up with the fire.

As we got there early on Friday Debra, Zac and myself headed into town to have some lunch and then stopped by the information centre to find out what sort of fun things we could do in Taupo. We decided to head out to Craters of the Moon - Craters of the Moon Thermal Area is a region with geothermal activity north of Taupo, New Zealand. It has numerous steam vents, constantly shifting, collapsing and reforming giving the whole area desolate appearance. All the craters at The Craters of the Moon are the result of hydrothermal eruptions. The pressure of the steam beneath the surface exceeds the pressure exerted by the weight of the overlying ground. This results in an explosion. A mixture of hot water, steam, hot mud and pumice is ejected into the air. Material may be blown up to 100 m, leaving behind holes or craters as deep as 20 m. Hydrothermal eruptions occur about once a year.

Maybe if I ever come back to New Zealand I thought I might start a business at the craters called "White Woman Cooking Food in a Hole" where I will cook delicious meals in the craters and play

relaxing mud bubble sounds ...

After Craters we headed into town to get some dinner, little did we know that the supermarkets would be closed for Good Friday, damm it, so we headed to a servo and stocked up on (expensive!) snacks and by chance found a butcher and vegie shop open where we got some sausages and salad for dinner.

When we arrived back to the batch Hayley and Sarah were there. The rest of the day was spent drinking in the sun, playing fun drinking games and then we headed into Taupo town for a bit of dancing

Drinking Games

On the right we have the fish game. Where everyone makes their own fish and then blows it across the table.

On the left we have the coin drinking game where people have various amounts of coins between their legs and have to walk so far and put them into a cup. You can see that Sarah and Zac both have different, but effective techniques. Below is Hayleys!

Saturday 3 April 2010 (Easter Saturday)

Today we all had a leisurely lie in and then went into Taupo town for a bit of a wander. Sarah and Hayley were leaving today and it was a sad goodbye because I am not sure when I will see them again.

That afternoon we decided to head to the prawn farm and try our hand at prawn fishing. Full of hope we grabbed our rods and bait and sought out a "good spot". Rods baited and in the water, we waited, and waited, and waited and then decided to move and waited, and waited, and waited and then moved again and waited and waited and waited, and then ... I think you get my drift.

Apparently prawn fishing isn't that easy, after an eternity I finally caught one, yah! I can tell you prawn fishing is quite an art. After a while we decided we couldn't be bothered anymore and went on a tour. Whilst we were on our tour, Zac caught a big prawn and someone gave him a few so at least we had a few to take home and taste.

Me feeding baby Prawns

That afternoon Jason and Juliet turned up to spend the night so as we wanted to go to some hot pools whilst we were in Taupo we thought we might try the free ones. When we went to the information centre we were given a free map that showed a section of the Taupo River that had hot water so we thought we would try it out. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there to find that the river was not only warm but actually quite hot and it made for a relaxing afternoon soak.

We spent the rest of the evening playing this really fun board game, which I forgot the name of now, but will have to get, eating the prawns (they weren't that nice, as they were freshwater they had quite a different taste) and eating birthday cake as it was close to my birthday. Thanks Zac for making a yummy cake, love the decorations!

Sunday 3 April 2010 (Easter Sunday)

That morning I said my goodbyes to Debra, I wasn't sure when I would see her again and wished her well on her journey to Wellington to start her new job!

Trip to New Zealand - Part 2 - Hamilton

HAMILTON

30 March - 2 April 2010

On Tuesday, instead of catching a busy at 7.30am to Hamilton which is only 1 hour away, I was fortunate to be able to hitch a ride with Nicky's mum as she was heading through Tauranga from Gisborne on her way to Hamilton to see her new grandson.

We got to Hamilton and I spent the time until 5pm looking through Centre Place and Downtown Plaza, which I can tell you have very much gone down hill since I left. At 5pm Kimmy finished worked and I headed back to her house for the reunion with Katie my beloved kitty. Once she was feed and had a run around she was ready to be embraced in my arms. Me and Kim were talking and decided that Kim and Quentin have probably had Katie now longer than I had her!

On Wednesday I had a sleep in and then put my jeans on, yes Hamilton was a bit cooler than I was used to so after 5 months in storage they came out. I unfortunately missed the bus into town so had to walk from Fairview Downs into the city. It wasn't that bad and was a nice piece of exercise to combat all the food I had been eating. I meet up with some old work mates for lunch, wherein I got my long awaited potato and then spent the following two hours catching up with the goss from my old firm.

That night I wasn't feeling so well, ugggg my tummy said, I told my brain that it was maybe just some wind and went to sleep.

When I work up feeling as good as I did in Egypt, I decided that maybe my long awaiting potato gave me a bit more that satisfaction of my potato cravings - a touch of food poisoning maybe because all I ate was toast, potato, bag of potato chips and $1.00 worth of lollies before I started felling sick (no not all in one go throughout about 6 hours).

I did manage however to hall my arse out of bed and head to Chartwell to meet up with Delia for a light lunch and catch up on the goings on in her world. The night I still wasn't feeling flash but that didn't stop me going over to Jason and Juliets. Jason and Juliet built their new house, gosh must be at least three years ago, and I still hadn't seen it. So after the meet and greets of all my Gisborne friends I hadn't seen in ages and Alies baby, Hayden which I hadn't meet yet. I had a grand tour of the house.

I still managed to stuff myself silly on dinner and Jason and Juliet's fabulous homemade creme egg ice cream - YUM! I must get that recipe. The rest of the night was spent playing board games, I especially liked Ticket to Ride which I saw in my local games store the other day and I might be tempted to purchase.

On Friday morning I got up early and packed up all my gears before heading to Taupo for the weekend.

Trip to New Zealand - Part 1 - Tauranga

TAURANGA
27 March - 30 March 2010


The time had finally come for my long awaited trip to New Zealand. I hadn't been to New Zealand for over two years and was very excited. I arrived at Auckland airport at 1am - after having to wait an extra 20 minutes for late (foreign) passengers - leave without them I say! I can say that because I haven't been late for a flight ... yet! The wonderful Debra picked me up and we drove back to Tauranga to have some sleep before the wedding at 2pm that day. All dressed up in our glad rags we headed off to Kauri Grove for Hayley and Niki's wedding. The weather was perfect, the garden beautiful and the Bride amazing. The ceremony was lovely and I pocketed away a few ideas for WHEN I have my own wedding. After the ceremony it was back to Debra's for a few drinks and dress adjustments and then off to the reception at the Tauranga Rowing Club. The rest of the night was spent drinking and dancing on the dance floor including a conga line, macarina and the limbo.

Hayley and Niki it was a fantastic wedding and I had heaps of fun, well worth the trip over the ditch to come. Hope you have a fabulous honeymoon and look forward to seeing the professional photos. xoxox

Sunday we headed to Bayfair to do some shopping before heading over to Sarah's leaving bbq and leftover wedding food. The rest of my trip in Tauranga was spent catching up with old friends and eating lots of food.

Good Vibrations 2010

I saw various ad's for the Good Vibrations Festival all over the Gold Coast and as there were a few bands I liked the sound of I decided to buy a ticket and have my music festival virginity taken away.

As the weeks crept closer I went onto the Good Vibrations site and had a look at all the artists. I am useless when it comes to matching songs and singers so I thought that I would youtube all the artists and listen to a couple of their songs. I got more and more excited as I kept on going cause I actually knew a lot of them.

- Killers

- Basement Jaxx

- Gossip

- Busta Rhymes

- Salt-n-Pepa

Gold coast page - Good Vibrations Festival

The day finally came around and what a fantastic day for it. The weather was good but a little overcast so wasn't so hot.

After a few drinks at a friends house we walked around finding a taxi to take us there. Once we mish mashed ourselves inside the venue and after purchasing drinks tickets we were ready. We ping ponged from a lot of the various music and drink tents listening to the artists that took our fancy. There was one big downpour during the night, fortunately it was when I decided to go to the toilet and as it was a quick shower I didn't get wet.

Killers were the big act of the night and they didn't disappoint.

Unfortunately, because I am an idiot (this has happened before) I brought my fully charged camera to the festival but I didn't bring my memory stick so I only took a few photos.

I had a good time at the festival but at $145.00 probably won't be going to another one any time soon.

Toni

Sara's 24th Birthday

Its was Sara's birthday this week so we decided to go out into Surfers Paradise to celebrate.

The night started with free drinks at Bedroom nightclub. The Bedroom nightclub is where Ms Coutts-ma-loots works. For your birthday you can bring at least 10 friends into the nightclub with free entry and free drinks from 8-10 and the birthday person gets free fishbowls from 8-12! How good is that?! Making the most of the free drinks

So thats what we did. The Bedroom isn't really for me and I was the oldest one there but was good to hang out with the sisters and see what I am not missing by not going to this club on a Saturday night!

Oh how we all look alike!

Me again!

You will all remember this picture from my blog - TNT - where Debra took my picture at La Tomatina and I sent it into TNT magazine where I won free tickets to Stonehenge and Bath.

Well not only did it get featured in TNT magzine its also a picture on the banner on their site - click here!

PS - this might be more exciting for me rather than the readers of my blog!

New Years 2009 - 2010

I hadn't really made any plans for this New Years as I didn't have a lot of money and was feeling a bit down after the fantastic New Years I had in France the previous year.

But, I put on my happy face and my party dress and headed round to Tracey's house for some drinks with her cousins and their friends.

As I didn't really know anyone these are the only two photos I took.

I did however have a good New Years and was ... a little bit tammer this year!

My Box - Simpsons wouldn't recommend

I had decided to ship some things home to the Gold Coast and only organised two days before I left - which I don't recommend.

I decided to go with Simpsons because they were the cheapest. I lugged all my stuff down to London Bridge as because I wasn't going to be home that is where they were going to have to collect it.

I had packed, no more than 30kgs worth of things into my box, securely sealed the top, sides and bottom and then went on to fill in the paperwork.

- Did you pack it yourself - Yes

- Is there any alchol in there - Nope, I remembed to take that small bottle of sangria out

- Is there anything there that was used to package fruti - No ... as a image flashes through my mind of me putting all my magnets into a plastic container that I had washed, that did once house strawberries ... she'll be right I said for the next three months, secretly hoping they wouldn't notice the container and that I had lied on my declaration form. I watch Airline, I know thats bad!

I got an email in December from the Australian company telling me that my box was due to arrive in Australia, yah, and also letting me know that if I wanted it to be delivered to the Gold Coast that will be another $80.00 plus GST.

Hold up! I got a quote that was for door to door service my invoice was issued to my address in Southport and there is no mention of Brisbane whatsoever. I promptly wrote back to them to say that I paid for door to door service and this is my invoice for door to door service.

This is what I got back

Dear Ms O'Neill,

Further to your email, I have reviewed your file, and at the time of obtaining a quotation, you selected the first option of Brisbane, QLD Fremantle/Perth, Sydney Adelaide Melbourne or within 30 mile radius of port., and this is the quotation which you accepted.

Southport is 75 kms / 47 miles from Brisbane, and therefore outside of the zone you selected and paid for. If delivery is required to this address, then additional charges are payable to cover this. Whilst our records show an address in Southport, this is correspondence / postal address based on the details provided.

We can instruct our agents to forward and deliver your consignment to Southport, however we would require payment of GBP 15.00, this being the difference payable in zones. Please let me have your instructions / payment at the earliest opportunity, to resolve.

So I wrote back and said

Dear Tracy

As per my email above I did not prepare the quotation - so I did not select the first option.

I provided the information to your office at the quotations email address and then to Steve at your office. Steve prepared the quotes on my behalf with the information I provided - as per the attachment I forwarded in my previous email .

As a person who is not familiar with the zones, etc you use in your office, how was I supposed to know that

Destination:Australia,

Australia(Zone AU-A)

was not in fact what I wanted? That it was in Brisbane and not in Southport where I clearly wanted my box to go?

As professional people in this industry I expected that what information I gave would be put into my quotation and when I accepted that quotation that my box would be delivered to the address that I specified.

I have been very unhappy with the service I have received from Simpsons my emails go for days/weeks unanswered or delayed, I had to chase up my invoice to try and make a payment and then when I got my invoice it didn't reflect the deposit I have already paid, I couldn't get the website to work and now I am having this issue. At the end of the day all I want is for my box to be delivered and I think its very unfair to ask me to pay for the additional costs when it was your office that did not provide me with the correct quotations and the correct area on where my box was to be delivered to.

I am asking you to consider changing your position and telling Ocean Sky that they are to deliver my box free of charge to my chosen address in Southport. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

And this is the reply I got

Further to your email, I have referred your email onto my manager, and on this occasion he has authorised me to have your cartons delivered at no additional cost to yourself. I will contact Ocean Sky Int'l and inform them of this accordingly. Please accept my sincere apologies on behalf of our company for the inconvenience which has been caused with this matter.

Yes I won this time Simpsons

I now have my box, it got delivered looking like the dogs attacked it but at least its in one piece and I have all my pretty souveniers.

Now I don't tell you this story to bore you to death I tell you this story to warn you about the problems I have had with my box. I will also let you know that another friend who shipped her box back to New Zealand got an email from the NZ port authority telling her that her box had been lost! They then called her back and told her that in fact her box was not lost but it was left in the UK. She then had to wait another 3 months for her box.

When you look at shipping your things home to whereever you may live, maybe Simpsons isn't the best company to use ...

Courtney's 21st

From 18 (couldn't find any younger ones on the system)

to 21

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COUTTS

In celebration of her 21st she had an Aztec themed party in our back yard.

Toni

Toffee, Tof Tof, Toffe Pops, Toffee Tops, Tofinator, Puppy

Toffee - Toffee is my sister's 21st and christmas present from her boyfriend.

She is a little puppy dog - chihuahua silky terrier or Silkyawa for short.

Courtney wasn't really allowed to have the dog becuase we rent and aren't allowed dogs, we don't have any grass in the fenced off section and she isn't responsbile enough for a puppy (phew, it wasn't a baby!)

But ... Toffee has become a much loved pet in the O'Neill household and you really miss her when she isn't about.

As we have never really had a dog cause we are cat people, having a puppy is a real challenge, and something the whole family has had to adopt and adapt to.

Toffee is a smart puppy, she can sit, drop, beg and roll over but when it comes to toilet training she is just not interested! Any suggestions on the best way to get her understand that when we put you outside for a couple of hours its so she can got toilet and not come inside and immediately pee on the floor - lucky we have wooden floors.

I love having Toffee around and she is just so funny when she runs around the house like her tails on fire but not so much when she runs out the front door, down the street, across the road and into the neighbours lawn and you have to chase her in your pj's yelling Toffeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

You might be mad for a little bit then she looks at you with her puppy dog eyes and you can't resist ......

Nights out in the Goldie

Tracey, the blonde girl above whom I met in London and now lives on the Goldie, was going out for a few drinks with some friends from Brisbane (she used to live in Brisbane) I tagged along and had a good night out in Surfers but ... man oh man ... some of the worst blisters ever!

What a mish!

Wow, what a mission.

It may not look like a lot to you, and its a bit of a mess with the formatting and fonts which is really annoying because I spent ages trying to fix them, but that post took ages, especially since it had lots of pictures.

It may be boring to you but I like to write the history as well so I remember what I have learn. This blog is as much a diary for me as well as something fun for you to read thats why I spend a while trying to get it right!

Now onwards and upwards to my tales back in the Southern Hemisphere!

Stay tuned they should be much easier and faster to blog.

Hope you all still enjoy reading my blog. I am loving the new bloggers, Tim and Louisa and Debra's commitment to their blogs. Keep it up!!

Love Toni