2005 in NZ

A trip to Muriwai Beach (North-west of Auckland) with the seniors. Garnet colony n the Tasman Sea in the back.


Trip to Kawau Island organised by the hall.....did some tramping around the island.






A submarine passing-by on the way back to Auckland.

Easter break - Trip to the tourist town of Rotorua.


The first activity - THE SWOOP. Guess who is the one who is afraid of heights. He even got charged the kid's fee!










Activity 2 - ZORB. For those you do not know what is the Zorb, its actually a Big transparent ball with an empty core. A max of 3 people will get inside the ball with some water and roll down a slope. Takes bout 30secs i think...and cost about RM70 ;p Feels as if you're are in a washing machine tumbling inside with the addition of other people's hand slapping against ur naked chest. We did it twice and on the second run, we attempted to get our names on the Wall of Fame by walking down the slope but after the 3rd step......



The 3rd activity - Luge. Race downhill in crazy speeds with skateboard wheels on a piece of plastic. Tight corners and chicanes. Did I mention that there weren't any barriers on the side so "Jack can tumble down the hill"


Rafting. The whole idea of going to Rotorua was for this. Had a number of calls saying that we may not be able to do it because of the rise in the water levels. On the last day, we received the call that its all go!!!


7m drop!




Yea! we flipped!!!!!


Detour to Tauranga beach on the way back to Auckland from Rotorua - the Pacific Ocean.



Rotorua again!
Since we did not do much sight seeing when we were in Rotorua the last time, I thought we could take a half day trip to Rotorua again since its only an hour forty-five from Hamilton. We were quite free in the 1st week of Medicine posting. We did not get to see much cuz when we got there the attraction sights were about to close and it was getting dark since its winter. Took a few pictures.


The 1st picture of my car.....




Trip down to Taupo
On the 2nd last weekend of our Medicine posting, Zhi Yi and I decided to stay back in Hamilton and do some travelling. A bunch of our batchmates were going skiing and seeing that we don't know how to ski, we decided to carry out the initial plan to go down to Lake Taupo. The drive down to Taupo took about 2 hours and there were many sites to visit on the way down south. Most of the sites were thermal valleys and boy do they smell!


The above 2 pictures were taken at "craters of the moon" aptly named because of the various craters formed by the thermal vents that eroded the ground above.

Once we reached Taupo, we found out that there wasn't much else to see or do. We have heard that skydiving in Taupo is cheap (about RM300+ compared to RM600+ elsewhere). We had no time to think what we have just done because there was a shuttle that was actually on its way to pick to scared german girls and we were told to join them. We didn't even get to watch the video or hear any instructions because when we got there, there we 2 empty slots in the plane and we "voluntaried" ourselves......and to think we were polite enough to offer the ladies to go 1st. And so RM300+ was burned away in a matter of a few minutes.