The first thing you see as you approach Taupo is the huge lake and it is an amazing sight as you come down the highway with forest either side and the huge crystal lake in the background.

We only really stopped at the I-Site here as Max and Caroline wanted to find out if they were going to be able to climb one of the nearby mountains, with the bad weather that had been forecast. Anyway, it turns out that the track to the mountain was going to be closed until Sunday afternoon so we were stuck with us for the rest of the drive to Wellington!

We did feel a bit gutted for them though as that’s exactly how we felt when we couldn’t really see any of Yosemite due to the snow and bad weather. Ah well, I hear that there’s some OK scenery in the south island aswell…

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving some of the 340km to Wellington, eventually spending the night at a (FREE!!) DOC campsite at Vinegar Hill. To be fair though you could see why it was free as it was basically a strip of land between a river and a forest, of which also happened to have random cars driving around along with stray dogs in the dark.

After watching our Canadian Passengers erect their tent outside in the cold and wondering how they could put up with it for so long, we all had a few beers and taught each other some card games. They had a game called “Kems” in which you work in pairs and have to attempt to get all four of a certain card and then covertly let your partner know so they can call “Kems”. Quite hard to explain, but it was a good laugh apart from the fact that the score ended up as 10-0 to the Canadians (we were on -1 at one point though so we did win one game at least!).

After that we taught them the good old classic that is “s*** head”. We also kicked their ass, which felt gooooooood after the whooping we had received at their game.

All that practise at work paid off! Their still better than you though Bassett.

Finally we exchanged some traditional home phrases much to all of our amusement. Apparently, heavy rain in Canada is referred to as “raining string ” or “raining nails“!

Explaining the differentiation between “b******s”(bad) and “dogs b******s”(good) was also quite amusing.

The night was also one of the most clear that I’ve ever seen and as a result we also stepped outside and took a look at the Milky Way, which is really clear in the southern hemisphere and really an amazing sight. You could also see the constellation that the stars on the New Zealand flag are made up of, which is basically a kite shape.

Ooh, and we saw a shooting star. Well, three of us did as Aimee was attempting to take a picture at the time. We also found out that basic digital cameras do not take very good photo’s of stars.

The next morning we headed off early and what seemed like days later (about 3 hours) we arrived in Wellington.

Today in New Zealand is Anzac day which is also a public holiday meaning most places are either closed or on Sunday hours, so after arriving we just headed for the I-Site which thankfully was open and got some information on the closest campsites to the city (which turned out to be 10km away).

We also said our farewells to Max and Caroline as they headed off to find a backpackers hostel before doing the same and heading back out of the city to the Capital Gateway campsite.

Tomorrow we shall be exploring this fair city (and tasting the local beef Wellington, obviously) before hopping on the ferry to the south island on Monday morning…

Hope everyone back home is well, and genuinely, good luck to the blue nose’s in the final Mick. Id even rather see your lot win than the plastic cockneys (sorry Trevor).

Anyway, haere ra (bye!) for now.

Mark & Aimee x