We stayed for Auckalnd for 2 nights before going to Coromandel and then for another 3 before leaving to Chile. We didn´t do too much to be honest so this will be a brief blog. I is just a big city, not unlike any other and we were preparing to move on to South Amercia. The first night we stayed in the worst hostel so far on our trip. This was full of annoying loud people who decided throw furniture around in the hallways in the night and put food all over the...

We stayed for five nights in Coromandel town. It was a two hour ferry ride over there from Auckland and then a bus dropped us off at our hostel. We pitched our tent in the hostel garden. This took some time as Alan was getting quite frustrated. Our tent was a bit rubbish in that the outer layer never seemed to sit properly and reach the ground on all four sides at the same time. We got it as best we could. The weather was a lot warmer as it is spring now in NZ, a...

We woke up at 7am to get breakfast and pack up our tent in time for the bus from Rotorua to the small village of Waitomo. The nice woman from the campsite offered to give us a lift to the station, which saved us a 15 minute walk with all our bags. The bus to Waitomo only took 2 hours and the bus driver even dropped us off at our hostel, saving us another walk. They're really helpful these NewZealanders . Once the light rain had stopped we went outside and pit...

We left Taupo for Rotorua on 17th September. The journey only took an hour or so. It was really sunny so we decided to camp to save some cash. The lady at the campsite warned there were going to be thunderstorms but we didn't let that put us off. She was wrong anyway. We set up the tent and headed into town for a look around, a bit of internet and shopping. The town is quite small and smells like egg due to all the volcanic activity. In parks and fields all aroun...

We arrived in Taupo - a nice lakeside town in the middle of the North Island - in the middle of the afternoon after a long bus journey from Wellington. After a short walk we found our hostel and checked in to an eight bed dorm. Once we had unpacked we headed straight to the supermarket for a big shop as we needed to replace all the food that we had left in Nelson (see the Wellington blog). Back at the hostel we had a big lunch, then went out for a look around ...