After our few nights in Rotorua, we opted to do the special Maori experience at Lake Aniwhenua for the night (this was optional and you could have skipped it!) It wasn’t too far from Rotorua, and we’d hopped on a new bus (which was broken and replaced with a weird temporary bus making crazy noises and no seat belts! We were stuck with this for the remainder of the North Island), and the new driver was really nice, as well as the people on the bus. We stopped ...

Change of driver later, we hopped back on the bus for a couple of hours to head towards the moment David had most looked forward to: Hobbiton! This was the same day as we did the Waitomo Caves, as we left Raglan towards Rotorua, so it was a pretty heavy day. We rolled up about 3pm, to collect our tickets and have a quick look around the shop before boarding a coach to take us down through the farm towards where the set was built. We then spent time, with the guid...

Another early morning arrived, and we piled back onto the Stray bus for the journey to Raglan. Passing through the town of Hamilton, where we’d originally planned to hop off for a few days, we stayed on the bus until we reached the seaside, surfing town of Raglan, where we spent an hour or so in the town, shopping and wandering by the harbour. After shopping in a typical ill equipped tiny store for our dinner, we headed up a mountainous hill (there are lots of ...

Our second day in Paihia was very chilled, involving a walk along the beach, watching a boat race, as well as visiting the markets. After leaving the sunny shores of the Bay of Islands for cold, chilly, Auckland, we arrived back at Sue’s house for a last cosy and comfortable night before our travels. We’d actually planned to spend a few more days in Auckland, and visit some of the islands nearby, but the buses down south were becoming less frequent, due to it...

So, after 2 flights (Brisbane - Sydney, Sydney - New Zealand) we arrived in Auckland, in the dead of night (after immigration, getting to the hotel then sorting out a burst shampoo bottle in David's bag it was gone 2am!). The next 2 days we spent at Sue's house, recovering and seeing a tiny bit of Auckland, as well as the beautiful NZ countryside. We're returning for an extra 4 days in Auckland though so plenty more to see and do coming up :) After our 2 days...