After a slow and tedious drive along the coast from Coromandel we finally got to State Highway 1 and we were quickly driving through the south western suburbs towards the Waitakere Ranges and our campsite for the evening. The Waitakere Ranges are an area of hills and forest just 20kms from central Auckland. We bought our permit from the visitor centre which was adorned with prodigiously endowed male Maori carvings. We drove to the coast and a place called Piha. ...

We headed to the Coromandel Peninsular in the hope of a relaxing couple of days to catch up on some sleep and not do very much. Our first night was spent on a DoC site near a town called Thames, eating tuna pasta and sheltering from a thunderstorm, both of us with a cold. Perhaps not the start we'd intended so we were therefore pleased to wake up to a clearer day and set off to find Cathedral Cove, which promised a very beautiful beach with an impressive cathed...

Part of my birthday present from Anna and her parents was the promise that we'd go black water rafting when in NZ. Having driven west from Rotorua (not very nice) yesterday afternoon we arrived at Waitomo (pronounced why-tuo-mo) at lunchtime today. In Maori this translates as water hole and is apt as there are 300+ caves in the area. There is also a bewildering array of different tours and operators. Luckily the young lady at the iSite (tourist info) was very ...

North Island is much more volcanically active than the South Island and most of this is concentrated in the region around Lake Taupo which, itself, has formed in the caldera of a very old volcano. We drove north from Palmeston North along the desert road which peaked at over 1000m and should have offered fantastic views of Mt Doom (not its real name) and the 2 other neighbouring peaks. Unfortunately it was raining heavily and the cloud was low so the only view...

Wellington is the capital of NZ and quite a contrast to the small village of Picton that the ferry left from. We parked by Te Papa - a museum, more of which later, and walked into the city centre. It was very quiet, like there was half the number of people that you'd expect to be there. The shops were not that exciting but there were some nice bits of architecture and older buildings. The parliament building, fondly known as the beehive, was not among them tho...