After the distress of the bike ride from hell we set off again towards Tongariro National Park as we wanted to do the Tongariro Alpine crossing, unfortunately we were having a run of really bad weather and it just didn't stop raining and so the local tour operators weren't running their drop off service as they thought the crossing conditions were too dangerous. We decided to drive past the National Park and head to Whanganui where we were going to sit it out for...

On the way to the Taupo we called in at Rotorua to see the thermal pools, it wasn't a particularly nice day as it rained for most of it but they were really nice if a little smelly! By the time we got to Taupo it was still raining so we went for a pint and then settled in for the night at a spot right next to the beach. Never one to be deterred from a BBQ Casson rigged the poncho up over the back door and bbq'd in the rain. The next day the rain was torrential b...

So for those of you who have been following our travels you'll know that we had 6 weeks in New Zealand but we've not blogged about it. This is mainly due to not having any internet access whilst we were there and then we seem to have been playing catch up ever since then. We've got a few days now were we don't have a lot planned so we're hoping to be completely up to date by the time we start our whirlwind 4 week tour of China. We arrived in Auckland to the frie...