Auckland Jan 16th (Mon) 2012 A sad day as we now return to Auckland, hand in our car & get ready for our flight home via Singapore. I am very sad. I could stay here for ever. I dread the short days and the damp, cold temperatures in the UK. I think Pete is ready to come back though. He's done SOOOO much driving(13250 Km) I think he'll be glad to be transported around for a while. We left at about 9.30am & basically just kept going apart from stopping f...

Russell to Opononi January 13th (Fri) 2012 Left at 9.15am & it's already 28 degrees C outside. with the sun splitting the sky. What a shame it wasn't like this for our cruise yesterday. We stopped at Kawakawa to see the Hundertwasser toilets. These works of art with multicoloured pillars on the outside were created in 1997 by the reclusive (not sure if this was in the toilet!) Austrian painter, architect, ecologist and philosopher Frederick Hundertwasser. ...

Russell to Opononi January 13th (Fri) 2012 Left at 9.15am & it's already 28 degrees C outside. with the sun splitting the sky. What a shame it wasn't like this for our cruise yesterday. We stopped at Kawakawa to see the Hundertwasser toilets. These works of art with multicoloured pillars on the outside were created in 1997 by the reclusive (not sure if this was in the toilet!) Austrian painter, architect, ecologist and philosopher Frederick Hundertwasser. ...

Jan 11th (Wed) 2012 We left 'Breaker's Motel' at 9.05am. We were so sorry to leave -this accommodation really suited us. We got straight onto the road as we had a long journey ahead of us today. Farmland and fruit growing at first. Kiwi fruit grown in this area. It never occurred to us before that Kiwi fruit had originated in NZ. Never made the connection. We drove off the road to go onto the coast to have our picnic at Bream Bay. The weather appeared a lot bet...

Rotorua to Whangamata Jan 7th (Sat) 2012 We left the Bay View Resort in Taupo at 9am. We drove to Wai -o-Tapu where we'd been told there was a geyser that 'blew' at 10.15am every morning. This troubled me as I couldn't understand how that could happen if there was no connection with the solar system. I felt that 'the hand of man' had to be involved in some way. Anyway, all was revealed when the crowd was assembled in a semicircular 'arena' around the geyser. Th...