We have visited the amazing Te Papa museum where we saw the only Collosal Squid ever to be caught (it's dead but quite amazing). We went for two runs, one around the harbour and marina and on New Years Eve we ran up Mount Victoria upon which we could see right over Wellington and the harbour. It was a lovely clear sunny day and the work out was just what we needed. The rest of the day was spent sunbathing on the beach just outside the harbour. New Years Eve ...

28th December We headed for River Valley Lodge near Taihape, literally in the middle of nowhere. I have stayed here with the Kiwi Experience and I was hoping to take Katie white water rafting, however due to the extremely windy conditions and storm the river had swollen and risen very high and no rafting was taking place. We decided to do a horse ride instead and prayed the weather would be better in the morning for this. This was a good decision, the weathe...

Boxing day we headed for Gisborne on the East coast. This is where the sun rises first in the world on the new day. We are lucky with the weather as we hear reports of heavy rain and flooding in the south island. We sat and watched the sunset on boxing day and set our alarms for sunrise on 27th which was worth the early start. 27th was a beautiful day. We were lucky to get a motel for a couple of nights less than 100 metres from the sandy beach. Lucky as th...

....well.... Christmas dinner at Urban Retreat, Taupo turned out to be the thing to do in Taupo. We and about 70 others enjoyed dinner in 25degrees sunny weather. The staff laid on a fabulous spread with more than enough food for everyone. We ate on plastic plates with plastic cutlery which was really the only down side, but hey, no washing up! Bumped in to Tom and Dom AGAIN who were staying at the hostel too, so had dinner with them and their nutty 'fairy' f...

Our last stop on the north island for a while is Wellington. Wellington is located directly on a major earthquake fault line and experiences a lot of seismic activity. I can't say the earth moved for me though! On the way we went through a village called Bulls, everything in the village uses this in its name.... police station called Consta Bull, jewelers called Beauti Bull, restaurant called 'bounti bull' you get the picture! Wellington for me was a bit non...