Reading back on my notes from the journey to Taupo I appear to have literally written a stream of consciousness in my notepad which I will attempt to make sense of for you. On route to the town we passed through Bulls, a town which is very proud of its name and likes to replace parts of other words with the word bull. For example, outside the police station: consta-bull. There was also replacea-bull for a car parts shop. Plus many others, some that worked and m...

Since I was in Lord of the Rings country I figured I may as well treat myself to a tour of the filming locations around Wellington, often called Wellywood by the locals due to the massive impact the film industry has in the area post LOTR. I was being picked up at 8.40 so it was almost a sleep in! I left my entire dorm asleep and went to wait outside reception for my pickup…which still hadn't arrived by 9am prompting a phone call to the office who said I hadn...

The road to Wellington was fraught with danger and rabid animals. Only joking it was pretty tame and the only animals we saw were from a return to the Ohau seal pups, of which there were even more than last time, although they could have been rabid in all fairness. The ferry journey was equally uneventful, a little bit choppy but nothing compared to rolling around on the sea in a kayak the day previously. Once we arrived in Wellington I checked into my hostel,...

I had a solid 8 hours on the bus the following day, the highlight of which was being mobbed by a herd of cows on the road. I'm pretty sure the cows out here are even denser than the ones at home. I also found out that my drivers grandma was in the Good Charlotte video for boys and girls, a fact I was very jealous of, especially after finding out that she went backstage with them when they toured New Zealand. After a looooooong day on the bus I found myself bac...

Waking up the following morning I found it extremely difficult to move my neck - evidently all the falls I'd taken whilst snowboarding had given me some kind of whiplash!! Luckily I had nothing planned for the day so just attempted to plan my forward travel in the US - something which proves more difficult than I thought as it is not particularly backpacker friendly. But that is something to worry about for another time. The remainder of my day was passed on th...