We finally left the South Island for the joys and delights of the North Island, which, many have told us, is far more vanilla. Let's hope not too much so. The ferry was easy and the crossing smooth and we coasted into, yet another, motel for the weekend.

Wellington is built in a valley, so there is a limit to the size of the town that makes if feel far busier and more compact than many of the other towns we have visited. It's also a big university town so there are double the number of burger joints, pubs and nightclubs, together with the requisite number of goth teenagers hanging around outside them. It looks rather tough to be a goth when it's 32 degrees in the shade.

We took a tram up to the top of a hill and walk back down through the Botanical Gardens taking in the majestic views of Wellington Harbour and the herds of wildebeest therein. I've come to the conclusion that New Zealand is sort of like England, with small round wooden doorhandles on. But I wouldn't want to live here. Too many sheep, not enough culcher.

We are in Wellington for Wellington Cup Day - their equivalent of the Derby. For some reason they all go mad for dressing up here, but, in that typical antipodean way, not in posh frocks and morning suits, they prefer gorilla costumes and the 'Borat' lime green thong. Their costumes are accompanied by very liberal amounts of alcohol and by the evening the streets of Wellington are thronged by a wide variety of inebriated nuns, cowboys and indeed Borats, not to mention a suprising number of scantily clad nurses, air hostesses and policewomen. Must be the heat.

It may be a small country by our standards, but, according to the local media, New Zealand is in the grip of a crime wave unequalled since the days of Al Capone. After a day of reading the papers and listening to the news we hardly like to venture out from our cosy little room/garage for fear of being set upon by a gang of hardened marauding New Zealand youth and beaten to a touristy pulp. There have been 10 murders already this month and as if that wasn't enough to worry about, it appears half the youth of this seemingly peaceful sheep and beer loving country are wandering about with spray cans of paint in their back pockets tagging anything that moves. The other half (who appear to have emigrated here from either Tunbridge Wells or Cheltenham) are busy writing strongly worded letters of disgust to their local newspapers along the lines of 'what has the world come to?' and claiming that 'it wasn't like this in our day'.

One enterprising chap has combined both of New Zealand's top crime stories in one and actually murdered a tagger just the other day. From the news reports he seems like a benign middle-aged blinking sort of chap not unlike your archetypal accountant. He seems a trifle amazed at the way things have turned out. Despite having gone out in the middle of the night to confront the taggers and slipping a kitchen knife in his back pocket on the way out. As you do. That may have been where it all went horribly wrong for him.

In fear of recrimination if he returns back home he has asked for voluntary imprisonment whilst awaiting his trial date and, according to yesterday's papers, he has been befriended and is being looked after by all the Harry Hard-nuts in the prison as, being mostly middle-aged themselves, apparently they dislike graffiti artists almost as much as they hate nonces. Go crims.