I arrived in Auckland and picked up my hire car. I only had 15 days for New Zealand and so had some driving to do if I was going to see anything. I left Auckland at 16:30 and drove to Raglan that is on the West side of the North Island. It is supposed to be the top surf spot. Unfortunately it was a cold and miserable afternoon and I was not going to get my kit off for a swim in rough sea. I decided to get a take away pizza and do some reading of what I wanted to do. The next morning I drove down to the Waitomo caves. The NZ topography is really beautiful and around every corner it just gets more and more amazing. When I got to the caves I booked a trip immediately. The trip consisted of donning wetsuits, gumboots, helmets and lights. We did a quick training session to get familiar with the abseil equipment. We then entered the cave and proceeded to do a 15m underground waterfall abseil. We then did a further 10m and 8m abseil. Its quite a rush when its done in the dark and there is rushing water. When going back out the guys let some of us do a rock climb, which was great fun. I would loved to have one or two more things but the price and time schedule did not allow anymore activities. That night I met some of the locals and ended up having some drinks with them and playing frizbee in the middle of the road. There is not an awful amount of traffic in NZ. The next day I drove across to Roturua. This is where they have hot sulphur springs, zorbing, mountain biking, bungee, skydiving etc. I gave the zorbing a miss as it looked a bit boring. I was looking for a mountain bike and some trails to ride as this was where they held the last MTB World Champs. I eventually found Redwoods Park where Planet Cycle had bikes for hire. They have a full-time mechanic and I hired a Scott hard-tail, put my pedals on and was off. The park has about 70km of purpose built single track. There are number of tracks from Level 1 to Level 6. I must confess but this was the best purpose built stuff I have ever been on and I rode for 4 hours and only stopped because my legs could no longer turn the pedals. I camped that night and rewarded myself with a steak and great Pinot Noir from Wither Hills. He next day I could not start riding in the morning as they were having a large group of school kids going through, so I headed off to Hells Gate to see the sulphur springs first hand. The springs were interesting, but I wanted to get out and ride. I got back to the park and spent the whole afternoon riding those sweet trails again. All I could think of was how much fun the guys back home would have here. I then had my mind set on getting through to National Park that was about 300km away. So I drove through to National Park and managed to get a bed in Howards Lodge, which is a great backpackers. I chatted to the owners and they said that they were planning on taking others the day after to do the Tongarriro Crossing. This is a 6 / 7 hour walk that takes you past the active volcanoes. The weather was not looking good when we drove up to the volcanoes, but I had the foul weather kit and so headed off. The route was well marked which helped when it became very misty and winds picked up to 120km/h. So there were no diversions to see the volcano craters. The walk only took me 4 hours but I did not stop that often. This volcano and area was used for Mount Doom & Mordor in the movie the Lord of the Rings. The next day I hired a bike from the lodge and joined some local Kiwis to ride the 42nd Traverse. It’s a 46km ride, which is undulating and is mostly on 4X4 tracks and forest roads. There were enough ruts to keep you on your toes. The day was a perfectly warm day and we ended the ride with a few beers before going back to the lodge. He following morning I headed off to Wellington. It was a fairly long drive and when I got there I hired a cabin so that I could pack all my kit as I would be leaving my current hire car on the North Island and getting a different one on the South Island. The crossing the next day was pretty uneventful.