Hello folks! (or especially for MT - ALREEEEEETTTTTTT!!

Hope everyone is well back home and that the weather is improving! Well where to begin, we have had a very busy few days over here, i will try to pick up from where Frankie left off in the last blog...

Tamaki Maori Village - This was a brilliant night in Rotorua, we were picked up at our campsite and taken just out of town to the traditional Maori village and were greeted by several maori warriors who came out of the gates and started strutting their stuff (as you can see from the photos!), it was very impressive, a very powerful performance and quite intimidating to be honest!! We were then taken into the village and shown around with different folk showing us how maori clans would have lived hundreds of years ago, all very interesting! There was then a concert where they performed traditional songs and also some world famous haka which was fantastic! After this was dinner time (my favourite) which was a traditional hangi feast, this is where they dig a big hole in the ground, put white hot volcanic rocks in the bottom, then chuck all your food in there and cover it with damp sacks and pile the soil back over the top, leave it for about 3 hours then bingo! your feast is ready to eat! the food was lovely, chicken, lamb, and loads of veggies, and of course a few beers to wash it down!

The day after this we drove over to the east coast to Hastings to visit Don and his wife Joel. Don is Kiwi guy who worked for my Granda back in 1949(!!) up in the Cheviot hills while he was on his travels. We spent a day with Don and Joel, meeting some of their family and seeing the sights round hastings then went out for a lovely meal with them in the evening and stayed the night at their house - it was great to have a real bed after a few weeks in the van!! It was great to chat to Don about his time in England with my grandparents when they were even younger than i am now!

Well after a comfy night in a real bed it was on the road again for a 5 hour drive down to Wellington. The following day it was up early to get on the ferry at 7am over to the south island. it was a fairly calm crossing and we got some great scenery as we came down the Queen Charlotte Sound and into Picton on the south island. We arrived about half 11 and it was straight onto the road for another 7 hours down to Timaru, by which point we were absolutely shattered! The next day we were up reasonably early again and carried on over Wanaka which took us about 4 hours.

Arriving in Wanaka we met up with Miles and Georgie again at Georgies parents timeshare place which is very nice! That afternoon we went for a swim in the lake and had a bbq, very civilized! Yesterday we embarked on a mammoth 50km bike ride on the Otago Rail Trail. This wa great fun, it followed the old Otago railway line which ran to Dunedin on the east coast. We cycled 25km up to a place called Chatto Creek where we stopped at a pub and had some lunch and lay in a hammock for half an hour while we recouped our energy then set off to do the other 25km back to the car. Needless to say we were all shattered by this point so it was a very quiet car journey back to Wanaka!

So thats about it so far, tomorrow we are heading to Queenstown which is just about an hour south of here, will keep you all posted with what we get up to.

Okey dokey, take care everyone...

Chris and Frankie