We survived the erie night alone by the lake - although Dave was sure that a Friday the 13th monster was going to emerge from the lake at some point! We headed to the Waitomo Caves today which was about an hour from our creepy camping position. we had heard nothing but good things about this experience - as it has 3 caving sites one which is renowned as a Glowworm cave. We were lucky enough that the same company who own the Campervan, also own this experience ...

Next on the agenda was a geek out for Dave when we visited Matamata - the Movie set of Hobbiton (in the Lord of the Rings films). Unfortunately he had to sign a non disclosure agreement upon entering which means he can not say what he saw while visiting :-(. But it was a GREAT experience - We am sure you can figure out why if you think about it!!!! Lets just say that the photos are incredible but we can not upload them online due to the confidentalality agreement...

So it took the a day to drive the coast through Greymouth, Westport and into a Forest just south of Nelson where we camped for the evening. The colours in the forest are incredible, mixes of yellow, green, blues and purples litter the hills. The forests run for miles as well which is great for camping. We got to Nelson and drove up to a place called Kaiteriteri across the coast. This place was beautiful, with calm green seas and crystal white sandy beaches. W...

After a night camping in a Picton layby - yes we are that broke and that classy, we caught the ferry (with no breaking down this time) to Wellington. To say we slept the whole way would be an accurate statement! We then took the foretold less scenic route back up to Rotorua to take advantage of our free Polynesian Spa voucher :-). Route 1, which we were told was the quickest but not the prettiest route turned out to be amazing. We saw the valley that was used f...

So we arrived at the Fox Glacier first and it was raking it down, from the view point we couldn't even see the tip of the glacier. When getting up to the Glacier itself it was still pretty hard to see anything due to the torrential rain and fog. So we drove on to the Franz Josef Glacier - the more commercialized of NZ's glaciers. Unfortunately it was still pouring with rain - a shame because we had had nothing but sun since we arrived. We booked a glacier hike...