Monday 17th January - Anchorage Bay to MarahauBeach After a very uncomfortable night, Ant and I were up at 7:00 am making sandwiches for our hike today.We are booked on the 9:00 aqua taxi to AnchorageBay from where we will hike the coastal path back to MarahauBeach - a distance of 11 kilometres (the full track is 54.4 km with huts and campsites along the way and can take 3-5 days to hike) At 8.30 the bus picked us up for the short drive to the aqua taxi ter...

Sunday 16th January Wellington/Picton - Abel Tasman We have a very early start today as we are booked on to the 8:00 am ferry to Picton where we will be picked up by another bus and another guide. Check in at the ferry terminal is 7:00 am so we met Lucky at 6:40 am to load up the bus - she has learnt about my caffeine addiction over the last 5 days and she had bought me a cappuccino bless her!!!!!At the ferry terminal we said goodbye to all the friends we h...

Saturday 15thJanuaryNational Park - Wellington Our accommodation at the Park Lodge was wonderful - we had our own little room with 2 single beds, full en suite facilities, fridge, washing facilities and a mezzanine floor with another 2 beds.The Park also has a coffee bar!!!!!After his shower, Ant went and fetched us a cappuccino and got Sophie a hot chocolate (she shared with us last night as there were odd numbers of males and females and she would have been ...

Friday 14th January - Tongariro Alpine Crossing 7:15 start this morning as we said goodbye to Dan and Blue Duck Lodge and headed for TongariroNational Park (a World Heritage site) and our accommodation at Park Lodge.After checking in and picking up our packed lunches (which we had ordered the pre-ordered) we set off on another bus for the car park at Mangatepopo where we started the Tongariro Crossing. The Tongariro Crossing is an epic 19.4 km trek across s...

Wednesday 12th January Hahei to Roturua Another early start today.Ant and I hit the showers at 6:00 am to avoid the crowds, had breakfast, packed up and the bus left at 7:30am for the 3 hour drive to Roturua.We had one stop on route (for coffee and toilets of course!) at a place called Paeroa.The place is famous for a drink called "L&P" (lemon and Paeroa) made from the local spring water - it is owned by Coca Cola now of course!! We arrived at...