Glacier Country Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers were next on our hit-list but, due to mis-remembering the timetable, we missed the glacier tour we were hoping to go on, so we just walked to the foot of each glacier before we headed south. A bit of a disappointment but we compensated for it by spending extra time skiing! We drive to pancake rocks which look like stacks of pancakes, but are apparently a geological mystery. There are also blowholes there which are fo...

Anatoki After a gruelling drive through the mountains for Jez, we arrived at Anatoki where we experienced our second hunting expedition (second to the prawn fishing). We went salmon fishing! We caught 1.6kg of salmon between us and Jez even got to touch a friendly sheep while we were there! The people at the salmon farm smoked our catch for us, half of which we ate for lunch and the rest we saved for the next day. It was delicious!

We made our way south to the capital Wellington where we explored the city centre before heading up the surrounding hills on a cliff railway, a beautiful red carriage which has been maintained in a Victorian style. At the top was the botanic garden which we had fun exploring, particularly the play park which had a zip slide, but we did think it might have been more colourful in the day time and/or in summer! The following day we went to the national museum which ...

Rotorua We drove to Rotorua after a successful overnight camp in the van and found a "luge" or toboggan run on the side of one of the mountains, overlooking Lake Rotorua. It was great fun and although Jez overtook me on the first run, I was uncatchable for the rest! We saw some hot sulphur pools in the park and went to a thermal spa in the evening where there were pools of hot acidic and alkali spring water naturally heated to 38 - 42 oC, it was very...

The Adventures Begin We had our last day of Auckland placements on Friday before we packed our belongings and collected our hire van on Saturday. We immediately hit the road, with Jez being resigned to two weeks of driving since I left my drivers licence at home. We initially drove around The Coromandel, a remote peninsula with lovely scenery, and then on to Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach was amazing! The beach rests above 170oC volcanic rock, so if you dig ...