The campervanning has finished!! We've had such a brilliant time driving around New Zealand, it really is the best way to see everything, we don't think we would've seen half the things we have if we were on the kiwi experience bus!!

Last Thursday we were going to spend the whole day in Wellington, but we ended up just spending an hour or two in the morning! It was so small for a capital city and just had nothing really to do there either! All of the towns we've been to in the south island had been the same. We just wandered around the main area and saw the port which was nice and then got on the road. We drove all the way up to Taupo that day and found a campsite lodge place where we could park up but because it was dark when we got there we just had to go to the first place we got to. Was a really strange place, and made even stranger by this lady who was convinced that I was her long lost daughter! I was walking to the kitchens and she called me Rachel and when I said that that wasn't me she just stared at me and continued to for a couple of hours in the kitchen!! She kept asking me loads of questions like have I always lived in England etc as her daughter had aparently left 16years ago as a child with a British passport and she hadn't seen her since, was very creepy lol!! In the end I had to be quite rude and tell her I was absolutely 100% not her daughter and to stop asking me all of these questions haha!

On Friday morning we got out of the place and found a MUCH nicer lodge which was really young and had such great facilities!! We went in to Taupo town centre which was quite nice, very small again but had some nice little boutique shops. The weather was so bad so we ending up going to the common room area back at where we were staying and making lots of tea and watching a couple if movies! We were really hoping that the weather would improve over the weekend as we wanted to do a skydive!!

It rained allFriday night but when we woke up on Saturday it was such bright clear blue sky!! The first thing we thought was skydive!! We went to the reception to see if we could do it and they said someone would pick us up at 11am. They took us to the little aiport there right by lake Taupo and there were about 8 other people doing it at the same time. We all had to watch a video, which all made us sooo scared and then we got in to our red skydiving suits and met our tandem guys. We put on the harnesses and then waited for the first five to go up to jump. We could see little dots falling through the sky and then a parachute opening when they looked really close to the ground! This got us all even more nervous, but I was kind of more excited than nervous! The little pink plane landed and we all piled in and sat on benches whilst our tandem guys made sure we were properly attached to them! Mine kept saying that he was sure he'd forgotten something and things like that just to wind me up! One girl jumped at 12000 feet but Jo and I went at 15000 feet!! We had to put oxygen masks on for the last bit of the climb. When it was my time to jump we shuffled along the bench and sat on the ledge of the open door, which was the most terrifying part and then he threw us out of the plane! I don't remember that much of it as it was only a minute freefall, but we somersaulted at the beginning and then hurtled through the sky with our arms and legs out. It didn't feel like a minute at all and then at 5000 feet he opened the parachute and we had 4 minutes parasailing which made me feel really sick as he was spinning a bit and diving really quickly! The view over lake Taupo was incredible though!! I think it was one of the best things I've ever done and I really want to do another one now!!

It was raining on and off again on Sunday and it was really gloomy. We decided to stay another night in Taupo so on Sunday we went to the thermal spas and dipped our feet in the water which was like a really hot bath! It was really cold so there was so much steam! We couldn't really do much for the rest of the day so we ended up just watching movies with lots of others with cups of tea again!

We headed to Rotorua on Monday and the weather was so awful. It was raining so much that we could hardly see in front of us when we were driving! We'd planned to drive on the thermal highway where you can stop off at lots of thermal places along the way to Rotorua but we only stopped off at the bubbling mud pools which were so weird! It was just a bit pond with constant gurgling and bubbling and then there would be random mini explosions of mud! Was really cool to see! We got to Rotorua and went to see Fi's friends mum Fran who lives there. She made a lovely dinner and she insisted we stayed in the house instead of our campervan, which was so nice!! That evening we went to the cinema to see Robin Hood which was so good!

On Tuesday morning we all went out and inspected the damage from the rain. It had flooding loads on Monday but most of the water had gone! The own the famous maze in Rotorua so we did that on Tuesday before we went. It was such a big maze and really difficult but we managed to do it quite quickly! We then drove to Hamilton which is where one of Jo's friends from primary school is training to be a pilot! We spent to afternoon with him and he took us to the simulators and we had a go at flying a plane in one which was aweome!

We had to drive back to Rotorua on Wednesday morning as we'd left our rain coats at Fran's which we definitely needed!! We then drive back to Hamilton to go and stay with Jo's parents' friends house which was amazing. They'd moved out 23 years ago and had built their own house. They fed us well and we chatted all evening. They are major Christians and I think they were trying to convert me to save me lol! We had a really nice evening though!

We drove all the way up to Paihia on Thursday which is at the Bay of Islands north of Auckland and got there as it was getting dark. It was such a nice day on Friday so we went to the beach and collected shells and got fish and chips! We were going to do a boat trip out to the 144 islands but it was really expensive. It was beautiful up there though, definitely worth the trip up there! Today we drove to Auckland and gave the campervan back which we were quite glad of, it's worked out to be quite expensive and we'd seen everything we'd wanted to see. We've had such a great time in New Zealand but we're really excited to go to South America now!! We've got tomorrow in Auckland and then we fly out on Monday!! We get two 31st of Mays as we cross the international date line! We have a flight from Auckland to Santiago at 4.20pm and a flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires at 4.20pm! It will be the last lef of our trip!