From the Tongariro National Park we headed south down to Palmerston North en route to Welly.John Cleese once said of Palmerston North that '...if youever do want to kill yourself, but lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.'After John's kind words they felt it befitting to name their rubbish dump after him.Shhhh don't mention the tip! Just outside of Palmerston North is Manawatu Gorge, we were going to attempt the 6 hour trek alo...

We decide to drive up in to the mountains as the wind was subsiding and the forecast for the higher ground was looking good. As we drove through The Tongariro National Park, ChateauWhakapapa loomed in the distance with the formidable Mt Ruapehu in the back ground. We spoke to the guys at the Whakapapa information centre who were still a bit dubious about the weather.I drove as far up the mountain as our poor camper van would let us, we caught a bus the final ac...

The drive from Napier to Taupo was fantastic, the scenery was quite dramatic with my first view of New Zealand's snow covered mountains. We arrived in Taupo aside from the lake which is the same size as Singapore, the first thing we saw was the McDonald's not for the iconic golden arches but for the full sized airplane in the car park!Intrigued we stop to have a nose and a Mcs*** with Lies.The Plane actually forms part of the restaurant, so you can sit and eat y...

I started my drive north, my first planned stop was Martinborough to check out the famous wine region.Unfortunately I missed the junction, which was obviously not sign posted!By the time I realised I was a few too many miles north and the wrong side of the Puketoi Mountain Range. b*****. It was one of the things I knew Elizabeth & JJ would want to do when they join me in a week. I wasn't a complete disaster as the wrong road took me back through Palmerston N...

From Sydney I drove to a place called Perisher up in the mountains, as I drove up through the small towns I got lots of strange looks walking around in my shorts & flip flops whilst the locals were in their full winter gear. One of the towns I drove through was a little place called Berry, as I drove in to the town there was a side road that caught my eye.Adam would have been in his element lined up on either side of the road were Toyota MR2s, this would hav...