Hello everyone!! its been a while!! We are now in NEW ZEALAND!! Since we have last updated we have travelled around the whole of the North Island and are currently beginning our journey of the South. We arrived in Auckland from Sydney on the Friday afternoon and picked up our camper which was to be our home for the whole month and a bit. When we arrived we were told we had an upgrade which we were very pleased about, but they changed their minds ha so to make up for it we were given a sat nav, dvd player, wine the lot and we love our camper!! So after we were at the camper place for about an hour we set up camp nearby in Auckland and settled into our first night in the camper and one of many dishes of pasta!! After our first nights rest in the campsite we travelled North for about 4 hours to the Bay of Islands, Gizz is good at driving as its just like home! Although he was shocked to discover there arent motorways...yet more of roads built into hillsides, which gives you the best views!! Driving up to the North, we also realised how much NZ reminds us of home, lots of cows, sheep and green fields!! We stopped in a little fishing village in the bay of islands and set up camp in a car park ha ( therres lots of other campers bascially camped everywhere!!) .The drove down the coast a little and stopped in a spa !! ( they have them everywhere here!!) they have a lot of natural hot springs because of the volcanoes so you see spas and natural springs everywhere. We spent the mornign in the spa and they had pools that reached temperatures of 40c plus., they also had a hot pool with a movie screen in! On the way back down South we stopped to explore caves and found an amazing waterfall. We stayed the night in a little town called Coromandel and hired bikes which was lovely as we road along the beach as the sun was setting.

As we moved on from Coromandel we stopped at various scenic spots along the way ( it truely is amazing with all the natural landscapes) we stopped at Hot water beach...which is as it sounds... a beach with boiling hot water below the sand. You dig a little hole in the sand and you can see the water boiling!! you can bury a spud etc and it will cook in a few hours, some people were led in the holes taking baths! After the beach we took a 2hour walk to see Cathedral Cove which is a cove carved into the rocks by erosion. We have certianly been active in New zealand and the next few days were spent climbing mountains !!

After about a week we hit the town of Rotorua which is where alot of the thermal activity happens, so there is alot of sulphur in the air which makes it smell like rotten eggs!!! As you drive around the town you can see random bursts of hot steam coming up from the ground. If you go oiver to it you can see the mud boiling!! We sopent a night doing a Maui culutre night in Rotorua where the local people tell us about there culture and show us the Haka!! They also cooked us a LOVELY meal in a Hangi ( under ground oven ) which me and Gizz loved after living on just carbs in the camper... rice.. pasta spuds!! ha

After Rotorua we travelled down country about an hour to Lake Taupo the biggest lake in NZ. We decided on the way down the Taupo that we wanted to do a skydive and the weather seemed perfect for it so we drove to the airport ( i still wasnt convinced i could do it at this point, i thought i could back out as they did saftey talks etc... but when we arrived at the skydive airport it literally took about 5 mins to get us kitted up and it was time to get into the plane!! i didnt have chance to think about it!! i was more scared of wetting myself with fear then actually jumping i think. Gizz was fine and we both absolutley loved it!!! we could see eachother on the way down too and we had some amazing views of the lake and mountains!! We camped by the lake that night and treated ourselves to a bottle of New zealands finest in celebration!!

The next day we went to see Huka Falls ( an amzing waterfall and rapids river) and took an hours walk to the hot spings where we got in the river and it was boiling like a jacuzzi!! was a lovely day for it too, on the evening from where the weather had been so clear we could see stars for ages... hard to explain but more stars then weve ever seen in england!! thousands!! On the way out of Taupo we stopped by a honey hive and tasted some lovely honey!! including a lovely honey baileys!! . On our drive down to Wellington we stopped by the National Park whcih was used as Moor door in the Lord of the Rings films and took some pictures of the Volcanoes one of which was used as mount doom!! We arrive in Wellington and met up with our friend Leia for two nights who cooked us some lovely food!!! ( we get very excited about food!!). After two days in Welly we caught the 3 hour ferry with our camper to the South Island, to begin our South island adventures which we will update you on soon!!! lots fo love x