We said our goodbyes and drove up to Lake Taupo and had a few pints over a chat about plans for the future. On the way up to Rotarua to meet up with Jane and Doug, we stopped by the 'craters of the moon'. Thermal pools in an eerie meadow full of bubbling, steamy craters. Just a taste of what was to come. We stopped at Huka falls further up the road. A serious set of rapids in a beautiful gorge.

After our rest at the batch we headed up to Palmerston North and met up with Sue and Amy and then had a Chinese takeaway with Jane and Doug. We spent the next morning on a day out with Sue. Our first stop was the P'North farm show looking at cows with 'silky udders'. We then headed out to see the Wind farms, which are amazing. 200 huge turbines. We had planned on going horse riding nearby but it started to rain so we had a nice spot of lunch and picked up Ma...

We crossed from Picton to Wellington in the evening and watched Harry Potter again on the ferry. We stayed in Wellington for the night and headed up to 'the batch' in Waikawa beach. It is a lovely place by a river mouth, sand dunes and the sea. We spent 5 days relaxing, reading National Geographics, trying to do jigsaws, cooking our own food (including Claire baking cookies) and being woken up every morning by birds in the roof. It was just what the doctor for ...

28th & 29th October, thursday and friday After driving all day to get to Picton and teh Marlborough sound on thursday we had hoped to hire mountain bikes or just go tracking for the day but on friday morning it was raining and looked likely to rain all day. So here we are in Picton having eaten a lovely Fush 'n' Chups lunch and armed with a ferry ticket for 7pm we are ready to leave the south Island and to meet up with the relies again. Doug and Jane have ki...

25th to 27th October 25th With the weather being glorious and feeling better after sleeping in a van rather than the floor of a tent we decided to do a couple of day walks and tackle the Abel Tasmans from the other end so drove north to Pohara. We did very little else but sit around (opnm our fancy camping chairs donated by a friendly german fellow about to leave the country)in the sun and read our books and dry our sleeping bags which hadn't spun in the w...