haven't got any pics of Raglan yet, this one will have to do!! Anyway, after getting sick of there being no surf in one of the 'biggest surf towns in NZ' we decided to head for Raglan. It was a bit of an eventful journey, as the van was playing up quite a lot and we broke down quite a few times! It keeps stuttering and cutting out while we're driving along, so we have to stop, play around with the engine a bit and then get going!! There was another 2 friends ...

Our friends Ewan and Angela came to visit a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to go for a drive in the vans. We didn't actually get very far, were going to go to Whakatane, but ended up just down the road at Maketu. Everyone (except me!) was going to go horseriding there on the beach, it's supposed to be really good. Unfortunately, as always seems to happen when we go camping, the weather took a turn for the worse and it was too windy and rainy to go! That n...

We've now been living in our new place for 2 weeks, and it's totally awesome! The people we are sharing with are from Brazil and Chile, and they are all really nice. We've been going to the beach at the weekends (even though it's not really hot enough yet!) last weekend I climbed the mount, Jack didn't want to so i went myself! It took 30 minutes to get up there, and it was really really steep I was so glad when I got to the top - it was worth it though, the v...

So we have decided to move to Mount Maunganui because it's closer to the beach - we actually moved a bit quicker than expected! We gave 2 weeks notice to our flatmate last Friday as we felt bad about moving out, but really wanted to live by the beach. A few days later she sent us a text that she was also moving out and wanted us out by the weekend so she can sell furniture?!?! So much for us being nice and giving notice! We had 2 days to organise ourselves, b...

As it was Jack's birthday, we took a trip to the Coromandel Peninsula with some friends that we met when we were staying in the backpackers. There were 3 vans and we all drove up in a convoy, some vans a bit slower than others (our Mr Jingles!!) but we all got there safely! Our first stop was Hahei, where we camped for the night. We didn't get to do too much sighseeing that day, as the drive took a bit longer than we expected - the roads are so wyndy, we were ...