Thursday - It was a 4h drive from 'Napier' to 'Ohakune' in the 'Tongariro National Park'. It was really great countryside with rolling green hills, dark volcanic style rocks, rocky unsealed roads and also past "Mount Ruapehu". One funny part of the journey was when the road we were on was blocked by cows! We had to follow them for 2km down the road before they parted to let us through! When in 'Ohakune' we checked into "Mountain View Motel" and paid $25 for a dor...

Wednesday - We left 'Wellington' today. I drove and it took the long 5h car journey to 'Napier ' to recover from last nights major drinking session, Neeley and Fiona both slept for the 2 and half hours before the lunch stop; so it was just me and the radio! We stopped at a nice cafe in 'Woodville', and had beautiful toasted sarnies, before heading back on the road to 'Napier'. The journey was very easy as the roads we very straight and between the green rolling h...

Sunday - Today we dropped the car off at "Quality" cars and took the ferry from 'Picton' to 'Wellington'. The journey across the "Cook Strait" took 3h and was quite calm, we also met up with Fiona on the ferry (whom we met in 'Kaikoura'). We docked in 'Wellington' and we met by the "Quality" car rental man and our very swish black automatic Nissan Sunny. After dropping Fiona off at her hostel we negociated the very complicated one-way system to our hostel. After ...

Friday - The drive to 'Nelson' from 'Kaikoura' took 4h and when we arrived we tried to find some accommodation, whcih proved very hard as not many hostels had parking spaces. We finally found "Club Nelson", which is right on the hill at the top of 'Nelson'. We then went for a walk around the city centre trying to get our bearings. The main street is "Trafalgar Street" and that leads to "Bridge Street", where all the bars are! We then got a lovely healthy Pizza H...

Wednesday - We left "Neptunes' at 10.30am and went to the bakery to get breakfast before heading out of our nightstop at 'Greymouth' to 'Hamner Springs'. After a 4h drive we reached 'hamner' which was where the thermal springs/pools were. But at $12 entry we decided to move on. I drove us along "Lewis Pass" whcih was very picturesque - lakes, rolling hills, mountains and very bendy roads. We got into 'Kaikora' on the east coast at 5pm and found "Dusty Lodge", our...