The morning we left Russell, was a perfect clear day, not a single cloud in the sky!! It was beautiful! So with this in mind I decided to NOT take the ferry route back, and save ourselves $12.00 by going the inland route to Auckland.. (The route I originally anticipated, but was conned in going the ferry route!) Anyway what I didn't realise, until half way along the route, was there is two routes this way back to the State Highway, 1 - the quickest route inland...

Once again, after packing up we headed North. We had pre booked to stay in the Bay of Islands for a couple of days, so hit the road with a final destination in mind! The journey was much shorter than most of the other trips, but it was pouring down with rain, constantly! So That made the drive a little tiring and longer than we expected! We pulled in for a coffee fairly early, and tried to use the internet, but it was just long winded, so we hit the road. W st...

Arriving in Orewa was a breath of fresh air! Literally! Back somewhere with a clean sea breeze! Our camp site is right on a stretch of beach, so we have unrestricted views of the beach, its beautiful!! And we're away from the Sulphur stenches, and far from the cold south island, so its back to T shirt weather again, Lovely! So when we arrived, It was nice to stretch out for a while, Luke went for a run along the beach, and I went for a stroll along the beach w...

Our stay in Taupo was brief, but interesting, none the less. We learned a little about Lake Taupo and the history, The area we drove through yesterday, called the 'Desert Road' well it's just the main road which goes through the Central Plateau. It's not baron, and is not flat!! It's got three ACTIVE volcanoes, Mt Tongariro, Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngauruhoe. It was really impressive seeing the volcanoes up close, but I'm glad we only found out today that they are ...

So we got an early start from Marahau, to get to Picton intime for the morning Ferry over the waters to the North Island. Only but we miscalculated the time it would take to get there, and it did indeed take us an additional hour and a bit to get to Picton. It was a picturesque drive though, Driving at the crack of dawn, seeing all the illegally camped campervans making a run for it, and then more silly roads bending back and forth! For the final 25km we drove o...