Although our visit was Brief, and we spent the whole of 3 hours on the island, IT STILL COUNTS!! The way I measure if it counts or not, is if I can buy my mum a keyring or not! Its an ongoing tradition, (dont ask). Which I did manage, I havent a clue how much it cost, but it was bought! Anyway the flight from Auckland departed just after 2pm on 21st April, This is where it begins to get confusing!! So shortly after we were up above the clouds we were fed... th...

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 ...