we left christchurch to go up to hamner springs and Kakiroa.. starting to make our way back to the north island. hamner springs had lots of thermal sulpher pools and was good to chillax.. me and grant did a few lengths too. we stopped at Kakiroa in the evening but nowhere much seemed to be open but it seemed to be a cool little town. we decided not to stop around and to get to Picton for our ferry the next morning.. not that we'd been able to book one cause noone had been answering the phone all day but we decided to go anyway and hope for the best!

we managed to get on a boat the next day.. we'd prep'd a bit better for this journey than the last and knew it would take longer than 20mins as we'd thought before so brought sandwiches and stuff to do.. the woman also had to throw us out of donde as we were all having brekfast parked up in the car area of the boat haha. in the end there ended up being some films on and we watched oceans 13 (class) and road to tabitha (or something like that) which is THE SADDEST FILM OF ALL TIME! im not sure if its supposed to be a kids one but its just so sad!!! me and sul were balling our eyes out .. it was real cheesy to begin with but then the girl just died from nowhere .. ahhhhh the tragedy.

the next day we'd driven to tongarriro crossing.. done our usual of parking in the middle of nowhere.. me and grant were in the front again driving while the others slept but we had to wake them up to get out and push when i got stuck in a ditch trying to find the camping area haha. we really wanted to do the tongarriro crossing but had to settle for an alternative when we were told the walk was still covered in snow and u needed crampons etc. we did one to a waterfall ive forgot the name of and then up to lower Tama lake. you got really good views of the mountain from lord of the rings along the way.. holsty would know which one, where it appeared and probably do a break down second by second of what happened there..

we also started a new game to bicker over! everyone we meet is really suprised that we havent had any arguments travelling with 5 girls.. but we do get beef over the category game! we started the one where u have to think of 5 things and the others have to guess (richardson family special) and its kept us entertained for hours! when we got back we drove to rotorua (which we;ve since learnt is pretty rough cause of the moari gangs, but didnt notice anything at the time).. and powered up the van so we could watch some films. we watched the end of city of men ... which is awesome!!!!!!!!!!! probably love it even more than city of god.. which is a lot.

the next day we went zorbing which is where u roll downhill in a giant inflatable ball filled with water, of course. we only really did it to say that we had and didnt think it would be that good but it was actually wicked! me and grant went in one and barn and sul in the other (they wouldnt let us race tho, boo).. we got completely drenched, was dead good! i cant remember what else we did that day, drove quite a bit of the way to Auckland ("drive. just drive") and parked up on the roadside for the night. i had serious issues sleeping in the camper though cause i was fine getting to sleep but think subconciously had problems with the roof being so low above me - cause we were in the section above the drivers - and every night without fail il sleep talk about being trapped in and scramble for the curtain or light.. generally involving waking grant up by hitting her.. she loves it.

the next day we looked round auckland and picked up some things from pat and phils house. they werent there but we left them some beer on the doorstep to say cheers! for the night we parked up in the airport long stay carpark, classy! we did have toilet issues here tho, mainly the problem of there not being one. the next morning we cleaned donde.. we were all really sad to say bye! we rolled up back to the camper van place playing whitney houston "i will always love you" as the final song full blast rrrrrr. he did us well. we're hoping we looked after him ok too and wont get charged but the back is cracked from where we rescued the guys that had broken down by going over a hill.. annoying.

we made our flight to fiji in time and me and grant mainly passed time by annoying sul and barn who were sitting in front.. happy days. better go though, my moneys almost out on here mwaahhhh xxxxx