Dear Farrah

Thank you very much for buying us 'driving the East Cape of New Zealand'. We have just finished this epic road trip that has taken us three days and are now recovering in Taupo. The East Cape is one of the most remote parts of New Zealand full of rugged coastlines, towering hills and winding roads. It all looks a bit like Cornwall. We spent so much time in Sunny that we are finally getting bored of listening to 'Now 48'. Luckily we managed to find a Op Shop (what the Kiwis call a charity shop) and so can now add 'Songs To Do Housework To' (disk 1) to our blossoming CD collection.

During our journey, we stayed in two remote hostels, one called 'Stranded In Paradise' which was very nice and another one called the 'Beach Hut' which was not so nice. The owner of the Beach Hut followed the trend in people we are currently meeting by being a casual racist. Apparently, according to him, multiculturalism doesn't work because 'coloured people just want to live in their own ghettos'.

He also told us about the crime that is, according to him, rife around the East Cape. If we leave our car alone for more than 2 minutes, then some opportunist criminal (probably a Maori) is bound to break in and steal all our possessions. It didn't occur to us at the time that taking security advice from someone who genuinely thinks that all muslims are bad and shouldn't be allowed in the country possibly isn't the best idea but for the next two days, we refused to let Sunny out of our sight. This pleased Sunny greatly who likes company but did rather inhibit our East Cape activities.

We did, however, manage to find a couple of hot springs to visit to break up the journey. The first one was very posh and beautifully designed to be like a lost world with lush greenery, enchanting caves, very comfortable sunbeds, waitress service, fluffy dressing gowns and mineral rich rock pools all of different temperatures.

The second one was a bit less luxurious but consisted of three mineral spa pools; one warm, one like a boiling hot bath and the other freezing cold (which weren't brave enough to venture into). We had a 10 minute walk through natural woodland to reach them and as we went early in the morning had the pools all to ourselves, so we got to take all our clothes off.

We have now arrived in Taupo and are staying in a lovely hostel right next to the largest lake in New Zealand. We have been on two very enjoyable but very different boat trips. The more exhilarating was a jet boat which took us on an exciting ride through some rapids which involved going very fast, bouncing around a lot, getting very wet and holding on very tightly. The river we went down is famous because it has been in three movies: The Hobbit, Without A Paddle and Yogi Bear.

We also went on a sunset cruise out on lake Taupo on a little sailing boat. We were lucky to be sitting next to the skipper who let us both have a go at driving the boat, which Donna was particularly good at. We sailed along for an hour until the sun set then we went for a refreshing swin as the warm sunlight slipped away from the horizon.

We chose this particular cruise because they promised to provide a complimentary drink and antipasti. It was lovely to have a beer at sunset with our fellow passengers who were all very friendly, but in reality the 'antipasti' consisted of two packets of Tim Tams, one of which was coconut flavoured. False advertising goes a long way.

The colour of a good sunset has a remarkable effect on humans. As day turns into night, the human brain releases hormones and endorphins to help change the human body into the right conditions for sleeping. It is the colour of a sunset which helps trigger these hormones creating a natural high which is why everyone loves a good sunset.

Despite enjoying the cruise a lot, when it ended, we were starving as we had rather been relying on the food to fill us up. The only place still open was Subway. Subway produces vile sandwiches. Not only does it completely ignore cardinal sandwich making rule number one: butter, but it has only recently got around to teaching its staff to make a whole sandwich in one go. However, it definitely has the best staff out of all the fast food joints for late night drunken banter so we might have to go back again.

MORAL DILEMMA NUMBER ONE:

If you go for an Indian and get a bad stomach (and you are staying in a small room with your wife and a very small ensuite bathroom and it is too late to go to the shops and buy your own) is it acceptable to steal the lavender air freshener from the Indian restaurant's toilet?

All our love

Jim and Donna

INTERESTING KIWI FACT OF THE DAY

New Zealand is famous for having lots and lots of German backpackers at any time. In fact, you are far more likely to get a headache from having to listen to people speak German than anything else. This situation was exacerbated in 2010 when the German school system changed their leaving age from 19 to 18, meaning there were twice as many gap year Germans to spend ages cooking cabbage in the kitchen and annoying everyone else around as before. It was estimated that there was half a million Germans in New Zealand at one point. This is the single biggest occurrence of Germans being in a foreign country in history which given their history is quite an impressive feat.