On Wednesday we got up ridiculously early, at 6 in the morning, to start the long drive up to the Bay of Islands from Rotorua. It didn't seem too bad, however, partly because I think we had prepared ourselves for such a long journey, and partly because it was such a great day, with blue sky everywhere. It made for a pleasant drive up. We arrived at Paihia, the Bay of Islands, at around 12:30, after one pit stop for lunch. Typically, we managed to book ourselves i...

On Sunday we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to Tim and Caroline, Max and Emma and Annabel and Taylor, who sent us off with a slap up breakfast and plenty of goodies. We were driving over to Rotorua today, but stopped en route in Taupo to finish off our sightseeing there. We first of all visited the Huka Falls, which we laid eyes upon at a viewing point on the surrounding hills before driving down for a closer look. We crossed a bridge over the surging chasm...

Here's an update about our first six days on the North Island in NZ: We were up early on Monday so that we could check in for our ferry over to Wellington at 7. The ferry departed at 8, and took an absolute age to get across to the city, arriving at about 12. There wasn't a lot to do on board, so whilst Jo and Joe napped, I finished reading my paper and listened to my IPod. Wellington seems a cool little city, although when we first arrived it seemed huge to us ...

Hi, here's an update letting you know what we managed to get up to (despite the rain for the majority of the time!) during our last week on NZ's South Island. After arriving in Picton the night before, we used Wednesday as lazily as possible, taking our time to get up and then moving from Picton's YHA (which wasn't the nicest place we've ever stayed!) to 'The Villa', just around the corner. We were paying the same price, but the hostel was so much better, and we...

The last four days has seen us descend from the cold heights of Franz Josef Glacier to the milder Abel Tasman National Park: We left Queenstown early on Saturday morning after a horrendous night's sleep. The only other guy in our dorm, Reuben, had a chronic snore, which literally ripped through our sleep. It was so bad that Jo woke him up, with an 'excuse me' to ask him to move off his back...it really startled him, and he made a very strange and loud noise and ...