Sadly the next morning we woke up to poring rain which ruined our plans and dampened our spirits. Instead we had a day of driving towards Westport, the rain was so hard we didn't even fancy getting out of the van at various look out points on route. The rain continued to thunder down so we stayed in the camper, giving us a perfect opportunity to catch up on the blog! The next day the weather was still horrendous so we took another long drive to Westport arriv...

The drive to Wellington took about 4 hours, but took us through stunning scenery. We drove around the lake, stopping at a look out point, before driving through a National Park where we could see Mount Doom where Lord of the Rings was filmed. We drove through several towns, before driving along the coast road to Wellington where there were pretty beaches and truly blue seas. It was such a contrast from driving in to London. We have seen nothing ugly about New Z...

The following day we headed off to Rotoura, famous for it's thermal activity. The drive was about 3 hours and very scenic with green hills and rivers. To drive in New Zealand is very easy, the roads are quiet and everything is well signposted. Our van is also an automatic so it helps. In Rotoura we headed to Kuirau Park where you can see thermal activity for free! We saw mud bubbling and volcanic gases escaping from the ground. There was a horrible smell of egg...

We slept fairly well on the flight and after several 20hour bus journeys the 13 hour flight went quickly. We arrived at Auckland at 4am and had to wait until 10am to pick our campervan up. We waited at the airport for a while before heading in to Auckland and wasted time in a in a cafe near the depot. We headed on our way to Waitomo, i pod plugged in for the 3 hour drive. We arrived at the caves at about 3pm after finding a camp site in the nearby town of Ohr...