On the way to Coromandel town we stopped in one of the bigger towns called Whitianga where we had intended on spending the night so that we could get a warrent of fitness (WOF) done on the van. Unfortunately, no one in town did them so there wasn't really alot of point in hanging around because we wanted to get to Coromandel town for Christmas. Before we left we went to a place called Bay Carving where you can make your own necklace from bone carving. We started ...

Hahei, The Coromandel Peninsula It didn't take too long to drive from Auckland to the Coromandel peninsula. We headed to the East Coast first and the first stop was a small place called Hahei near hot water beach. When the tide is low on hot water beach you can dig a hole and make a thermal pool from the hot springs below. On the day we arrived, the tide was due to come in later on at night so we decided to return later and went to find a campsite. Once we were ...

When we went to Kelly Tarltons on Saturday afternoon (16th December) we were full of great expectations; an Antarctic and underwater adventure! It was fairly expensive to get in ($30 each) but for one reason or another the girl on the desk gave us a voucher for BOGOF so we got in a little cheaper. At first it was a bit like being in a museum as there were a few displays of Antarctic bunks and things such like. After that we managed to catch the end of the stingra...

Before we left Paihia in the Bay of Islands we hung around for a few days waiting for the sun to come out so didn't do too many exiting things! We met a few nice people while we were there so they kept us entertained. On Wednesday 12th we left the Bay of Islands in the hope that we will return when the sun decides it wants to comes out! On Wednesday night we ended up in a small town called Opononi on the west coast of the peninsula. We stayed there for the night...

The rain was still going the next day when we packed up and left Whangarei. Needless to say we got very wet! On the way to the Bay of Islands we stopped in Waiomio to see the Kwwiti Glow-worm caves. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos or video fotage of the caves; apparently it harms the glow worms and the company have also had problems with copywrite on the internet... We had a 40 minute tour of the caves which were really fascinating. It was ob...