Hi from New Zealand!!! We arrived last sunday and had our own private tour of Auckland by Phil and Pat, which included viewing the city from nearby volcano, Mount Eden, and having a proper cup of tea (for the first time in 2 and a half months!) in a cafe in a small town north of Auckland. We all received parcels from home which had been posted to Pat and Phil's address which felt like christmas unwrapping them! It felt weird being away from South America, being able to do things like drink tap water and flush loo roll down the toilet!! Haha it took about a week for our body clock to adjust to the 16 hour time difference, we'd all wake up in the night about 3 times desperate for the loo!

We've hired a 6 bed campervan who we've named Donde, which we've been driving round the country in this week. Our first stop was Rotorua. Me and Sul went to a Mauri show where we walked round a mauri village at night, watched a dance (which included the hacker), and sampled some traditional mauri food!! The next day we drove to Taupo (this is where I had my first bash at driving donde, and yes I live to tell the tale...!), and had coffee in front of the lake before driving onto Tongiriro National Park. We were hoping to do the Tongiriro Crossing hike but were strongly advised when we got there that it'd be too dangerous and that DOC guides were banned from doing it until the weather gets better! Hopefully we'll be able to do it on our way back up to Auckland if the lakes have melted by then.

We got to Wellington on Friday night and had our first celebratory drinks on donde!! We left him at the campsite and had a night out in Wellington where we busted some moves in some extremely cheesy bars, and ended our night in Subway.

Yesterday we crossed to the South Island and our next stop will be Abel Tasman National Park.

Will try and update this again as soon as I can!