From Picton we got the Blueridge ferry across the Cook Strait to Wellington. On arrival in Wellington we headed straight to the Te Papa, national heritage museum (which was free - hooray!) The first exhibit in the museum stated 'nowhere in New Zealand is safe from natural disasters'...oh lovely...now you tell us...! We then read all about how to secure your house from volcanic ash, how to survive an earthquake and how to recognise a tsunami and actually experienced a fake earthquake in the 'earthquake house'... so we're all set then!!!

The museum was really interesting - we didn't realise that New Zealand was slap bang on the 'ring of fire' and overdue both for a major earthquake and a major volcanic erruption. We are hoping that as it has waited 2000 years it can wait another 2 weeks!

From Wellington we spent the night in a small town called Palmerston North before heading to the lovely Lake Taupo where we met up with our old friends Alicia and Ev (who we met on the plane to Nairobi and again in Hanoi) for dinner and drinks!

Before driving onwards we paid an early visit to a natural hot geothermal stream. We had seen it the day before when it was packed full of people so had decided to get there early (7am) and beat the rush. We did indeed beat the rush but also beat the tide - the tide was out and we ended up sitting in about 3 inches of hot water... not quite the spa experience we had hoped for!!!!