wE'VE HAD A FANTASTIC COUPLE OF DAYS AND HAVE BEEN IN rOTORUA AND NOW IN tAUPO. wE HAVE BEEN BATHING IN HOT MINERAL POOLS and walking through landscapes full off bubbling mud pools and volcanic pools it is brilliant. We have taken hundreds of photos but not managed to work out how to get them on the site but as soon as we can find a way we will put some on. The weather is still great and we should be heading further south to Napier today to meet up with some ...

We're now in Papamoa Beach close to Tauranga on the North Island. It's Easter Saturday so all the sites are busy. We have luckily hit on a great site right on the beach and our pitch backs onto the play area. The kids have been there all afternoon and have made quite a few friends already. Tomorrow we're heading for Rotorua - which is only about an hour away before we start to make our way down to Wellington. I booked the ferry today between the islan...

It's been a couple of days since I wrote anything but we have found a site with internet access today. We are now on the Coromandel peninsula. We had a day toboggoning down the sand dunes on Tuesday before travelling up to Waiwera where we spent the afternoon in thermal swimming pools which was fantastic. We were also treated to some traditional Mauri singing and a demonstration on the Haka which was a real bonus. We then travelld on to Coromandel where we st...

We're now in Waiwera about 30 mins north of Auckland. We're staying at a campsite on the becah again which is next door to some thermal pools. We spent all afternoon there. The pool temps were about 36 degrees - one was even 48! Keith dipped his toe in that one anyway!We tried dune toboganning a couple of days ago at 90 mile beach.  That was great fun but very tiring climbing the dunes - especially after a 2 mile walk around headlands to get to the d...

We're now in 90 mile beach in the very north of the North Island. We spent the last couple of days in the Bay of Islands in Paihia and took a boat over to Russell. We found a lovely site right on the beach so woke up each morning to the sound of waves and ate breakfast listening to the kids count the boats passing the bay - fantastic. The weather fortunately has improved and we're enjoying sunshine and warm temps. The rain that we had was so torrential th...