We left Rainbow Lodge-slightly sad-in the early morning and headed down to Wellington. The scenery on our way down was spectacular, going round the lake was a bit hairy-the roads were very windy and there was a sheer drop down to the lake-eek! As we got further down it turned into more deserty terrain with mountain ranges everywhere-as you can see from the pics. We were lucky enough to pass through the army training ground and as a result we passed 15 trucks full...

We left Rotorua early morning and set off for Taupo. Stopping on the way at the Blue and Green lakes which are next to each other and are complete opposites in colour, as the name suggests. It was a relatively easy drive, compared to what we've been used to, and it only took an hour. We stopped off just outside of Taupo to have lunch (a packed lunch - aren't we good) and also to see the waterfall - Huka falls, which you can see from the pictures. It was r...

The hostel that we are staying is called Kiwi Paka YHA, when we arrived there was a mix up with our room. The only way that we could all be in the same room was if we were in a 5 bed mixed dorm-we opted for this, although we weren't so enthusiastic we decided it was all part of the backpacking experience!! As it turns out there was no one else in our room for our first night here. We arrived in the afternoon and explored Rotorua and watched a bit of TV, befor...

Hey everyone We arrived in Rotorua today, but haven't got much to report as of yet. However we realised that the last journal entry from Paihia left out lots of funny moments. So thought we'd better fill you in. Firstly we forgot to tell you that we experienced 3 earthquakes while in Auckland on the second day. Each measured about 4 on the Richter scale, so were quite mild, although still very exciting. Our journey back from Paihia was very amusing. ...

So we left you in suspense after we had picked up our hire car, which we named Norris!!! At the car place Fi and Sam both refused to drive, which meant it was down to Lau to start the driving on our road trip. Although it was very scary it wasn't too bad once you got used to the automatic driving!! We had to first drive out of Auckland, over the harbour bridge, onto the motorway. We we're on our way up to the Bay of Islands to Paihia. We took the main roa...