After having non stop rain for a few days the weather finally gave in to us and it's been beautiful ever since. We found a free campsite and decided to sit, chill, read a book and basically sit and top up our tans for a few days. After a few uneventful (but very relaxing!) days we moved on to Napier to meet Shani's cousin. Our laziness had obviously decided to stay around a little longer and once again we sat around enjoying the sunshine. Ben has since become addicted to reading The Da Vinci Code and cant put it down until he's finished it. I have never heard so many "Oooooos" and "Ahhhs" in my life, with him popping up every few minutes with another update from it. Hopefully he will finish it soon and maybe he will be a bit more sociable again although he is on the look out for Angels and Demons now - i'm guessing another few unsociable days to come!

What with Shani following natural disasters around the world, we knew it wouldn't be long until something hit us. We woke up one day to have messages from everyone about the earthquake in Japan and there were Tsunami warnings in New Zealand but luckily it didnt hit here as hard as they thought it would. We keep getting told by everyone about all these expected earthquakes but fingers crossed everything will be OK!

Our next stop was Whanganui which has an amazing black sand beach. After chilling for a while (yes - again!) we headed down to Masterton where Shani's Aunt lives. We went to a place that prepares and sells Paua shells. They are the most colourful shells in the world and are native to New Zealand. They had a little factory about the back where it shows them polishing the shells ready to be made into something and sold.

New Zealand as a whole is known for its wine and a lot of it is made in Masterton so we went to some wineries to do a bit of wine tasting. It would be rude not to eh!

The best part of Masterton had to be Masterton at night. After been told about how amazing the views are from up this hill, we were driven to the lookout. This view was hyped up for ages and ages about how magnificent it was and that we couldn't leave the area without going there at night. We sat in silence for a few seconds then burst out laughing! It was the most pathetic view we had ever seen! We were expecting to see something out of this world but there were just a few street lights on and the odd car driving past. It was definitely worth the drive up there just for the giggles anyway.

Today was our last day in Masterton and we were supposed to wake up to see a hot air balloon event that was starting just round the corner from us. But as we hadn't had our usual 12 hours sleep at night we didnt want to use too much energy in getting dressed quickly to rush down there. I must say I have never been this relaxed in my life!!

One thing I forgot to mention - Shani's Aunt seems to have very bad luck with her pets. And i mean very bad luck!! She has a dog with three legs, a cat with no tail, another cat that has no tail and also a brain damaged cat. Very weird but nice to have some animals around us.

So tomorrow we leave for Wellington - the capital of New Zealand and we are going to have lots of fun there!!! We have tickets to see MGMT Saturday so I will let you know how that goes.

Anyways its Saint Paddys day so we are off to the pub!

Laters everyone :-)

Laura