We hadn't really thought that much about going to Hawaii as it always seemed so far away, but when we were on our way I started to get very excited about it. However, we didn't get off to the best start when we arrived! The flight from Fiji was much longer than I had expected at about 6 hours, and we left at 10ish at night on the 27th of July, and arrived in Honolulu at 7am the same day. It was very weird going back in time like that and as you can expect we were...

When we eventually arrived at Waya Lai Lai, our last stop on the islands, it was about 2.30 in the afternoon. This island was quite a bit bigger than the other two we had been to but just as stunning. It wasn;t as flat either and had huge rocky mountians in the centre as well as lovely beaches lined with hammocks. We stayed in a dorm bure again but it was a bit smaller than the last one. It was time for afternoon tea when we got there and then we just relaxed in ...

When we arrived at Nadi airport in Fiji we were both very excited to be back in the hot weather again after New Zealand. We landed around 5 and the sun was still out, but our flight had been delayed by about an hour. We had had to hang around Auckland airport for a while, and the flight wasn't particuarly great. We had finally arrived though! We had booked a hostel in Nadi for the first two nights and managed to track down the shuttle bus that could take us strai...

Although I started off driving up to Auckland I was glad that Justin offered to take over because the roads got busier and busier the nearer we got. We hadn't driven on any roads anywhere near this big the whole time, especially on the South Island where we would go ages without even seeing another car. We drove on our first proper motorways too, and the roads were really confusing. It was our last night with the van so we stopped for the night in a campsite as n...

After a miserable night in Tauranga we drove back a bit further south to our next stop which was Waitomo. In Maori it actually means water-hole, and it famous for it's glowworm caves, which we wanted to see. The wet weather seemed to improve the nearer we got but the drive took a bit longer than we had planned after an unexpected detour in Hamilton. By detour I mean we got very lost. Nevertheless we made it there in the end, and ended up staying for the night in ...