Well Where To start, we have done a fair bit since our last blog, alot, and i mean alot of driving! We picked up our car from the rental shop on Monday 14th, a Nissan Sunny, I no Kelvin wont be impressed by that but we didn't have a choice and that was our free upgrade, so can't complain. First of all we navigated our way out of Auckland a task in itself. We were in the camping mood so decided to pur-chase a tent. we had a budget of $100 dollars and we got it for $127 so that went well lol. Also got stove, plates, and 'Borrowed' cups and cutlery from our hostel, we will be returning them because we are stopping there on the return leg. Anyhu.... About an hour into our trip we stumbled upon a beach like you have never seen absolutely stunning.. I mean it you can see on the photo's the one with jade and our Sunny! We got sooo lost in the mountains, i mean for like three hours, we would be driving and driving without seeing any one, we was looking for this cheap campsite right on the beach Otamure it was called, Whananaki ( thats for you mom), (run by the department of conservation, DOC, basic but beautiful) but we couldn't find it for the life of us. So at 8 o'clock when we started out at Noon we just found whatever we could, Which happened to be Whananaki North Holiday camp. Noodles for tea, on our new stove, welcome to the backpackers life! Next morning bright and early we set off, to our next destination, 5 minutes into our drive what do we find? Yup Otamure beach and it was as beautiful as it looked. Never mind though. Found some random Glow Worm caves, Guided tour and all that, This Maori bloke turned out his anscestor's discovered the place an he was the 16th generation, we thought that was pretty cool, although the cave wasn't really much to shout about, although seeing the Glow Worms appear from the dark was pretty cool it was nice but not amazing... We drove breifly through the Bay of islands, which is where we decided to get a proper map to stop us getting lost agen. That night we got to our campsite in the middle of a forest (Puketti Forest). We were the only campers, great, The toilets were a lot to be desired, they call it the Long Drop, Basically a toilet seat put over a hole in the ground. By this stage Jade the wimp had been bitten over 30 times, we lost count after that, despite us buying very expensive insect repellent. I had three max, how hard am I?! I made my first fire which I was in awe of all night apparently. For dinner tonight good old sausage sandwiches, yum. After a dreadfull sleep because of this fookin cockral and i mean it must of been blind because it was cockle doodle doing at midnight till we left!! dumb bird. We could of killed it if we could of found the damn thing. Next Day.... We Finally got to the northen cape and ninety mile beach, Which you can take your car onto, amazing. I had a go aswell got up to 120kph on the sand pretty good,we both did some handbrake turns and went on our merry little way. Next we rented a sandboard and went further North to Te Paki, wher they have some monster sand dunes, you cant really tell from the photo but they were immense!! We were in the countryside one minute and the desert the next, it was that quick, and the heat was unbearable. We decided to go for the biggest dune being hardcore an all, halfway up and we were sweating like a peadophile in mother care. real bad, We had to go from there and it was real good, but we only hired one board so jade jumped on my back which inturn gave me a mouth full of sand and down my pants hehe. We was just laeving and we found this stunning little river, which there are photos of, its like that all over the place you can just stop and there's this postcard view. I drove us to our next campsite taputaputa bay, which was once again unbelievable probably the best beach so far! The colour of the water is so crystal clear/ turqoise, the photo's dont do it justice. We had the river one side and the sea the other. We went for the obligatory dip and as the tide came in and out you moved about thirty feet upstream or downstream good exercise for them legs! Not having any drinkable water is a right pain, you have to boil everything, washing up, food, general washing it is definitly a task. Fourth day in the wilderness..... We finally got to cape Reinga with the lighthouse and its also the place wher the Taasman sea and the Pacific ocean meet. We both thought it was fascinating to see the two collide once again the photo's don't do it justice, oh yeah our camera also decided to cease working and died on us. (The battery that is) We found a supermarket, the first one in New Zealand, and now we cant stop seeing the bloody things, its like they are mocking us. We are on our way back down to Auckland by this point, We stopped just outside at a place called Waiwera, We camped at the holiday park there, topped up electrical gadgets and cleaned ourselves up and whatnot. Next day... So much for our Map we headed to Waitimo for the caves got there, overpriced and we had already seen what they had to offer at the other cave place. So we leave only to find ourselves on this dodgy gravel road for about forty minutes, before we realised, that this was the opposite direction that we needed to go. I wont take responsibility even though i am the assigned navigator, One massive bonus of getting lost though was the waterfall we found, once again just a little signpost saying, Marokopa falls, and that was it, once again you only need to look at the photo's to see what im talking about. Now we set off again on route to Taupo (which is where we are now) and it started to rain, the first rain we have seen since we left home! It was so hot that there was actual steam coming off the road mad. We also discovered a random cow in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere. We were lost together we tried to get directions off it but he wasnt up to much talking, what can you do but try? Look out for the next chapter in this Thrilling series coming soon!! xxxxxxxx