Hidi ho, We spent most of the flight from Christchurch to Wellington planning which route to take to Auckland and which sites to see.........fast forward one hour and these plans were scuttered when we were told by all rent-a-car companies that we were stuck in Wellinton - all roads shut!!! b*****. So the quick thinking pair of us ran to Air NZ service desk (not believing we would get a positive answer) and politely asked whether we could swap our flight to Auckland (which we were not planning to use) to today. Praise the lord...the woman was an angel and put us on the next flight leaving an hour later. We believe we could qualify for 'the amazing race' now! 3 hours later we were heading out of Auckland in a Mitsubishi Lancer! (only one problem, Crusty was a thirsty beast). next day was spent partly underground in the Waitomo glow worm caves which were amazing - unfortunately we couldnt take any pictures so youll just have to take our word for it (but im sure you have plenty of pictures to look at anyway!). Once in the cave it was completely dark except for the thousands of tiny glow worms lighting up the blackness of the cave and making it appear like many galaxies. Next we went to the Waitomo 'bush', got bullied by a bird who flew into my back, looked at limestone bridges and played around in Hobbit country. The next day we woke up at 5.40am not realising that this was to be the scariest day of our lives. WE were picked up and dropped of an hour later at the starting point of the Tongariro crossing - this is the best one day hike in NZ (except the guide books and companies only mention summer crossings, not winter ones). We were well prepared with 2 t-shirts, a jumper, a fleece, fleece trousers and windproof jackets, 3 pairs of socks and proper hiking boots - Mum you would have been proud of me. The intial part of the crossing was fairly easy, nice and flat and had beautiful scenery. However, the snow got thicker, harder to walk in and the path completely disapeared. As we got higher the ice layer on top of the snow was usually impenetrable. We stopped for a drinks break at the base of a mahhhuuusssive mountain - no-one realsied we were actually going to climb it until the first guide set off up it. MUM STOP READING FROM HERE. This was where the scary part begun. The slope was probably around 45 degrees at most times and usually made of unbreakable extremely slippery ice - oh yer and add 30 knots of gusting wind too. No pathes existed which you would have expected to have been dug out of the mountain and provide some sort of horizontleness! perhaps there had been but they were invisible under the thick snow and ice. The lead guide hacked away at the ice with his axe (we all didnt have one, something which a guide we saw at the end of the trek couldnt believe) trying to create dints in the ice to rest part of our feet on - but did so with little success. Somehow we all managed to get upto a flat part of the trek uninjured - if any of us had made one bad foot placement we'd have fallen down hundreds of metres of steep icey rock covered slopes and we'd have been history!I didnt take any pictures on these parts as every sinlge step required full concentration. We zig-zagged our way upto a flat part (what a relief) then up a steeper incline and reached the summit at around 2000m. We had lunch here and got warm bums in the process as we were sitting on top of a warm volcanoe! The way back down is apparently where most accidents occur! so it didnt get any easier. Oh yer the guide at the start of the walk said you could die up there - something they failed to mention in the brochure! Anyway the best part was sliding down the snowy parts of the mountain on your bum (however it got very scary when youve got to slow down rapidly because your approaching a cliff drop). As we were walking the last bit through the bus to the coach Lin was muttering and cursing the company and the guides - we couldnt believe they took us up there in such dangerous conditions. Anyway 17km and eight and a half hours later we had made it and we relaxed our tired muscles in the youth hostels outdoar hot tub whilst watching the stars. Yesterday we went Skydiving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Picked up in a limousine for the ride to the airfield too! It was sooooooo much fun. For some reason we werent scared at all - perhaps nothing could compare to what had happened the previous day! we took a ride upto 12000 feet in a little Cessna - boy its cold up there - and even when the door opened we both were calm as cucumbers, but as cold as ice cubes! The 45 second freefall was exilerating followed by a few loops in the parachute! It should be compulsary for everybody to do. Today was spent exploring a geaothermal park which stunk of rotten eggs! (Sulpher ofcourse). Anyway we better rap this up. Were going to the Cook Islands tomorrow and we have to pack!