Day 89 - Tues 27th Jan -Sydney to the Blue Mountains The usual early start to get the bus for the two day Blue Mountain tour that I was booked to do. It had been raining all night since the previous afternoon in Sydney, but we were assured that the forecast for the Blue Mountains was to be dry. We drove for about two hours (in the rain) and our first stopwas on teh edge of a national park to try and find some kangaroos. Kangaroos are only active around sunrise ...

Day 83 (cont'd) - Weds 21st Jan - Auckland to Sydney I arrive in Sydney late morning, there's a 2 hour diff between here and the NZ so am now 11 hours ahead of UK rather than 13 hours. I get a train from the airport to the hostel and get there about 11.30am. I spend a couple of hours in the afternoon walking around the area near the hostel and realise its much bigger than I thought and everything is further than I am expecting. Pop into the travel agent to pic...

Day 79 - Sun 17th - Auckland Left Mount Maungaui about 8.30am and dropped a load of people off in Thames who were doing the Coromandel trip (this was included in my ticket but I decided to skip it as I didn't have time). Got back to Auckland about 1pm, and I went into productive mode and took advantage of big city facilities such as photo developing and internet cafes. Late in the afternoon I met up with Rosan for a few drinks at the harbour side / viaduct are...

Day 78 - Fri 16th Jan - Napier to Mount Maunganui We left Napier at 8am, and had a one hour lunch break in Rotorua. Miraculasouly we managed to get from Rotorua to Taupa in just over an hour despite the fact that it had taken 8 hours to get there on the way down (see original Rotorua entry for this one). We arrive in Mt Maung about 4pm and it was a really hot day so we were still able to head to the beach. Mt Maung is basically a beach resort there is a small t...

Day 75 - Tues 13th Jan - Blenheim to Wellington Time to say goodbye to the South Island now and head back up north. Got to have another lie before the 11am bus to take me from Blenheim to Picton. From Picton I picked up the ferry to Wellington. Got to Wellington about 5pm, went to the internet cafe for a few hours then off to bed. Day 76 - Weds 14th Jan - Wellington to Napier 7.30am departure from Wellington to get the bus to Napier, via the obligatory a...