Our final kia ora... Our time in New Zealand has come to an end :(.

After Franz we zipped up to Picton, stayed in a free spot for the night en route and got the ferry over to Wellington the next morning. When we were on the ferry, we saw a pod of at least 10 dolphins swimming by the side of it - really cool to see! From Wellington we drove 5 and a half hours north to Waitomo. About an hour away from Wellington, we heard on the radio that there had just been a 6.2 scale earthquake not far from the city - we narrowly missed it!

Waitomo is special for one thing - it's magical caves. We opted to explore them in the most adventurous way possible - caving. There's a Black Labyrinth caving tour run by the Black Water Rafting Co that we chose to go for.

First of all we got fitted out with wetsuits, wetsuit jackets and socks, helmets, head torches and boots. There was a nice mix of people in our group, including Koreans, Austrians and Aussies.

It was 3 hours of tubing, crawling and walking through tight crevices, jumping from underground waterfalls, and floating through the pitch black Ruakuri Cave. Definitely not for chlostrophobics! We were in water through the cave for the majority of our tour, the temperature of which was 6 degrees - pretty darn cold (refreshing, some may say).

In the middle of caving, we all stopped and turned our head torches off. Looking up was magical; it looked like a clear, star-lit sky. Glowworms! Or glow maggots to be exact. They are tiny blue dots of light that almost don't look real. Thousands of them living on the ceiling of the cave makes them look like stars.

At one point in caving, we all stood on a rock together and looked up 60 meters to see a small opening in the ground above - the only sunlight we saw in 3 hours. It was pretty creepy floating at the front of the group in our tubes and seeing nothing in front of you but a dark cave, and not being able to see the ceiling.

At the end of the tour we emerged into the sunlit Waitomo forest to a hot shower and warm soup. Just for good measure, we did the glow worm boat tour of Cathedral Cave. Thousands and thousands of glow worms were alight on the ceiling, making the whole cave look like a night sky.

We also thought it worth a mention that we've enjoyed cooking for ourselves in NZ. The food is delicious, especially the eggs and meat! Beef, lamb and venison - yum. The beers and wine are great, especially Speight's Summit. And hokey pokey chocolate is to die for.

Throughout our journeys on the North and South Islands, we drove a total of 3,572 km (2,219 miles). We stayed in Zosma for 19 nights, 9 of which were paid campsites and 10 were free camping spots (with no showers - so yes, we have been smelly at times!).

We have visited 13 places and stopped at many breathtaking spots in between. We've jumped out of a plane at 16,000 feet, visited a living Maori village, went down a mountain on a luge, seen wild dolphins and seals, watched the kiwis play rugby, saw a geyser explode, jumped off of the Nevis ledge at 134 meters, visited Bilbo's house and had a drink in the Green Dragon, flew backwards together on the world's largest swing, saw the Milky Way while stargazing, dodged an earthquake, went caving through pitch black glow worm caves, hiked a glacier, flew in a helicopter to get to said glacier, ate two Fergburgers each, relaxed in a natural thermal river, and been wowed by the beautiful landscape and friendly people of New Zealand.

We don't want to leave!

Steph and Max x