Finally, we drove into sunshine! However, the sunshine was partnered with an overwhelming smell of rotten eggs that hangs in the air of Rotorua, coming from the massive thermal fields that surround the town. We chose a campsite in the centre of town so we had easy access to the city, and eventually we did get used to the smell!! After checking out the different thermal parks, we settled on Te Whakarewarewa which had the biggest geyser in the area and a Maori cu...

Unfortunately, when we arrived in the Bay of Islands, it was pretty rainy and dull! We decided to try and spend the evening in the town's car park!!! There seemed to be a few people sleeping in cars and campers so we figured we'd try it out too!! We met some fellow travellers, who were parked up beside us, so to waste a few hours before bed time, we went for a few drinks together at the local backpacker bar. The next morning we were up early, as Becky was wo...

Airport customs at Auckland seemed to be the strictest we have encountered so far on this trip. We smoothly sailed through the immigration and collected our bags within 15 minutes, 'this is great' we thought - until we hit the hour long queue to get out of customs! When we eventually got to the front, we had to unpack our bags, show them the soles of our shoes and our tent and pegs! Apparently, they were looking for soil that could contaminate New Zealand! We...