Our first day in Auckland, we spent the morning exploring town, before making our way to Mt Eden, a volcanic cone in the city, which we climbing for great views out over Auckland, to the Harbour and the islands out in the bay. Suitably exhausted after this, we relaxed in the hostel, until we saw on the news that Bangkok airport had been taken over by anti-government protestors-2 days before we were due to fly there!! Our second day, we attempted to find out what...

We picked up our car on 14th November, a Daihatsu Sirion shortly to be christened Barry Scott (New Zealand's answer to him is rubbish!), and Mia drove to Hanmer Springs, a thermal spa with pools ranging in temperature from 28-41C. 41C is very very hot, especially on a hot sunny day, so we spent most of our time in 36C pools. After this, Dan drove most of the way to Kaikoura (for the first time in 3 years and 8 months after passing his test-a scary couple of hours...

We arrived into Christchurch late on the 4th November, and spent the next couple of days there before taking a bus to Queenstown. Surprisingly, for the the capital of the South Island and recently declared second largest city in New Zealand, there wasn't all that much to do in Christchurch. After a lazy day looking round some shops, we went to the New Brighton Pier on Bonfire Night for a spectacular fireworks display, and some freezing cold weather-just like Bonf...

After another day and a half in Sydney, we took the train to Melbourne-just a short 12 hour ride away! This entry covers the whole time we were in Melbourne, in an attempt to bring the blog up to date! Our first day, we met up with Rich, to benefit from his near-local knowledge...Eventually we found our way to the Melbourne Cricket Ground where we took the tour and went around the National Sports Museum. After that we wandered around quite a lot. The first after...

After 5 nights in Sydney, we headed to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for 3 nights. On arriving off the train, we were shocked at how cold it was compared to Sydney, just 2 hours journey away. We were staying about 1000m above sea level though. The difference was highlighted even more by the hail and snow that woke us up early on the next morning! In the Blue Mountains we had a great time. It was nice to be out of a city for the first time in ages, and we went o...