After a mosquito filled night, the 5:45am alarm was particularly un-welcome. My mood was not improved when, having spent several hours drafting, tweaking and being thoroughly pleased with yesterday's blog entry, I managed to delete it as I closed the app down... In a silent rage I rewrote what I could remember, finally finishing around 130... We crept around the campsite in the half light of the chilly early morning getting our things together before setting off ...

Our nights sleep in the free-camping car park was hampered by several things, the raucous wedding party in the yacht club, the Alcatraz style search lamp which shone straight through the rear windscreen of the camper and the knowledge that the next day I was throwing myself out of a plane at 15,000 feet. Never the less I very much enjoyed my 8km run along the sleepy lakeside the next morning, before returning to freshen up in the facilities (the lake) and put th...

Our first 'lazy' start was a bit of novelty but soon the rafting guide arrived to increase the adrenaline levels! After Bob had stopped ogling the well built, tanned, cool, witty, charismatic, on trend raft guide (who also happened to be in a long and stable relationship with a Swedish medical student) we arrived at the rafting depot. A nervous disquiet surrounded the amassing group from whom our raft crew would be selected. It was fair to say that most of them ...

A surprisingly un-grumpy morning was made significantly better by an excellent nights sleep, not hitting my head on the ceiling of the bedroom and finding my missing sock in the laundry. The morning news updated us on all the issues which mattered to New Zealanders, primarily rugby, cricket, the failure of Australian politics, the Volvo Ocean race and concerns over fruit flies at a local vegetable growing contest before a cursory mention of a double homicide in W...

Bob's 26th birthday dawned spectacularly and with my sunburn glowing we set off to run around the treaty grounds at Waitangi, up onto the golf course where the view of the bay allowed Bob to choose which cruise liner she would soon be joining as she was now over half way to her Saga membership. Eager to boost my man points I assembled the rather confusing wheel changing apparatus and spent a lovely 20 minutes swearing at the spare wheel until it eventually came ...