August 11th (Tuesday) - Day 163 - NapierWe were now heading back up north. The odd thing was that there were only 6 people on our bus. The driver wasn't sure why the numbers were so low but this gave us more freedom in the timings of the stops. For some reason I was really tired and slept all the way to our first stop at a wild life centre. They housed Kiwi's and as we had not seen a real one it was really exciting. We had a quick walk around the bird park but di...

August 7th (Friday) - Day 159 - Taupo to WellingtonThe day started off like any other day on the bus. A few photo stops etc. He then mentioned that someone had asked him to stop at an extreme gravity centre. He mentioned how he shouldn't and that we should not tell anyone else. It seemed like a good idea as they had a bungy and canyon swing and a flying zip wire thing. This all seemed great until we arrived. Only 2 people seemed interested as it was so expensive ...

August 4th (Tuesday) - Day 156 - Rotorua and TaupoOnce the driver had picked everyone up he took us over to the Rotorua Government gardens. We had a quick photo with a building (no idea what the building is for) and with a statue. Next on the list were some mud pools. Not overly exciting. We then got to spend the next few hours at a geothermal wonderland called Wai-O-Tapu. The first thing to see there was the lady Knox Geyser. This erupts each day at 10:15, mainl...

July 31st (Friday) - Day 152 - Waitomo and RotoruaAs we'd have to come back to Auckland we decided to do the rest of the north island first so we knew how long to spend there. Hence we had a really early bus. It was late as per normal and with Auckland being a large place it took a long time to go around picking everyone up. Once we got underway it was not long until our first stop at the top of MT Eden. This is one of Auckland's many extinct volcano's. The views...

July 30th (Thursday) - Day 151 - Christchurch, AucklandFunnily enough it didn't snow. The driver was pulling our leg. Grrrr. It was quite a short bus journey today. Our only stop was in Geraldine where we got to see the world's largest knitted jumper. We arrived into Christchurch about lunch time. We had a good 4 hours to kill before we needed to get to the airport. We dumped our bags in an internet cafe and grabbed some lunch. Afterwards we checked out the winte...