So the pictures are finally up and now weeks later, here is a blog about our time in New Zealand. OK, it isn't that late but we were so busy that we had little down time to put fingers to keys. This is being written while on the road in our camper-van in Australia (the second Spaceship, now called Space Patrol, vs Rossi from NZ, an upgrade in name and a downgrade in vehicle, but no complaints) since there is a lot of spare time between places, in this very very large country.

Six weeks in New Zealand went in a flash and started with a visit to our Flathaug family (on Janes side) in Auckland. We spent roughly a week staying with Adie (my aunt) and meeting the rest of the family, cousins Kirsten and Dave and their two small people, Ava and Lucas and cousins Sarah-Jane and Lisa. Not that it surprised us, but meeting family on the other side of the world, was without a doubt the highlight of our NZ trip, because nothing can compare with the feeling of getting to know great new people and making new friends and family. Dead soppy I know, but that is just the way it is. So thank you to all our Kiwi family for having us to stay and making us feel the most welcome, we love you guys.

After enjoying proper home cooked meals and getting back into the habit if multiple cups of tea a day at Adies, we picked up the Spaceship and visited the very north of the country. The photos tell the story of the land, but it is beautiful; pristine seaside towns lead on to more remote areas on the east coast. We went right to the tip of the country and it was a windy old day up there. Going back down the west coast I had a chilly dip in the sea one morning and it is cool to be totally alone on the beach, even if it can only last a few minutes. We drove through pine forests and saw few cars. The landscape reminded us of England apart from the fact that at times, homes, farms and towns were few and far between and that there are places that look untouched. It was on this trip that we really first experienced the friendliness and hospitality of the New Zealand people. Customer service was great throughout the trip, always a smile and a warm welcome. Many a time we passed people on the road who waved at us. Very welcoming we felt, since in the Spaceship it is clear that we are tourists. Tourism is a large sector of the New Zealand economy but this warmth came from simply friendliness.

A 'special invite' was issued by Ava to her fourth birthday party so we went back to Auckland for a few more days, enjoyed the party and a couple of meals out with the family at the local chinese restaurant. We were really sad to finally leave. It had got very cold by then and some parts of the country were having the heaviest snow fall in around 40 years. The first night away from Adies was pretty cold and getting out of the van to use the toilet in the morning, which frankly can only be put off for so long, was abrupt!

The temperature did rise after not too long, and although it was still not warm, since it was winter, the really cold snap passed. As a side on weather, visiting New Zealand in the winter turned out to be a fine time. We were actually at the end of winter, beginning of spring. I can't imagine there is a very bad time to visit, but in comparison to the UK, winter more often means cold, bright days, than rain and grey skies. We did have some rain (more in the north than south) but lets say it didn't lodge its presence in the psyche so much that it deserves a moan. Winter also means low season, so reduced rates on places to stay, hiring of cars or camper-vans and lots of offers on tourist attractions. The main downside to visiting when we did was the lack of people to meet and at times I felt this really strongly. We could be nearly the only people in a bar, or in the camp kitchen for example. Surprisingly being together all the time is nearly always easy and good fun, but meeting people along the way in South America was one of the highlights, and we missed it a lot in New Zealand.

Rotorua
Was our first stop post Auckland. The town and surrounding areas are incredibly geothermally active, with below the surface nature being much closer to our habitation than usual. This means lots of geysers, hot springs, air vents and sulfur smelling steam. You can smell it the minute you get into the town and while we thought it was going to stink of eggs, the smell was quite fresh and clean. As you drive around the town you see hot pools with steam rising from them at the side of the road and in the distance, many patches of steam from the vents all around. We visited two geothermal parks, seeing geysers and mud pools and lakes of amazing colours that come from the minerals and deposits in the water, which you can see from the photos. You see a really interesting part of the earth's make-up, evidenced right in front of you and it makes you feel insignificant. One of the parks (Te Puia) is the New Zealand Maori Culture, Arts and Heritage Institute. Here we watched carvers and weavers, who go to study at the institute to learn the crafts of their culture. We are talking artistic skill at the highest level, some of the carvings are sold for thousands of dollars. To be admitted you need to have Maori heritage of a certain proportion and only men can enter the carving school and become 'master carvers'. Maori carvings are made from pieces of wood, at their largest, half trunks. The carvings often represent gods, animals of worship or figures from their religions and beliefs, and each traditional tribe or group has its own style of carving.
We also went to a thermal spa in Rotorua and sat in the natural spa pools for a few hours, looking out at the lake. Blimey some of those pools were so hot I got a head rush each time I got out.

Tongariro National Park
From Rotorua we headed on down to this national park, which amongst its boundaries contains three active volcanoes. You can see from the photos that it had been snowing heavily here, which was fun. The drive into the park was so scenic and getting in towards the campsite we found the place to be the busiest we had seen so far since loads of people had rushed in for the extra snow on the slopes, even though it was so heavy that only the low slope was open. As I mentioned with the photos, we would have loved to take the day walk across the park but there was no way it was going to happen in that weather, and generally only experienced people do it in the winter. But the bar was lively and the snow pretty so we stayed for the night and took a walk through the forest in the morning. Is this something that is becoming more appealing as I am getting older or have I just reached a point where I wont lose as many kudos points for admitting it, but - there is nothing better than a good walk (Em if you are reading this I can imagine your face :o))! Preferably a few hours with a bit of a challenge but not too much, and lots of nice views and scenery, and depending on the weather, a cup of tea or a pint at the end of it, get in! During our walk in the Tongariro National Park we saw the mountain that is used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings. Geek me up baby, come on most of you would think this is kind of cool, or 'cool as' as they say over here. We drove around the park and back up the other side, towards Napier. During the drive we started listening to the Stephen Fry Chronicles and I have a distinct memory of the the whole view being bright white and snowy and listening to him talking about the beginning of his sugar addiction as a child and reeling off a list of his (and our) favourite sweets - sherbert dips, rhubarb and custards, chocolate cigarettes, flying saucers etc etc, so we talked about sweets and chocolate for ages - I favoured the white chocolate fish and chips myself but I found out that if given the choice Lee would have rather bought a meat pie with his pocket money.

Napier and Martinborough
Napier is a small town in the Hawkes Bay region on the east coast and has one of the highest density of art deco buildings in the world. Flattened by an earthquake in 1931, the town planners, residents and businesses decided to rebuild the town in this style. In places it feels like being in a film. We took a guided tour and learnt about the different art deco styling. The tours are run by a local trust and staffed by volunteers, dead quaint. Hawkes Bay is also a large wine region so from here we started visiting vineyards and stocking the Spaceship. Nine times out of ten the tastings are free, the setting is always lovely and it is a good way to learn about wine and get merry. Good fun. Hawkes bay vineyards produce great Pinor Noir and Sauvingon Blanc.
From here we headed south, following the 'tourist wine trail'. We stopped again in Martinborough to visit some more vineyards, but if you were seriously spending your whole holiday visiting the vineyards (a 'Sideways' tour) you could stretch it out to many more days. We also visited the Tui Brewery for a tour and beer tastings. All makes you a bit sleepy!

Wellington
This capital city didn't get as much time from us as we felt that it deserved. It really has a nice vibe, is positioned on a dock and is small enough to get around and see a lot in not too much time. It is also the place where we caught the ferry across to the south island. We spent most of our time here in a museum called Te Papa, which was one of the best we have ever been to. We had to push the kids off of the interactive features in this place. Go back to school. They have great exhibitions on natural history (we learnt a lot about plates and earthquakes), art (European and Maori), social history of New Zealand (great bits about Maori beginnings in the country, the settling, Pacific Islanders, the world wars, relations with the States etc) and the worlds largest specimen of a giant squid. I remember seeing this on the news when it was accidentally dragged up by fishermen - huge!

North of the south island
We rushed from Wellington to the south island thinking that we might not have enough time to get to see all that we wanted to. This didn't really work out to be a problem though. More wine to be had in Marlborough, which is the most famous of New Zealand wine regions, I mean there are literally hundreds of vineyards so we only scratched the surface. We traveled across the top from east to west, stopping at a place called Havelock just to have mussels for lunch, since they are so famed from there. They were so nice, I am a bit obsessed with them now, and bloody huge. Next was a visit to the Abel Tasman National Park. One of the first things we liked about it was that we got to stay on a farm that had camping facilities rather than a holiday park, which was much cheaper and full of character. The picture of the very large rainbow was taken at this farm in the morning. The main reason of our visit was to walk part of the coastal track in the national park, a walk that can last for days and has huts for sleeping along the way, but we took a water taxi up to an inlet and walked a few hours back. Did a bit of seal spotting too which was cool. Another good walk. We have sturdy legs now. Up early on a Sunday to take a long drive down the top of the west, across the centre and onwards to Kaikoura, only to get a puncher ten minutes down the road. Lee suggested that it was easier if I just sat in the car and let him get on with it (result) so I did and he fitted the spare tire. Spaceships dealt with it really well and covered the cost since it had bust due to misaligned tracking (obviously I concurred with Lee when he told me this) and we were fortunate since it packed up almost outside the mechanics, but it meant a night in the town and no long drive that day, since it was closed until Monday. To lessen the annoyance we went for a cooked breakfast and then to a small independent cinema to watch a film. The cinema consisted of a hodge-podge of chairs and couches so we bought a cup of tea and got comfy on a couch with a blanket. This is what Sundays should be about anyway hey. We were joined by four older ladies who spent ages deciding where they wanted to sit and sat in different places in the end since they could not agree on where the sound was best. They had a very English Grandma kind of way about them (they probably were from England) and I think they thought we were as twee as we thought they were.

Kaikoura
After a swift tyre replacement in the morning we took the long route down part of the west coast and back across to the east to visit the town of Kaikoura and to go whale watching. We zig-zagged across the island a couple of times just to see as much as we could and it really is small enough to make this extra effort worth while. Fish and chips for dinner here, so good! The fish is always fresh and you can have it grilled, plus a couple of deep friend mussels on the side, mmmmm. The whale watching trip was great. The boat that you are taken out on tracks the whales via sonar and they have to surface around every 45 minutes for air so the odds are on for a spotting. We were searching for sperm whales which are between 12 and 15 meters long. Everyone takes to the outside and watches the sea for spurts of air. Sure enough after not too long one was seen and the boat moved towards the whale. I think it we were allowed to be no closer than 50 meters but it felt closer than that. The whale came to the surface and after a handful of minutes it dived back down, arching up and diving vertically so that its tail went straight into the air and then below the water. Amazing. It was so large. After the boat tracked down a massive pod of dolphins, which I think were either called small greys or small blues. As we approached we could see that there were many, just choppy little dots of water in the distance and as the boat got nearer they came in close and played around it and jumped in synchronisation in small groups of four or five. It was a really special trip. Finally, before we left Kaikoura we walked up to spy a seal colony that we were told were really accessible. When we got there we saw a couple who were pretty close on the rocks and took their pictures and then decided to take a walk down the boardwalk. A few meters in and there was a loud roar/grunt and we both jumped off the boardwalk, luckily in the opposite direction to the big fat seal who was lazing in the reeds and who we had clearly disturbed. We really jumped, brave ha! Lee twisted his ankle. Anyway down this walk there were more seals just having a good old snooze and mostly ignoring us from then on. We were so close which you can see from the pictures.

Franz Josef Glacier
Cutting back across the country again through 'Arthurs Pass' we drove on towards the Franz Josef Glacier. A whole day of rain that day but a whole day of driving too, luckily. We decided on taking a half day walk around the lower parts of the glacier since the full day was on the expensive end. The full day did look good though and we could see people like little ants much further up. I thought it would be pretty hard to walk on the ice but the crampons make it simple and you don't really have to watch your footing that much. New Zealand is such a tourist ready country, since you can drive to one place and be on a beach, the next a glacier, the next a geyser etc etc. Its size as well makes this so easy and you feel like you are hopping from one amazing and new thing to the next, with little effort. This now means more exploring of the UK for us when we get back, since the size is similar, and if we can do it in NZ, we can do it at home. I would get a little tetchy hearing Brits moaning about where they live, especially while in NZ, since I had heard people saying things along the lines of 'there is nothing like this in the UK' or giving it a general diss, and sure there are no glaciers but that might be an extreme example and there are many place in the NZ that reminded me of the UK and clearly these people have never been to places like the Lake District etc etc. So grrrr, stop moaning, get exploring. I have never been to the south west so that is going on to the list straight away. Anyway, back to the glaciers, it was really good fun - I have added a bit of information to the pictures so wont bore you all with it again. Again we had that feeling of being insignificant to nature, since the tracks are chopped out daily and the glacier moves and when it rains they are gone, like all those tourists were never there. It was also pretty lively where we stayed for the first time in ages so this was the beginning of the drought in company that we had experienced since we left Auckland, yay - possibly becoming a bit needy!

Queenstown
Is the best! The drive to it was another beautiful one and the town itself is set between mountains and on a huge lake. It feels like a large alpine resort, which to an extent it is at certain times of the year as there is skiing to be had. It is busy with loads of tourist activities on offer. Some Kiwis think it has lost it's soul a little to tourism but I reckon they need to visit Cuzco in Peru for a realistic feeling of this before they completely wright it off. We loved it. Up the steepest cable car we played on the Luge (go-karts with no engine on a downhill sledge slope) which was wicked and the views of the town from up there are hard to beat. Back down in the town we went into tourist information to find out more about the 'chuck yourself off of things' options, of which there are quite a few to chose from. They had a video to show us and I seriously thought it was going to be more like a big swing but as you can see from the video and pictures, I was miles off. The video was another example of all the easy information that is available but this could be one that loses companies some money, man alive. Lee was unphased and excited while I felt a little sick. Still, I was not chickening out, especially as we wanted to do a tandem jump. So we booked it for the next day and I had the evening to procrastinate. We traveled to the canyon the next morning with other people jumping and it was good fun getting nervous with everyone. We met one girl who was kacking it so that made me feel better, how mean. When we got to the canyon we walked across a suspension bridge to the platform where you can watch other jumpers and out of nowhere I felt confident and the adrenalin kicked in as excitement rather than nerves - phew since we were doing it now either way. Chloe (scared girl) was clinging to a ladder at the back of the platform, muttering a little, I am not kidding, she was so scared and they harnessed them in first to get it done. She rambled a lot and screamed in real fear when they dropped, all of which would have been immortalised on their DVD, poor her. You can see her crouching on the steps in our video, I think relieved it was over but still a bit white! Our go and we tried our hardest not to say stupid things to the guys strapping us in, smiles for lots of cameras and then they let you go. The fall just shocks you and you feel like screaming but nothing comes out, it was so much fun. And then you are swinging, on the biggest bad-ass swing ever, awesome. We did it twice too. I would so highly recommend it, the feeling during and afer is such a buzz, you could see how people get addicted to it. That night we went for drinks with some girls we met in Franz Josef and they were pleased to learn that I had not s*** myself as Lee had told me he had seen videos of it happening on You-Tube and I was worried that it could actually happen. Phew.

Doubtful Sound
The fjorlands are in the South West of the South Island and cover a huge area. You can drive into them yourself or take day or overnight trips on boats. The overnight trips had started early in the year in anticipation of increased numbers of tourists due to the Rugby World Cup so we were lucky to be able to go and at half the normal price. I think they were a little over-optimistc about the numbers before the start of the tournament but that was good news for us as we rocked up and booked a trip with no problems. We stayed overnight on the boat and visited the fjords, went kayaking and penguin watching and learnt about the area. When we got on the boat there were fresh homemade chocolate muffins to be had, a mega quality buffet in the evening and a cooked breakfast, greedy b******s we are. The feeling of remoteness was really strong here and at one point the captain turns off the engine and everyone stands quietly listening to the silence and or the lack of noise from humans and machinery. We could hear waterfalls and birds and not much else.

Dunedin
For the Rugby World Cup, woooo hoooo. A cool city with lots of students and lots of bars. We went to watch the opening ceremony in the town hall turned pub and the atmosphere was the best and since then the All Blacks went on to win which we were so pleased about as they were our second team - nothing better than a good bit of random supporting. We were there for it, I have Kiwi relatives, that is good enough reason. The atmosphere before the game was buzzing and we watched the earlier games in the pub and Lee has his face painted, all nice and flakey on the new top and I got a little girl one done on my cheek. Atmosphere on the way back was a little less high as although England won it was not convincing. The Argentinians were still singing even though they lost so good for them. A good night and the beginning of being able to follow the games properly as we are unemployed bums, happy days.

Christchurch
Was our final stop in New Zealand. It is more accessible than we thought it would be after the terrible earthquake at the beginning of the year but the centre is shut and many of the buildings will be taken down, you see empty spaces between houses which is sad, there are cracks on the streets, broken windows and lots of buildings or walls just look a bit wonky. Some shops still have all their contents in them, trashed. Many buildings are now unoccupied and have the spray painted symbol on them that determines their destiny for the tip. We met a couple in Argentina who had just found out that their house was not safe for occupation and it was going to have to be pulled down, but their neighbour had lost their daughter so they were feeling so pragmatic about it, as the two don't compare. There were no problems with the airport and hence we were still flying from there. You can see from the pictures that we stayed in a jail renovated into a hostel, a great place. Next stop Sydney.