Wellington - Napier Napier - Taupo Taupo - Rotorua Rotorua - Hahei Hahei - Te Puru Te Puru - Piha Piha - Whangerai [Word of warning: a bit of a long waffly blog this time!] After a few days rest in Wellington, we finally hit the road again with the aim to cover some remote areas of the North Island of NZ. Shortly after leaving Wellington, we managed to puncture our tyre 50 metres from a random town (thankfully it wasn't in the middle of nowhere!!!). On...

The next part of our adventure was to catch the ferry from Picton to Wellington cruising through the Queen Charlotte Sound. The ferry was like a typical ferry, like the ones you get from Dover to Calais complete with a food court etc only with better scenery. Windy Wellington is the worlds most southernmost capital, and it certainly is windy. When we arrived outside our hostel we were welcomed with gale force winds, Helen had to use her feet to push the car door...

Burnham - Kaikoura Kaikoura - Picton Picton - Wellington Thursday the 21st of June marks the start of our Great New Zealand Road Trip. (recognise the theme?). Our first stop from Burnham was at a McCafe getting hot drinks for the journey up to our first destination, Kaikoura. Kaikoura, while it has a grim history of whaling the town has managed to turn their fortunes around with the Maoris having complete monopoly of the Whale Watching business. Obviously,...

We caught our plane to Christchurch where we were warmly greeted by Helen's cousin Lee, his wife Helen, their children Sam and Oliver and the cold! (and by heck, it was cold!) We were then taken to our home for the next week, in Burnham. Helen and Lee's friend offered us use of her house while she was away holidaying and we were shocked to find that it only had a fire as a means to keep warm. New Zealand don't do central heating or double glazing which is ridicu...