Hi y'all

Sorry its been a while since our last entry. Hope you're not too worried! But once again we've been so bloomin busy, its so hard being on holiday!!

Right then, since our last entry we have been up to the Bay of Islands where we stayed in Pahia for a couple of days and went on a tour of the islands on a real pirate ship! The R. Tucker Thompson. Ok, it wasnt a real pirate ship but it looked just like one, and we even helped "hoist the main sail!" and got to climb out on the bow! It was great fun.

After Pahia and due to yet more problems with our campervan (electrical problems this time!) we had to head back down to Auckland to get it fixed. We wont go into too much detail but we got it sorted and headed onto Rotorua, lets just say our hire company are a joke and full of numptys!

As expected Rotorua was very smelly (egg mayonaise and smokey bacon crisps!). This, also expectedly, lead to Paul being hungry all the time! Rotorua was an incredible place and we loved it. We visited 2 thermal reserves (Te Puia and Waiotapu) both with ploppy mud, geysers and colourful sulphur pools. At Te Puia we also went to a Maori concert which was an experience. We watched it back on our video and it looks well cheesy! But it was deadly serious! We stayed in Rotorua for a couple of days before heading to Lake Taupo. We had a quick stop here, the lake is beautiful. We then headed to Tongariro. We didnt do the famous Tongariro crossing due to a combination of unsure weather and Zoe having been unwell (little tummy upset, nothing to worry about Dad!) a few days ago and using this as a feeble excuse to wimp out! We did manage a lovely walk though to the Taranaki falls, also with great views of Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu.

That leads us next to here, where we drove 5 hours yesterday to see the "incredible" Mt Taranaki. We woke up this morning to find the whole bloody mountain had disappeared behind a huge bank of cloud surrounding us, chucking rain down everywhere!! God damn weather!! So while we hear that Mt Taranaki is very nice we cant really confirm it as we couldnt bloody see it!!

Right now we are sat in the information centre doing our rainy day chores. The next few hours will see us drive down towards Wanganui. We should then be back in Wellington to cross back to the South island in 2 or 3 days time.

We hope you are all getting excited about christmas, we are. And we look forward to our Finding Nemo advent calendar chocolate every morning!! We are looking forward even more to opening our christmas pressies! We've done really well to leave them alone, we're so intrigued!

Enjoy the festivities.

Miss and love you all loads.

Paul and Zoe

x