On the approach to Ohakune there is a giant carrot (approx 6 metres tall) with a sign next to it telling us that this is where our adventure would begin. Encouraged by the sign and disturbed by the carrot we went to meet the guy who had foolishly agreed to rent us a canoe, tent etc for our 3 day canoeing trek down the river. About half an hour of questions and 30 seconds of answers later we were no clearer about exactly what the trip entailed but we did have some...

Dear All, Just to let you know that we are actually in Brazil right now and have a few blogs to upload. Wireless is a mystery here so it will be next week before we can do this. But don´t worry - we are NOT DEAD! Love, R & A

We drove out of Auckland with wet eyes all around and headed south east for Rotorua, famed for its geysers and natural hot springs.We were also warned by Andrew that the place stunk, which it did.We didn't get a good smell of the place until we woke up the next morning and I thought that there must be a sewage leak somewhere but no… that is just nature at work. The smell changes as the day goes on.It starts pretty putrid and then turns to a rotten egg smell...

Of course we were distraught to give up the fabulous comfort of our mini campervan but Auckland was calling us for the first leg of our North Island adventure. As in Sydney we had the massive benefit of knowing some locals namely my good friend from school Andrew, his lovely wife Gina and a young lady we were to meet for the first time - Sadie, aged 2. Once Gina had fought her way through rush hour traffic to pick us up and Andrew returned from work we started to...

If you remember from last time, we were driving around the South Island like madmen in a tiny camper whilst seeing how beardy Antony could get before flying to Auckland. Our daily routine went something like this: get up at 8am, put the bed away and eat some breakfast, drive until lunchtime, look at something pretty as we are eating a sandwich, drive another four hours to where we were going to park for the night, cram in a walk or some activity, make dinner a...