Once we'd settled into our hostel we wandered around Auckland trying to get our bearings, and some lunch, before deciding to head out for the night: our first chance to dress up on the trip... although just how much a backpacker is able to dress up is questionable! We headed to the bar downstairs for our 'free meal', but were hugely disappointed to find that the free meal was six wedges and half a cold processed burger! Scrumptious. After having a hoarse-voiced ...

Well the van has been and gone! We dropped it off at 1 in Auckland. Made better by the fact that they didn't notice any of the scratches, chips, or dents caused by suicidal birds! Left Coromandel at 10 and somehow made it safely into the big city, although the city isn't really that big, it's just huge compared to the likes of Haast and Palmerston! 3 days in Auckland before the delights of the US of A welcome me!

Another uncharacteristically early start for us to make sure we got to the geysers at Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland: nothing like Wonderland in Telford though! The geyser goes off at 10.15am every day and so we piled on the waterproofs and waited in the stands for it to blow... no sudden eruption, just a man with a bag of what looked like soap in a bag. He added the soap before explaining that this didn't mean it wasn't a real geyser, he was just making sure it e...

After paying up for our late arrival we made our way to the Zorb track in Rotorua! $53 to strap ourselves into a giant ball and be rolled down the hill! Jo went first after we'd watched some other people do the option where you're not strapped in and the ball has water in it so it's more like a slide as you roll inside, not for us! I watched the ball go round and round, and saw as Jo slid out at the bottom with a bemused look on her face. She'd broken her bracele...

We spent the morning walking around Wellington, taking pictures of the Embassy cinema where Jo tells me the Lord of the Rings films were premiered, which is pretty swish. Right opposite the cinema was a little pub called The Welsh Dragon, not swish at all, just boarded up! We'd parked up near the government buildings to take pictures there, but decided to move further into town to look around there, unfortunately this was when we had to remember the warnings abou...