We had booked a campervan way back in March for the 1st week of May as the prices were nearly halved and we knew that it would be the cheapest way to travel around the north island at our own pace. We picked the campervan up at 10am and after a bit of waiting we were on the road heading north to the Bay of Islands which was about 200km away. We were both quite excited especially Ben who had been bothering Ria for the last 5 months to rent a campervan. We had m...

 After being in Auckland for nearly 3 weeks we thought it was about time to venture into the city and go up the Sky Tower. Managed to get discounted backpacker prices and so decided to get the lift up to the observation deck and then pay the little   extra to go that bit higher up to the sky deck. After a 15,000 feet skydive, a bungy jump, a giant swing, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and numerous long haul flights, Ben was still nervous! Once we got...

Margaret?s son Micheal kindly asked us if we would like to visit the island for the weekend on the Tuesday before. We accepted and caught the 5.30pm ferry from Auckland over to the island which took around an hour. Micheal met the 3 of us at the terminal as Margaret came with us and we went to straight to the bowling club and met Micheal?s partner Vicky. We had a drink and good laugh and also had some food before going back to their home. The next morning Mich...

A nice lie in as the bus didn?t pick us up till 11am. The journey to Auckland doesn?t take that long from Rotorua but we stopped in Mata Mata along the way. Mata Mata is also known as ?Hobbiton? as this is the place where they filmed all the Shire scenes for the Lord of the Rings. We got to Auckland at 3.30pm and Margaret (Bens Auntie) picked us up from the bus with her daughter Helene. On the way back to Margaret?s we stopped at Helene?s house and met her sons, ...

With our Kiwi Bus ticket we had a free bus journey to Waitomo thrown in. The only downside was that we had to pay to do the caving and get up early to catch the bus. We had a nutty driver she didn?t seem to know her left hand from her right foot!! Once she had everyone on board we had a 2 hour journey to reach Waitomo. We arrived at 9.45am about 30mins later than planned as the driver was an idiot. We paid up at the counter to do the Black Abyss which was a fu...