Hey guys. rather than spending our last 4 days in the worst place in the whole of NZ (Auckland) we decided to head up north to the bay of islands and the most northern tip of NZ. Plus we had heard the weather was pretty sweet up there! When we arrived the weather was perfect and the place had a nice beach which was the 1st we had seen since OZ really. After strolling around and relaxing on the beach we sat in the hostel and watched a movie and just did nothing a...

We stopped off at Taupo for a 2nd time on the back to Auckland, this was because the 1st time the weather was awful and everything we wanted to do got cancelled. THis time the weather was perfect the first time I had been able to wear shorts and a t-shirt in ages!!! One of the main things to do is the Tongariro Crossing which is a 19.8km walk over 3 active volcanoes! One of which was used in filming lord of the rings as mount doom. We got up at 6.20 so we had e...

hey Kaikora is the place inn New Zealand that is the best place to do whale watching. After seeing pretty much every other type of marine animal on this trip whales are the only one which we have yet to see. When we arrived the weather was perfect so we booked our whale watching trip, when we got down there we were told it was cancelled because of high winds, we were devastated as this was our only opportunity to see them and the weather inland was so good but o...

Christchurch, we have been told, is the worst city in Auckland. The best part of the journey up was stopping at the most photographed church in NZ beside the bluest lake we have ever seen. and a random statue of a dog!!!!! When we arrived in Christchurch it was so gloomy and horrible, we walked around the botanic gardens which are the 5th largest in the world with a couple of guys who are left on our bus. The gardens were massive but because it was cold we didnt...

AAHHHHHHH Queenstown where to begin!!?? Queenstown is a bit of a holy grail for backpackers where everyone seems to go for either a teapot, fergburger, 134m bungy jump or the Richard Lindley patented 'jetty jumping' A teapot can be found in the backpacker world bar where they serve cocktails in a teapot, a fergburger is the WORLDS biggest burger, the nevis bungy is the 4th/5th highest in the world...we dont know exactly because neither of us did it?! and jumpin...