****HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYONE****

Sunday 23rd March 2008

I hope everyone had some yummy eggs to munch on yesterday ! We had 1 each too. We got picked up by Awol Adventures and were taken about 40minutes West of Auckland to a lovely beach town called Piha where we got kitted out with long-John wetsuits, jackets wetsuit socks, harnesses and helmets, ready for our Canyoning experience.We had to walk a hefty 40 mins in the forest - mega steep climbs in the heat and we were wrecked but had a stop for juice and choccy half way up to give us energy! When we got to the top of the waterfalls are adventure begun.......First was to jump off a 4m cliff into a waterfall pool, I don't like jumping into things when there's rocks in the water so that took me 4 attempts but I did it and the water was freezing! We then tackled our 1st abseil down a 30m waterfall with one of a group holding the rope at the bottom (quite scary for your life to be in someone else's hands!) The start of the abseil was fine until you were hanging over the edge on a vertical waterfall and Iain went first and swung around to the side - not good! ( Apparently his legs weren't wide enough apart!), then I went and swing a bit too but got down to the pool and unclipped myself ready to hold the rope for the next person. We did another abseil and then had to climbing and wading through the falls and over rock until we got to the edge of the 50m waterfall where we abseiled down it into a huge pool - this was fab, so high but great fun!

We had lunch as we went (Oh and there were hundreds of wasps everywhere which was half the battle as you had to watch where you put your hands down)The next was climbing into a pool, over rocks and through the entrance to the cave - tight squeeze (see group photo) and then it was a 6m jump into a pool, or you could do a 3m jump or no jump atall! All the guys did the 6m jump which Iain loved and all the girls did the 3 m jump.....except little old me, just couldn't do it so I clambered down....I know, I know, I can do a 35m bungy jump and a jump out of a plane at 15,000ft and I can't jump 3m into water - mad I know!We did more canyoning and the had to go head 1st "superman-style" under a massive Kauri tree and drop head first 1m below onto a rock, and then finished off canyoning!!

It was a great day, so different to anything that we have done before.Last night we went looking for somewhere to have a meal (Auckland was dead as it was Easter Sunday and most places were closed ??!!) but we found the Belgian Beer Cafe which was busy - always a good sign and had a nice meal with some live music playing.

Monday 24th March 2008 (Today)

We got the ferry across to Waiheke Island, 4omins from Auckland and it's quite a big island so we hired a Scooter each and drove around the whole island, stopping for lunch on the beach. Iain was calling me "Mary poppins" as I wouldn't go past 30km even on 60km roads! It was hard to get used to having the accelerator on the handle bar and I felt like I was going to skid all the time! Waiheke was a gorgeous little (well big) island.

We are now going back to the hostel to try and pack (think it's going to be a hard task, we some to have accumulated more things!). Tomorrow we fly to Fiji and we will be backpackers again as we will have no car and be getting around places by local buses and boats, there is a cyclone called Lola over Fiji just now but hopefully that will pass so that we can have some nice weather!

When we arrive we are meeting an English couple that we met when we were rained out of our tent ( so were they) in Franz Josef for a drink at their hostel as it's their last night in Fiji so that's be nice and they can give us some tips too!This will be our last blog for a few weeks as there is very little internet and phone access in Fiji, and most places don't even have electricity all day....but we will update you all on our adventure when we get to Los Angeles (Thursday 10th April).

See you all in 5 weeks,

Love

C & I xx