*Right after the dramas of my last few days in South America, I was fortunate to arrive in Aukland on the 15th April, just a couple of days after the others. After a pretty sleepy time in Auckland recovering from my jet lag, we headed north of Auckland to Pete and Jillys place. Pete being my dads old pal, from the days him and my mum lived out here. We spent a great couple of days here chilling out, cruising around Auckland habour in Petes boats, and generally being brilliantly looked after. Had a great birthday, with cake, beer, and wine, what more could you ask for! Hopefully Pete and Jill enjoyed our company, think Pete found it rather strange, as he hadnt seen my dad, for years, pretty much when he was living out here, and about my age now. Apparently i am just like the old man, just without the hippy hair! ; ) haha! Next we headed up to the bay of islands, in the hope of seeing dolphins, well apart from gray, who doesnt trust them, and has spent many an hour looking up on the internet how dolphins are caperble of attacking humans! ; ). I met up with my old Pal Phil from uni, when he randomly walk into the pub we were in that night, rather funny! We had a cruise around the bay, very scenic indeed, went through the hole in the rock, and did see a number of dolphins, we ddnt go on one of the boats that organise a bit of a swim with them, as it was bloody expensive, plus whilst we were out in trhe bay we saw lots of boats dolphin hunting, when they found some, 30 odd people would jump over the side of there luminous boat, and swim as fash as the could towards them, the dolphin seemed to think b***** this for a laught, and swam off!. All a bit touristy I thought. After leaving the bay of islands, we did a quick trip up to 90mile beach, deciding against taking the camper along it, as we probably would have got stuck in the sand!, before heading down via Auckland and a trip up the sky tower, down to Rotorua. This place stinks to high heaven, due to the amount of thermal activity happerning, beneath the groud, and theres me thinking it was just gray forgetting to change his socks! ; ) We had rather a lazt first day there, checking out the thermally heated pool, very relaxing, and bloody hot! Before our "extreme sunday!" You can read grays account of this on our website, but firstly we went and did archery and Shooting, of which I was awfle at. Mr Shepherd, I dont now what happend mate!, I was ace at it on your stag do!, obvioulsy just beginers luck! Then We went to a luge track which was ace! You get a ski lift to the top of a mountain, before being given a three wheeled tea try, with rather dodgy brakes, and get sent hurterling down the mountain side at stupid speeds. We work our way up to the extreme track! which had really steep slopes and tight bends, meaning you had to break hard to get round them. Steve aka Juan pablo motoya, thought it best to hurtle off into the lead, whilst me and gray held back on the racing line, as we approacheed a pretty sharp coner, steve got it all wrong. Now with NZ it tends to rain allot, therefore the track was wet, and so was the muddy run off area. So steve hurtled off track, turning his luge, into a rally car, and parked himself knee deep in mud, meanwhile me and gray slowly drove past, laughing our heads off. About 10 minutes after we finished, a muddy guy appeared at the bottom off the track, luge in toe! oh dear! We are currently in Taupo now, and its absolutly chucking it down, which is rather anoying as we had been booked in to do a sky dive, which has now been rained off. Hopefully we can do it tommorow! Were going for the 15000ft one, so on a clear day you should be able to see the whole width of NZ. After spending many hours looking at my insurance due to the santiago epesode, i have noticed we are not insured to sky dive, but I kind of figure it can only go one of two ways! ; ) And ive got to go for it really, NZ is all about extrem sports! Anyhoo its looking like it may have stopped raining, so best be off. By the way theres plenty of new pickys on our website, plus the best of our South America tour. Enjoy! * Appologies if some of you are getting bored of my long emails, I now >ther a bit inpersonal when iam sending them to loads of people, plus >if a iam honest a bit of a pain to read! (Esspecially with my >spelling! ; ) but I thought I had to tell you about this! > >Well in heinsight, yesterday afternoon I realise why I shouldnt of >stupidly said I was going to do a bungee jump in past emails, I will >learn to keep my gob shut in future. > >So anyway we drove out to the AJ Hacket bridge bungee jump, to check >it out, both Graham and Steve had said they wernt going to do it, >even though we have had counless crazy golf competitions to decide >who goes first! i duno huh ; ) and watching people do it I was going >off the idea. > >Anyhoo as the day ticked on I though sod it ive got to give it a go, >so a cleared my pockets out, not wanting to donate my wallet to the >river below, and went for it. They weigh you and write your weight >on your hand, bloody hell ive put some on, since the skydive ; ) >then send you onto the bride to get your legs tyed together. Then >you have to shuffle yourself to the edge, try not to look down, and >jump on three, I went on two! Gota get it over with!, but must admit >it was ace fun! diving off, nearly losing my t shirt in the process, >great feeling the free fall, and even better when you feel the >bungee tighten ; ) Ones you finish bouncing about, a little boat >come out and collects you, then its a very nice feeling being back >on dry land. Now once I had been sent up as the guinea pig, and came >back buzzing, both steve and gray managed to build up the bottle to >have a go themselves, surprise suprise!, ; ) reckon there egos were >dented. Anyhoo hope to get the pickys on the sight soon, weve a dvd >too, unfortunatly Gray wont be able to show his mum, as it may >shatter the illusion of him, as a quite seeren chap! its rather >blue! hehe! ; ) > >Today we had a bash at Quad biking, which was pretty good fun, >though I did keep getting images of Rick Mayle and Ozzy Osborn, >rolling them ofa cliff going through my head, decided staying on was >more inportant than speed, good fun though. though bikes arnt really >my thing. > >Heading down too Dunedin tommorow morning, before heading up the >coast to Christchurch for a long weekend, my olds former stopping >ground, so dont worry mum, ill try and get some good photos of the >place!, plus Dad were are the best pubs ; ) > >Monday 15th weve booked a flight back up to Aukland, and hope to >catch up with Pete and Jill (we will give you a call when we arrive >in Christchurch) before flying on to Fiji on the 17th for some well >earned sun, hehe! sounds like you lot at home are getting better >tans than us! ; )