Before arriving in the Abel Tasman region, we had quickly passed through Napier and Wellington (snatching a couple of nights of free camping in city centre car parks) in order to get the inter-island ferry to the country's southern island and the port of Picton. The blog for Wellington will follow after we've returned there for the All Blacks game. Despite the early morning start from Wellington, necessary for us to check in an hour before our departure time of ...

Our first point of call in Taupo was Finn MacCuhal's Irish Pub to watch the Champion's League Final, which was definitely worth the 6.30am wake up call. Having been thoroughly woken up by its excitement, we thought we'd better get back to the culture so took a trip to Huka Falls. After taking the wrong route and ending up on a very pretty but unnecessary walk, we managed to get to the falls which are certainly the most ferocious we've seen and we both agreed we...

Rotorua is New Zealand's centre for geothermal activity, and as the guidebook had promised, we could smell the town before we could see it. Luckily, the campsite we checked into was slightly out of town so we were allowed a break at times. We jumped straight into the thick of things on the first day by visting Hell's Gate, where we were fascinated by the geothermal hotsprings and sulphar pools, before the stench became too much. The evening was more relaxing as ...

Being a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, the only reason anyone comes here is to visit the fantastic set of underground caves; there's really nothing else of note apart from the odd campsite. We arrived in the village late on, finding a campsite and settling down for the night after having the leftovers of our shepherd's pie along with microwaved potatoes and beans: well and truly back to the life of a backpacker. The range of cave activities stretches fr...

Arriving in Paihia, gateway to the Bay of Islands, late on thanks to our late pick up of the camper, we were lucky to find that the caretaker of our apartment we had booked was still around to greet us. The luxury apartment was undoubtedly the best thing about our three nights spent in the bay too, with it being fantastic to briefly leave behind the backpacker lifestyle in order to lounge about like the rest of the posh yachtie-types around. This is the area w...