Travel day today and of course, had a rubbish nights' sleep. The cave troll above me was up & active again for significant chunks of the night, so got up & got going at 6am and everything sorted and to the ferry okay with time to spare. (When I get back to the UK, I am going to spend a week simply staying in bed until after 9am, I am not going to get up until after that, to try and redress some of the balance of all these early starts. Absolutely no poin...

It's amazing what a good nights' sleep will do for you. Slept right through like a baby, only got woken up around 7ish by my upstairs neighbour stomping about like a cave troll - which was quite apt, and actually timely, as I was getting up for my Lord of the Rings location tour. Thankfully, my pick up wasn't until 8.30am, and I had spied a very nice café across the road from the hotel (still in raptures about being in a proper hotel, even it was a bit shabby a...

Finally did get some sleep, only to be woken by someone phoning me at 1.30am. What is this? I hardly ever get phone calls, then 2 in the middle of the night in quick succession. Managed to get some sleep after that, but not great. Phoned Mum early doors to check that it wasn't her who had phoned, it wasn't, so it's a mystery. I just hope they don't try again tonight, I really need a good night's sleep. As I was awake, I thought I might as well get up & get g...

Not the best nights' sleep ever, as still feeling a bit dodgy, so decided to just get on with it, as I was already awake. (Couldn't actually fail to be, what with all the traffic noise and 2 tourist parties from somewhere in Asia crashing about the hotel from about 6am!!!) So, leisurely check out and headed out toward Napier on the West Coast, but going via Waimangu Volcanic Valley. There were a couple of places I could have stopped, but this one seemed to be on...

Slept like a log after my spa trip, only to be woken by Mum at 2.30am. They'd somehow managed to completely flatten the battery on my car, so she was phoning me to let me know, which I'm glad she did, but ideally not at 2.30am NZ time!! Anyway, got back to sleep, though not great, as the hotel I'm in is right on the main road out of town, so there was a fair bit of traffic noise, which made it difficult to get back off to sleep properly. When I got an unbooked 7...