We have now made our way to the south island! From Taupo we headed to Turangi, which was very quiet, but we had a little walk along the river and up a little hill which was really nice. From there we headed to Napier, which is known for it's wine tasting and art-deco themed city-we didn't do any wine tasting because all of the vineyards were quite far out of town, but we had a walk round the town which looked a little bit dated because of the art-deco stuff. I think most of the original buildings had been preserved. Our hostel was quite close to the beach but it was pretty chilly while we there so we didn't really do much sun bathing! From Napier we headed to Wellington-again there wasn't really much touristy stuff to do but the city itself was really nice-lots of modern sculptures. We went to the New Zealand museum one morning which was quite cool- i think we were the only adults there without children, but it was well worth a visit-they had a bit section of the immigration of the brits which was quite cool to read. On the same day we were walking back from town by the harbour bit and there was a man there walking 9 puppies (well letting them run round-we think he was there to try and pick up women)!!! They were so cute that we spent about an hour there before i dragged Sam away kicking and screaming. We are staying in Nelson for a few nights to hopefully do a bit of sight-seeing and maybe some quad biking- we caught the ferry this morning at 8 (earliset we've been awake in a long time!!) which was rather pleasant!

We've found that the YHA hostels are the best to stay in, even in dorms, because they're so clean and modern and normally have awesome kitchens, but the problem is that they don't very often have car parks. At the moment we're staying in a little hostel up a hill that has a car park-it looks like a big house but it's quite nice, and tonight we've opted for their $5 roast dinner which should make it even better! NZ is a lot more expensive than South America-it's come as quite a shock after staying in such cheap places and paying virtually nothing for meals!