Sorry its been a while, been so busy doing things i have not had chance to update this site other than post my photo's but here goes on updating the journal.

After Taupo we headed north to Rotorua, the place that smells like rotten eggs all the time due to the volcanic activity. We were there for 3 days and it bounced down every day and most of the activities we had booked go cancel. We did however still manage to visit and natural spa, and the gysers which were pretty spectacular. We decided to leave rotorua a day early due to the weather and go to Auckland. In Auckland we met up with Fuzzy again and a Matt Hearley for a few days. Matt took us to a beach near where he lived to go Boogie boarding which was great fun, the waves were enormous and everyone else at the beach (all of 4 people) were wearing wet suits but no us true brits doing it in style and almost freezing to death.

From Auckland we head north to the Bay of Islands, this was one of the most picturesque places in New Zealand. On the first day there i went on a trip to the very North of New Zealand at Cape Reanga. This is where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet and it cause's some spectualar waves and currents which you can see in my photos. After visiting the lighthouse on the very tip of the north island our bus driver took us to some sand dune to go sand boarding, the sand dunes were massive and the one we all went down was 120m high. I was rather concerned at throwing myself off the top of a sand dune onto a plastic board but hey we all gave it a go. Was loads of fun until on my 3rd run down i decided to push things a little too far and fell of my board resulting in my having most of the sand dune in my mouth and up my nose but it gave everyone else a good laugh. We all then jumped back on the bus and the bus driver drove the coach down the beach for 50 miles, which felt very odd as every so often he owuld have to swerve to afford a wave that had come crashing in. I have out a couple of videos up of the drive down the beach.

The next morning i was up bright and early to go Dolphin swimming for the 2nd time in hope that i would this time get to swim with them. Just like last time as soon as i stepped on the boat my camera ran out of batteries, dont think my camera likes Dolphins. 5 minutes into the trip we found a pod of around 40 dolphins who were more than happy to swim next to the boat and show off around us. One Dolphin was only 1 day old and about the size of a rugby ball and that unfortunately ment we could get in the water due to there being babies with the pod. So once again i didn't get to swim with them, but the trip was worth it.

The following do we took a jet boat ride out to the hole in the rock which i am sure you have seen on my photo's and on the way back we came across some dolphins and this time my camera finnaly worked and i have also uploaded a couple of videos of them swimming next to our boat.

We then head back to Auckland for a few more days and met up with Matt and his family again and did some more Boogie Boarding (my new favourite sport).

We finally said goodbye to New Zealand on the 26th of April and headed off to Australia to begin our tour of the East Coast in Melbourne.....