From Turango we drove to Whanganui, then on to Kia Iwi where we stayed for 2 days not doing much but walking on the beach and watching people catch fish. From there we drove up the coast on highway 45 to New Plymouth, this is supposed to be the surfers highway but the weather had turned to rain so we didn't stop at any of the beaches. We also drove past Mount Taranaki but again due to the mist we could only see the bottom of it. From New Plymouth we headed to Stratford (it was still raining) and stayed in a hostel as it was too wet to put the tent up.

On Tuesday 13th December we drove along the forgotten highway, a quiet road that goes on for about 100 miles with loads of tight turns and changing scenery. This was a fun road to drive and would be a really fun road to ride on a motorbike, except for the few miles of gravel in the middle that they haven't got round to tarmacking yet. Along the road there is a small town that has declared itself its own country and they have a border where you can get you passport stamped. On having this done I noticed that for some reason New Zealand customs have stamped Dai's passport allowing him only 3 months in the country, which may be a problem as we are here for 4, will have to sort that out when we get back to Auckland over Christmas, otherwise he'll be deported sometime in February :-)

After completing the forgotten highway we headed for Raetihi to book on to a 3 day canoe trip down the Whanganui river, unfortunately due to the rain the river was too high and we were unable to book on, also they have given wet weather for the next 3 or 4 days so we are going to head North towards the Waitomo caves to do a cave abseil and black water cave tubing.