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 ...

Friday 9th December, was up this morning at 5:15am ready to be picked up at 6am to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This is a 19km walk over a volcano and along the foot of Mount Ngauruhoe, or better known as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. The walk was really good; we set off at 7am and finished at 12:30pm. No more activities planned now for the next few days.

Went to Cathedral Cave and Gemstone Bay again on Tuesday morning but the sea was still too rough to go snorkelling so had to abandon that idea, we may call back there before we leave New Zealand in March if we have time. Left the Coromandels and headed towards Rotarua. Rotarua is famousfor its sulphur pools, and you know when your near them as they smell similar to traveling past Port Talbot but about 10 times stronger. We stayed at a campsite/hostel about 5 mi...

We left Tapu and travelled to Coromandel town on Friday. The lady running the hostel lived in St Davids in West Wales for the summer then fly's to New Zealand in December for 6 months to run the hostel, she has not seen a winter for 12 years. On Saturday the local town had their Christmas parade so walked to town to see it, it started 40 minutes late and took all of 3 minutes to go past :-) Stayed at same site again Saturday and Sunday night as was going to d...

We left the campsite on Monday, heading towards Dargaville, further down the West coast. we looked around the museum there while we waited for our car to have a service then headed towards the next campsite a litte further south at Gillys Gully. When we got there, apart from a German couple in a camper van the place was deserted. We decided to stay anyway as it was getting really windy and looking like it was going to rain, we decided to put the tent close to...