Today was really all about covering ground and getting to South Island. We left the Tongariro National Park at about 8.30am knowing we had a 6-7 hour drive ahead of us and a 3 hour ferry crossing. Initially the weather was clear with breaks of sunshine allowing us to get some panoramic photos of the volcanoes and crossing we had walked the previous day. As we headed down the south west coast of North Island towards Wellington we turned off the highway to a beach-...

5am... what are we doing?! Oh yeah, getting up so we can set off on another epic walk. I didn't feel too bad this morning. We had watched a few episodes of 'Always Sunny in Philadelphia' last night before bed - a hilarious must watch series. I had also slept pretty well last night thanks to a set of blankets which had been donated to me by another couple who had also hired a Wicked camper. Feeling charged and confident after our recent Volcano exercise in Chile w...

Today was all about glow-worms!...oh and lots of driving.....an obligatory part of our trip to NZ since we are trying to cover so much ground in just 2 weeks. We left the sunshine and warmth of Auckland and headed south towards Waitomo and the infamous glow worm caves. The drive took 3 hours or so but seemed less as we set the pace slow and took in some amazing scenery of rolling hills and farmland. As we neared Waitomo the sky became grey and we saw our first f...

Up, fed, watered and washed we set off at 8.30am for Waipoua Forest. The 18km road route passed through the heart of the forest and had several points where visitors could park up and walk a short distance to view the mighty Kauri trees. Below is some information I have plagiarised which explains in detail about the forest: Kauri are among the world's mightiest trees, growing to more than 50 metres tall, with trunk girths of up to 16 metres and living for more...

Our first night in the camper had been comfy and we slept well after being so knackered! Scott had been a bit cold as he doesn't have a sleeping bag - we'd bought some thick cotton sheets for him but they weren't really enough. We woke at 7am to the sun rising over the sea in the stunning location we had chosen to camp. We were at the Bay of Islands north of Auckland on North Island. After breakfast overlooking the little beach at our camp site we set off on a ha...