Welcome to our 2nd blog installment - yes we are as surprised by this as you are!

After waking in Rotorua it was discovered that the Northerners had followed us bareing gifts of bread and cheese. Whilst Kate hid, Siobhan and the guy from Bolton spoke northern for a while. Next we ventured to the Maori settlement of Te Puia and had a hot day watching various displays and hot water volcanoes. Kate particularly enjoyed the plopping mud and has vast quantities of photographic evidence. We'd also like to add Kate is now to be known as 'Kate the red sunburnt nose reindeer' for obvious reasons!

For lunch we stopped at some thermal pools which smelt delicious (NAAAAT). Kate decided to dispose of some unwanted cucumber and 1 seagull had an unfortunate ending. Apparently seagulls aren't the best chewers! We then headed to Otorohanga for our 1st meal that didn't consist of bread, ham and cheese. Unfortunately when ordering, the bar lady had immense trouble understanding dave (if only the man from Bolton was taking our order)! After eating our nachos and masses of wedges it appeared as though Siobhan had caused a local potato famine but the wine washed down nicely nevertheless. The wine later led to 4 trips up and down the high street (and past the same restaurant) in search for water - Liam this was severely worse than the walk to the shop in Morocco.

Later that night we had a severe situation with flying ants...less said about that the better. "REMOVE YOURSELF"

So we woke in Otorohanga, did some washing and took advantage of the lack of specification regarding checkout time (normally 10am). At 1pm we left for Waitomo caves. After making 4 incorrect stops we finally found the ticket office for the caves. We had an almost private tour minus a lovely Kiwi lady and her Australian douche of a husband - far too many not so funny jokes and awkward laughter. We saw thousands of little tiny twinkly glow worms however our guide did not help Kate's insect phobia with stories of spiders hiding in beds!!!!!!!!

In the rain we drove for hours and hours and hours and hours to Palmerston North and managed to blag finding the campsite for the night - again. The next day we went for a spectacular brunch in the city which consisted off chicken and bacon focaccia and some filo dish. After our win finding a bank offering free internet connection in most branches we were on the road again towards Wellington.

Seeing as the weather was sweet we had a quick stop off in Otaki beach (perfection spolit by Maori boy racers) and ended up staying in a little campsite with an amazing pool. We woke up in the rain again (!?) so swiftly departed towards Wellington. Once there we took a bus into the capital to explore the epic free museum where there was a huge squid and an earthquake simulator (perhaps not that appropriate). After a shower we headed back into Wellington and ended up in a tiny but heaving Mexican restaurant full of locals where we drank and ate to our hearts content. Before heading home we sought out our very own Oceana - even if the music was about 5 years old! After rounds of drinks and not forgetting the sambuca we managed to catch the night bus back to our cold van for another rainy nights sleep.

We woke bright and breezy for our early morning ferry departure - turns out this 3 hour journey was a little longer than expected but we finally reached Picton harbour with thousands of little blue jellyfish waiting to pounce. We made our way to Blenheim in the Marlborough wine county and set up camp by the river.

The next day we were picked up for our winery tour (aka hardcore bar crawl) and joined by 6 others touring many vineyards (including Villa Maria) and sampling far too many delicious wines (minus the chardonay and reds for Dave). Needless to say fun was had by all and after the final stop for liquore tasting we were all most definitely on the hammered side!

We are now in Westport/Cape Foulwind - yes really! The beach is amazing - it stretches for 9 miles and there is no one to be seen. However we did see a colony of seals chilling on the rocks!

Siobhan appears to have lost her camera charger - we are currently in hot pursuit of a new one.

Hope we haven't set the bar too high with 1 blog a week!

Miss you and lots of love (again)

Siobhan and Kate xxxx

BRAAAAWN RATING: 6% (Kate's sunburn really pushed up the rating)