Wellington - 26th February 2009After being woken by a tractor full of tourists being hauled along the beach a few feet from the spaceship and paying 50 cents for a reasonably warm shower; we breakfast and are ready to drive on the 400 or so kilometres to Wellington. In Australian terms, this is a pretty short drive - doable before lunch... in New Zealand though, we reckon that this will take us all day - if it's not down to the winding roads themselves, we've lea...

Gisborne & Napier23rd February 2009Much as we enjoyed Rotorua, we aren't disappointed to leave behind that wonderful, all pervading, eggy-sulphury smell, and head next for Gisborne.The drive from Rotorua to Gisborne is another adventure in itself, with a busy but steep and narrow mountain pass making up part of the route. Logging trucks courteously hop out of the way for us and other motorists, and we notice a simple rule being enacted - let anyone who is sma...

Rotorua21st February 2009The first thing we noticed about Rotorua was the steam that seemed to be coming out of all sorts of strange places. As we arrived there were a number of steaming gardens, a steaming pavement and what looked like a steaming park. When we arrived at the steaming park and got out of the spaceship we noticed the next thing that Rotorua was known for, the smell. With everywhere smelling of sulphur, this town was made for people with gastric pr...

Matamata19th Feb 2009Unfortunately, for the residents, aside from being prominent horse breeders, the town of Matamata is basically a one trick pony. Fortunately this trick happens to be strongly linked with a hugely successful film. Even more fortuitously this film is the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy and everyone knows that people who are into these type of films can be a bit obsessive. I can say that because the description includes me.There is sheep farm a few ...

Coromandel PeninsulaAfter leaving the Bay of Islands we set off with the intention of driving to the Coromandel Peninsula, or at least the beginning of the area. Ken and the map agreed that this was a drive of around 500km's so despite our surprise at the winding roads we still figured that was doable in a day. Unfortunately this was about as wrong as you could get, and by the time we had travelled to about 30km's short of Auckland we were both ready to stop. It ...