The day started a little before 8 o'clock when I woke up. I checked my phone for the time and saw a text from Lizzie confirming Jack had a place at Coten End School, a flurry of texts to Rachel later confirmed that Alex also has a place there. Breakfast was cereal, croissant etc and we found ourselves on the road at about 9:15 or so and drove the 30km to Wai-o-tapu for the thermal park. We arrived just before Lady Knox geyser would have entered eruption but de...

Another late morning mainly due to the late night last night. Alex woke in the night again and we were also awoken by the rain. The rain was very heavy. I woke, had coffee and read my book until Elizabeth stirred. The weather outside was pretty rotten so we did not rush to get ready. Having said that some of us were more active than others which caused some tension.We decided to be very British in our approach to this and carry on regardless. The plan was t...

A lazy day today which meant we did not head out of the site until 11ish. We had heard the sulphur smell was unbearable but in all honesty it has been fine. As we left the sight we found Alex's lamby had lost an arm, fortunately she is not upset by this turn of events. We walked through the park looking at the thermal activity and ended up in eat streat, yes that it the way it is spelt ! The temperature was unbearable hot. We had lunch out and about which was...

The site was fine but basic, however we rarely use many of the facilities. We returned to Matamata for the 10:45 tour of Hobbiton, this time costing nothing. After a discussion with the staff we decided to go directly to Shire's Rest and pick the tour up from there. That had been our original plan, 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.The farm is a way out of town and the café area had a nice lady from the UK serving in it, another case of the entire 3 genera...

Elizabeth was fascinated by the ducks around the van this morning and was very cute about them and saying quack.In the end today was a very long day as we were on and off the road for over 12 hours. In short not the best day. We drove to Matamata for the Hobbiton tour and as we were very early we drove to the town for a look around as opposed to driving directly to the Shire's Rest. We then decided not to have our usual picnic lunch but go to the very nice caf...