Thursday 11th February 2010 Nice lay in this morning as we didn't have to check out until 10am as our bus wasn't leaving until 10.30am, destination Auckland. The bus was a bit late and didn't arrive until 11am but it wasn't full so we got a seat each. We drove for about two hours before stopping at a place for lunch call Matamata here is a bit of information for you about this place, as people were quite excited as some of Lord of the Rings was filmed here, ...

Sunday 7th February 2010, Taupo-Rotorua Today's start wasn't too early but still it didn't count as a lie in! The bus left Urban Retreat, Taupo at 8:50am and then from there it was pretty much a straight run through to Rotorua arriving at about 10:30am! So not a long journey at all. We were staying at Hot Rocks BASE in Rotorua so we were dropped there along with almost everyone else off the bus. We were able to check in and confirm our stay of 4 nights bu...

Wednesday the 3rd February 2010 We were very lucky this morning as we nearly missed the bus destination Taupo by 2 minutes but luckily the driver saw us running down the road so he waited for us, you would have thought we would have learnt our lesson from last time but we still went out the night before we needed to catch a bus early but good old Dad rang us to wake us up this time - Thanks Dad you're a star!!! Once we got on the bus we had a bit of a snooze be...

Welcome to the North Island of New Zealand!!! Sunday 31st January 2010, Kaikoura-Wellington Our destination today was Wellington, the capital of New Zealand! We left Kaikoura at about 9am, feeling a little delicate but not so bad!!! Neither Melissa nor Jane were on the bus as they were both going back to Christchurch. The bus was a mixture of new people just starting on the South Island, people like us who had done the South and were now going to the north i...

Saturday 30th January 2010, Christchurch to Kaikoura Today we were heading back to Kaikoura before taking the boat the following day to Wellington, so essentially toady was our last day in the South Island and what a great end to our time in the South Island! With a great nights sleep under our belts, although Caroline might beg to differ on that one after I woke her up at 2:45am worried about what time it was, we were picked up by Kiwi Experience at 7:45am. ...