First of all, apologies for the lateness of this update...  Internet access in most of New Zealand is pretty shocking.  In most places you're limited to coin-operated machines that swallow $2 coins every 15 minutes and which are deathly slow, if they work at all.  Since I'm now in Auckland, there are proper internet cafes...

This will have to be a quick run-through of the last couple of weeks, since I'm flying to Fiji in a few hours.  Having spent a few nights in Wellington with Steve and Joanne, and getting a guided tour courtesy of Steve (some of the Wellington sights including the parliament building, the boat used in King Kong (the hedgehog posed on it, pictures to follow soon-ish), Peter Jackson's studio (from the outside only, sadly) and the quarry which had Helm's Deep built in it.  There will be no more geeky Lord Of The Rings talk from now on.

With the help of the inhabitants of the Man Shed, I left Wellington with a map showing a suggested route.  The first proper stop was Owlcatraz, a hilariously tacky owl-themed park.  I should first mention that the Department of Conservation (DOC) maintains many of the natural wonders in New Zealand, although they're not universally popular.  In the Catlins there were signs scrawled on peoples' fences saying "No Reserve" and "No Marine Reserve", indicating that DOC are planning to protect the region's sealife.  Another sign summed up the local objections: "b***** off DOC and take your smelly seals with you".  I mention this because DOC aren't very popular with the bigwig at Owlcatraz...

The guide through Owlcatraz was a local girl, who was thrilled by my name, because I have an owl's name - Owlasdair.  There was a field of large cattle, a glow-worm cave (with stalactites made of cardboard) which seems to be the root of the troubles with DOC, they seem to think that spraying glow-worm eggs all over an artificial cardboard cave isn't the best way to present nature.  Not to mention the owl cabin, which has day and night artificially reversed.  The man who started it all guided some of the groups, which was a mixed blessing because he knew his owls but he didn't half talk about them.  I could go on for hours about how he discovered what the Ruru (local owls) do with their eggs, but you'd probably lose the will to live.

Napier was next, and it was great weather to walk on the beach and up the hill to the lookout.  There is also the local prison, which has been converted into a backpacker hostel.  Guided tours are available courtesy of the half-Maori, half-Weegie daughter of the owners.  The resident cat stared at me, leading me to conclude that it contains the reincarnated soul of one of the former inmates.

There are geothermal hot-spots throughout the north island.  I visited quite a few of them, such as the Craters of the Moon near Taupo and Hell's Gate near Rotorua.  They contain smoke belching from holes in the ground, hot waterfalls, bubbling pools of mud and various-coloured water - at Hell's Gate there is a large pool of dark blue water next to a yellow sulphurous one and a brown muddy one.  The city of Rotorua itself has parks with fenced-off fuming craters and mud pools.

Hot Water Beach, though, was my favourite.  For two hours either side of low tide, it's possible to hire a shovel and walk along the beach until you feel heat from the hot springs under your feet.  Then it's a case of digging your own spa in the sand, and diluting it with sea water to keep the temperature down.  I was joined in this by two Danish people and a German bloke, who immediately co-opted my shovel (they didn't have one) and started digging.  When complete, they went away, leaving me with a massive pool with a small Israeli child jumping in it and chattering away in Hebrew.

In-between times I went to Waitomo Caves for a spot of Black-Water Rafting.  Funnily enough, it's not actually rafting, nor is the water actually black.  It involved abseiling 37 metres into a hole in the ground, sliding down a wire into complete blackness, jumping into an underwater river to swim about in a giant tyre tube (the "raft") while saying hello to Gollum the eel - everything in NZ having to have a tenuous LOTR connection these days.  We then had to climb out through the caves by walking, swimming and climbing up waterfalls.  Our leader, incidentally, only had two fingers on his right hand, which he liked to wave around while talking about what could happen if you held your abseiling equipment wrong.

Next was the Coromandel, a beautiful part of the north island, which I sadly didn't have very good weather for.  There were still plenty of rather damp walks to go on, and geological features to marvel at.  Then there was the far north, which is also stunning but a lot bigger.

In the far north of New Zealand, the topic of conversation changes.  Elsewhere, a typical conversation starter would be (and frequently is) "what d'you make of the whitebait?"  Up north, this changes to "what d'you make of the Kauri?"  Kauri trees are huge beasts, there are some still growing in the forests which are likely to be over 2000 years old, with trunk girths of over 17 metres.  A huge forest of Kauri was destroyed and buried in a mysterious event thousands of years ago, likely to be a gigantic tsunami.  The trees were knocked down and buried, and preserved underground.  This wood, which has been underground for tens of thousands of years, is still in good condition and is used to make expensive furniture and less expensive souvenirs.

By this stage I had met up again with Catherine, my passenger from Stewart Island.  Having nearly been eaten by an elephant seal in Cannibal Bay, we went for a walk on Karekare beach, which is famous for being used in the film "The Piano" (that's the one with Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter, not "The Pianist" - that was about the holocaust and didn't feature many beaches).  A small black object hovered around in the distance, which I initially took to being a car.  As it got nearer it became obvious that it was an animal.  As it got even closer it turned out to be a wild boar, covered with straggly black hair.  It didn't seem that interested in us humans, it kept pace with us but otherwise simply went for a swim and seemed to be attempting to surf.  I must watch The Piano to see if the pig's in the background of any shots.

The far north ends at Cape Reigna, after the Ninety-Mile Beach.  This is very similar to Seventy-Five Mile Beach on Fraser Island, in that it's used as a highway at low tide.  It seems to claim more vehicles, though - two Germans staying in the same hostel nearly lost their car since they didn't realise that the tide was going to trap them.

Then it was back to Auckland to try and sell the car.  This actually turned out to be pretty easy, there's a Backpacker's Car Market here.  I put my car in on Friday afternoon, and sold it the next morning to another couple of Germans (plenty of them about in this part of the world) for $2400.

Having already changed my flight to Fiji for a week, I'd better not do it again, so I'll go and catch the plane now.  With some of my wad of used $20 notes I booked myself on a couple of trips in Fiji, and without the hassle of driving myself all the time I should be able to keep this website more frequently updated.  Perhaps.  Or perhaps I'll spend my time drinking Kava.  Who can tell?