We got our campervan today! Yipee! his name is Smooch! Don't worry we didn't name him like that it came written on his door. Its pretty much the same campervan as we had in Oz so we were happy. We just have Smooch for 3 times as long...wherther we are going to kill eachother is a question i can't answer at the moment! We spent most of our first day kitting him out - we bought lots of food - its so nice to be settled for a bit - and of course we bought alcoho...

We flew to Christchurch on the south island on the 16th...the flight took all of 1/2 an hour! We were up and then down again! Chritschurch is apparently known as the city which is most like England and its not wrong. On our first day there we walked around the city and its really pretty. It has a river running through it called the Avon...spot any similarities yet! We sat in the main square - Cathedral Square - for most of the afternoon and watched buskers p...

Hello there, We left Taupo today...boo! We had a lot of fun there. we spent a hell of a lot of time on a bus and eventually got to Wellington - the capital. Its a nice enough city but i think i may have preferred Taupo eventhough it is much smaller. It rained pretty much the whoel of the first day so we decided to go to the museum which was actually a lot of fun...eventhough most of it was enginered towards kids! Luckily our hostel was nice and the people t...

So we left Rotorua and made our way with Newmans Buses to Taupo. The bus driver seemed to find it inordinately amusing that my name was Newman and so was the name of the bus company. What do they say about simple things??? We managed to calm him down enough to get him to get the bus started and away eventually though. Anyway we arrived in the afternoon and settled in in the usual way- normally means a trip to the local supermarket to get our dinner sorted ;)....

After Paihia we eaded back to Auckalnd again for one night before heading off to Rotorus. We did however make time to meet up with one of Marias old work colleagues and we hada really nice evening in a Mexican restaurant. We arrived in Rotorua in the afternoon. Its in a very volcanic region so its surrounded by geysers, hot pools, craters BUT stinks of sul[phur (rotten eggs to you!). Apart from that its cool! We stayed in a really nice hostel- probably the best...