We arrived in Wellington to the worst weather on record since 1968 when a ship sank. So, the Ferry to cross the Cook Strait was cancelled. As we don't have much time we booked the short flight over to try and get on the original bus we should have been on on the other side. However, when we arrived at Wellington airport the airport was closed so we got rescheduled for today's flight giving us a day in windy Wellington. And windy it was! We nearly got blown over m...

We left Taupo and drove around the lake to Tongariro National Park. It is New Zealand's oldest national park and was given by the Maori chief Te Heuheu Tukino to the New Zealand people on the condition that it be made a national park in 1867. A lot of the filming for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was filmed in this national park. The park is dominated by three large volcanoes: Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. We got off the bus at Whakapapa and did a walk to the...

On the way to Taupo (pronounced toe-paw) we stopped at the Huka Falls for a little gander. The Huka (foam) falls is situated on the Waikato River, 11m high. It looks like it was man made but it was actually formed by an earthquake. The water was so blue! When we got to Taupo it was rather wet but the rain cleared up as we arrived so we went on a little walk to the hot spring. The scenery is beautiful. I'm still stunned at how green New Zealand is. The spring we ...

Today we left Waitomo and drove to the smelly town of Roturua. We were supposed to do a forest walk, but due to the rain we all voted against it. We got to Roturua and had the afternoon to ourselves. It didn't smell as bad as we thought it would but there was definitely a sulphur odour int he air. So we had a walk around town with some of the girls. We first walked around the Kuirau Thermal Park. The autumn colours were beautiful and there were hot springs and mu...

Today we drove from Hot Water Beach to Waitomo. We stopped at a range of mountains on the way and went for a walk through the old gold mining tunnels. It was really nice scenery as there was a river that ran through. We have to cross 2 swing bridges that you could only have 10 people on at a time! And they were really bouncy! Walking through the old gold mines were class as the old cart rails were still there and the tunnels were pitch black! Then we hopped back ...