Well after leaving the sights and smells of Rotorua, i ventured off into perhaps what i would say is the best part of New Zealand....the bit where not many backpackers go - the Eastern cape. As you can see from all the pix i have taken its pretty much sun, sand and amazingly blue sea. Its also quite an isolated place so we had to stop off at Opotiki to grab our food and money as there isnt any other biggish towns on the East to be able to get this sort of stuf...

Finally 3 days to chill out! i hopped off the bus in Rotorua and spent most of my time walking and breathing in the sulphurous air. Seriously. i wish you guys could smell this place its like rotten eggs and thats no joke. Rotorua i guess is the most geothermally active area of NZ as the earths crust is really thin - hence all the bubbling mud and steaming lakes. The smell as you arrive is truly revolting and it kinda lingers on you even after you leave. I h...

Well as you can see from the picture this was our Maori cultural evening in Maketu! or else i had ended up with some very odd friends....after leaving raglan we headed to Waitomo where some of the group were going to do rafting/glowworm cave viewing but i wanted to leave this and do it next time i get to Waitomo so i had some lunch with Nads our driver and then went to Otorohanga to their kiwi house and as you can see from the pictures i saw some kiwi's but they ...

Hey Folks! well its been another busy few weeks in the North Island and it feels so good to be out and about travelling again After leaving Auckland for the final time - hurrah! i boarded the Stray bus heading towards the Coromandel and some sunshine. A few of the guys from my Northland trip were on the bus which was good and we had a new driver - Wozza. You will notice that all the stray drivers have nicknames, some pretty ordinary - others not so. But Wozz...

Well hello! I have finally managed a few spare moments to catch up on photos and blogging after a pretty hectic week up in Northland. i (finally!) left Auckland last Saturday and headed up with the Stray bus (which is a backpacker travel company) to the far north. We stopped on the way for some snorkelling at Goat Island and a few scenic points for photos before arriving in Paihia around 4ish - some of u may have remembered i went to Paihia last year for 2 da...