30/01/2010 - After our skydive we got in the car and headed to a place called Tongario National Park, we had heard that it was a lovely place and was where a lot of the Lord of the Rings filming was done, so we thought that we would camp over night there. We set up the sat nav and it took us two or three hours to get there.The sat nav said we had reached our destination and all that was there was one small farm house that looked like something out of a horror film, so I kept my foot on the gas and we continued. Further down the round we came across and camp site so went in there and asked if they had room for us, it was early evening now so we wanted to set the tent up as soon as possible and luckily they had space. It was a bit of a kafuffle trying to put the tent up as one of the rods was broken but we managed it anyway. Then we realised we had no food for dinner so we asked where the nearest town was and it was a half hour drive away, so we left the tent as it was and went to get some food. When we got back I left tom pumping up the air bed whilst I went and cooked the spaghetti bolognese for dinner. We had sooo much of it as I got a bit carried away with the spaghetti, but it was nice. Before we went to bed we both gave our mum and dads a call to tell them about the skydive as they had no idea we were doing it, because if they did I'm sure they would have been worried and tried to stop us. Once the sun went down it got rather chilly so we both slept in our clothes and hoodies to keep warm.

31/01/2010 - When we woke up we went and had nice hot showers to warm us up. Then it was time to pack up all the camping gear ready to leave before 10. As we were packing up it started to rain, typical! The route the sat had chosen to take us to Palmerston North where my cousin Ian lives was through all the hills so it took us a while as there were loads of sharp corners on the edges of cliffs. When we were about half way a car came round the corner with a cone on the bonnet saying 'STOCK' on it, me and tom looked at each other confused and as we turned the corner we saw a cloud of white fuzz on the road and realised it was a herd of sheep. So we pulled over to let them past and there were hundreds of them all running around the car. We thought we would stop in a town called Whangari for some lunch but when we got there everything was closed the only place open was the information centre! So we sat in the car and tom ate some coco pops and I had some cheese and biscuits, then we continued on to Ian's. We got there early afternoon and we had a nice catch up as I haven't seen him in ages. We also met his girlfriend Narelle who is lovely. We went out for a coffee with them into the town and got chatting about travelling and they told us that they are planning to go next year and are coming over to Europe which will be cool. They had planned a bbq for dinner with a few of their friends so we went and got some supplies. It had been raining all day none stop but once we got the bbq going the sun started to come out which was nice. Narelle had to go off to work in the evening and me, tom and Ian stayed outside chatting in the sun until it got too cold.

01/02/2010 - We slept on two airbeds but when we woke up in the morning they had both gone down quite a bit so when I got up tom sunk to the floor! We got dressed and sat with Ian in his living room and before I knew it tom was on his playstation playing football. He was pretty rubbish at first so Ian challenged him to a few games, but as soon as he did tom started playing better and he beat Ian. We had some lunch then Ian took us into the town centre to show us around Palmerston North, it's a really pretty little town, mainly students live there and as it was their summer holiday it was pretty quiet. He also showed us the place where he works. After that he took us down to the river and we walked along towards the park where they have birds in cages and there are loads of different types as they are birds at owners didn't want anymore so were given to the park. We got ourselves an ice cream then waited on a bench for Narelle to come join us. As we were chatting away tom started throwing bits of his cone to some birds the next thing we knew all the ducks from the pond over the road were crossing the road, almost getting run over to get some food. We were surrounded by birds and ducks everywhere!! For dinner Ian and Narelle took us out to a place called 'Breakers' which served burgers and things like that. Tom was happy because there were t.v's everywhere and they were showing football. We shared some more travelling stories and tips with them for when they go next year. When we got back to their place they put on Cloverfield which was a little scary for me and tom but we liked it.