From Hamner Springs we cruised down the East coast to Christchurch. It was a funny place as it resembled an idilic small English town. We strolled around the centre after fraying tempers trying to park the camper van, visited the Botanic Garden, walked past the new art gallery (saving the inside for when the Edgars arrive) and managed a much needed hair cut.As there was not much else to hold our interest we continued down to Fairlie.This was to be our base to exp...

We got the Blue bridge ferry across the Cook Strait, which even on a rain soaked and windy day provided great views as we slowly worked our way into Marlborough Sound.Not much to do or see in Picton so we headed south slightly and found a Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite just north of Blenheim.The fantastic thing about DOC campsites is not the facilities (chemical toilets and cold or no showers) but the fact they only cost $6 a night and even better you ...

From Rotorua we headed south down the Thermal Explorer highway to Lake Taupo.We stayed at the excellent Lake Taupo top 10 holiday park and from here ran out to the Huka Falls.This was an incredibly powerful waterfall a couple of kilometers out of town where the water pouring over the falls is incredibly clear.On the way back we stopped to look at the Taupo bungy jump.This was a 47m bungy jump where you touch the cristal clear water at the bottom.As Hannah has alr...

From Whangamata we made our way down the east coast to the beach resort of Tauranga.This was another big beach town and the sand was really white and ran for miles.The reason we know this is we decided to climb Mt Maunganui which sits right on the beach front and at the start of the Bay of Plenty.The views were fantastic and we felt we had earned our lunch when we made it back to the campervan.After deciding it was just a bit too hot to sit on the beach we made o...

First of all Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for all the messages everyone left on the blog and e-mail. We arrived in New Zealand on the 29th of December and the first thing that struck us was that no Hogmanay street party was going to get cancelled for wind and rain.The weather was fantastic and hot. Unfortunately Qantas managed to loose our bags somewhere between New York and Auckland so the first two days of our stay was spent in the clothes we arrived ...