After what feels like the first lie in for ages, we went out whale watching this afternoon. Kaikoura is one of the few places in the world, from where it's easy to access a deep oceanic trench. It's only a couple of km off shore, and drops to around 1,600m deep. It's a nutrient rich area, which means lots of little fishies. The little fishies are good food for whales, so the area is rich in marine wildlife. It wasn't long before we encountered two adolesce...

Early start this morning, and a long day, although not a lot to report. We had to be up at 5am, to be ready to catch he 8.30am ferry for the 3 hour crossing from Wellington, to Picton on the South Island, followed by a 3 hour drive to Kaikoura, on the west coast.

Today, we joined a movie tour. It feels a little geeky, but what the hell. You can't come to New Zealand and avoid LOTR. The tour was actually very good. We were shown around a couple of areas around Wellington that were used as backgrounds in the film. It includes the forest park that was used as the setting for Rivendell, home of the elves. It was such a popular area after filming, that the parks board renamed the area Rivendell. This afternoon, we m...

Today, we're in Tongariro National Park, in the centre of the North Island. The park is home to three of New Zealand's Volcanoes: Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe. Mount Ngauruhoe was used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. We spent the morning wandering around the slopes near the Whakapapa Village. It was here that more scenes from LOTR were shot. The volcanic landscape was ideal for Mordor. Some of the more famous scenes, were the one w...

What better way to spend Valentines day, than by Black Water Rafting. And that's exactly what we did. We joined a tour with the Original Black Water Rafting Company, and went underground. Firstly, a 37 metre abseil into a pitch black cave, followed by a flying fox (rope slide) in the pitch black across a chasm. After a spot of tea, we then through ourselves off a 7m rock face into a pool of water. This is where the Black Water Rafting comes in. You sit ...