NZ all gone

So this brought us to the largest city in the South Pacific – Auckland. The rest of NZ frowns upon the JAFAs (Just Another F***ing Aucklander) but Auckland seems pretty decent for the country’s major city, not as windy as Welly and it certainly lives up to it’s name of City Of Sails – it’s estimated that 1 in 4 Aucklanders own a boat and there were loads of the buggers everywhere.

Note to anyone who may come across our blog and is thinking of going to NZ – DO NOT stay at the Auckland North Shore Top 10 Holiday Park, it is pants. The facilities were shoddy and staff very unhelpful. Top 10 is a group of independent parks across NZ that meet a certain standard, if those standards are not met and you are disappointed then you can expect a full refund. Despite several complaints across our 3 night stay we were not offered this by the flimsy management and so I am going straight to the top with this. If the weather hadn’t been so bad and the drop off point for our van hadn’t been just round the corner we’d have left for another site. Even if you’re not going to NZ then just let everyone know how rubbish this campsite was.

Due to the immense amount of rain & storms we didn’t get much chance to explore the city centre and the trendy areas of Newmarket (so no pictures of Auckland I’m afraid), but that can all be done in the future. To be honest we’d been so lucky with weather when we’d needed it and coupled with the fact that our stay in Auckland was over the Labour Day holiday weekend, so Sod’s Law guaranteed it being miserable outside. Still our hotel room turned out to be a suite so we just chilled with some tea & telly. I guess this is probably the most liveable city in NZ, closely followed by Napier. As we had some time to kill before our flight we thought we’d go to the cinema and chose an independant NZ movie called Out Of The Blue about a true story that happened on in a town called Aramoana, near Dunedin on the South island. The true story turned out to be some nutter called David Gray who massacred 13 people in this tiny town before armed police could catch him. Not the lightest of movies to watch before a 12 hour flight but it was shot with some very cool camera work and it felt graphic enough without going all Tarantino on the audience. If it gets released at home it’s well worth a look.

So, despite me nearly getting the van stuck in a car park that was too low on our last day and the shoddy campsite in Auckland, NZ has been fantastic – the best country in the world to visit by far, and probably the only country we could leave Blighty for. A final Kia Ora and thanks to all the Kiwis that made our month amazing, we’ll be back.

Next, we get to go back in time to another continent.

Bubbly & Native

So after our wet water action in Waitomo we headed to Rotorua, which is the most geothermal active part of NZ. To your lay-man this means there’s loads of bubbly mud, steaming pools and sulphur smell everywhere. Reports of your clothes stinking of sulphur were total balls; the smell comes in very mild waves and, for those of you who remember, is no worse than some of Mr. Bowen’s psychotic experiments.

We went to this really cool reserve just outside of Rotorua called Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, which was a really concentrated area of pools & craters that had formed due to the volcanic earth temperatures & were all coloured from mineral deposits. Our visit started with the Lady Knox Geyser (pronounced guy-zer not geeza) which we were a bit dubious of as it goes off regularly at 10:15 every day – I had visions of some elaborate valve system that backed up the pressure but they actually “prompt” the eruption by chucking a bit of soap down the earthen funnel, which breaks down the surface tension of the underground pools and up shoots the water. I did video this on the camera but I haven’t worked out how to blog the footage. The rest of the park looked wicked, lots of steam and various mineral smells, but the colours of rocks & pools were amazing – some a bit pastel and others quite vivid, this would be a wicked field trip for chemistry classes.


The afternoon was spent in a spa pool and generally skanking about. I did go to a bottle shop to get some beer as I hadn’t had a drink since Uluru and fancied trying the national beers – Tui from the North Island & Speight’s from the south. So I placed my 2 bottles of beer on the counter, prepared my payment of $2.72 (about a quid) and then got asked for I.D! I guess I should be flattered as they only ask for id if you look under 25, but it was really annoying as the woman wouldn’t accept my photo driving licence and I have a beard! How many 24 year olds have a slightly receding hairline, a couple of wrinkles and an effing beard?

In the evening, we went on a Maori show and dinner trip, to the Tamaki village, which was wicked. The main reason for doing this was to have a traditional Maori feast cooked in a Hangi – which is an a big pit filled with white hot rocks, the food if placed in baskets on top of the rocks and this is all covered in wet, hessian sacks and left for a few hours. The food was delicious, especially the Kumara, which is like a sweet potato. We also had some very tasty but not-so-Maori Pavlova for pudding. Surrounding our meal though was a late evening walk through the village to see the various crafts, games & activities that occur in traditional Maori life and a really cool show with singing and dancing. The men of the village also performed a Haka which is a lot scarier when demonstrated by tattoo-faced natives with spears, rather than a bunch of rugger-buggers. The driver on our coach journey home also encouraged us to sing national songs (the UK one being Yellow Submarine!?), The Wheels on the Bus (for which he did all the actions) and pretending our bus was a waka (Maori for canoe) so we all had to chant & row.


The rest of our trip after Rotorua has been a bit uneventful really. After 3 and a half weeks of good weather when we’ve needed it, these last few days have been a bit drizzly and manky, probably as this is a national holiday weekend. We had intended to go to Hot Water Beach, which does what it says on the tin – the beach has hot water. Basically for about 2 hours either side of low tide you can dig yourself a pit in the sand and the naturally warm waters fill it up. But as it was pissing down this was a no go. We also went thorough Matamata, which is only of note as local farmland was used in LOTR as Hobbitdom. There was a tour out to said farm but as Peter Jackson had to remove all traces of every set created for LOTR we felt that $200 each to see some hills and a plywood Hobbit hole was a bit rubbish.

BTW - I did finally get to try some beer. The local bottle shop didn’t even ask for id and when I queried the law they said that any photo id is cool, so Liquor Land will be getting a very stroppy letter. Incidentally I quite liked the Tui’s East Indian Pale Ale but the Speight’s Gold Medal tastes like Stella or 1664, which IMHO isn’t actually that pleasant. Bring on the Bourbon!

The Injury

Due to the usual balls with net access we couldn't post the photo of Tash's bad leg, so her it is...

Black Water Mischief

To those in the camper van world, black water is what one has to dispose of from ones chemical toilet. In Waitomo, however, black water is the name given to the gentle rivers that flow through the underground caves.

Waitomo is famous for its glow worms, as for some reason, the conditions in the caves are perfect for their growth, and there are a remarkable number of them. After our drive from the volcanoes, we knew that there were a few options open to us for seeing the glow worms, which are the most coveted in NZ. One was to walk through the most popular cave and then go on a small boat trip to see them in the dark. And then there were the adventurous options as well, which I have to admit I wasn’t overly keen on. The one we’d talked ourselves in (and out of) was Black Water rafting, which is an adventurous 4 hour trip involving climbing through an underground cave, squeezing through tiny tunnels, clambering over rocks, floating down subterranean rivers in inner tubes and swimming in freezing cold water (it doesn’t get above 4 degrees), whilst seeing millions of glow worms and stalagmites. So after much deliberation, we decided that we’d take a chance and book on the
“Tumu Tumu Toobing” trip aka Black Water rafting. There were just five of us in the group – us, a girl from the Lake District and two guides – one American girl (who took a shine to Keef straight away and a had an instant dislike of me) and a kiwi called Gav, who turned out to be a nice bloke and a lot less hyper than little Miss Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Our guides drove us out from the village to some farmland which housed the cave, and from there we proceeded to get togged up in full wetsuits, booties, wellies and hard hats. Not too bad so far, apart from the fact that it was cold and miserable and the wetsuits were still soaking from their previous use. After trudging through the farm and some delightful poo piles for about fifteen minutes (our body weights having doubled due to the wet suits) we made it to the entrance of the cave. And then the panic set in. The opening was about 2 ft across, with a ladder that descended some 30 ft into the darkness. I got to go first, and I have to say that the ladder was probably the worst bit of the whole thing. Once we got down into the cave, it was amazing – the glow worms lit up the roof like a miniature milky way, and once our eyes adjusted to the near darkness, we climbed through the cave for over two hours – Keef being taken off to the front with the happy camper and me stuck at the back, feeling more like Bridget Jones than ever before in my life. Seriously, for anyone that has seen the first Bridg film, Keef was Mark Darcy for the trip and Mel was (ironically) playing the role of the B*tch called Natasha. I stumbled and fell all over the place at the back, and when it came to get into the inner tubes, we had the option to just get into them normally, or to jump from a 20ft ledge backwards into the river, with inner tube held to one’s rear. I was naturally happy to go for the first option, however after much goading from little Miss Seattle, I took the challenge of jumping from the ledge (for those who don’t know – I’m petrified of heights and am very clumsy around water – think Blackpool fall) and upon impact with the river I bounced straight back out of my tube and slap bang into the water, much to everyone’s amusement. It reminded me of when Bridget jumps from the plane and lands in the pig field, fuelling my Bridget day. After inner tubing, we got to swim through some more cave, we floated through tiny holes on our backs as the current was so strong, it just pulled us through and when we finally made it to the end, I’d never felt more relived in all my life. However, despite this, I was also really pleased with myself and actually felt like I’d achieved something. Keef thoroughly enjoyed himself, mainly because it involved getting grubby, soaking wet and lots of investigating. Stupidly enough, neither of us picked up any injuries from the actual cave, but I am now sporting a bruise the size of a tea plate (maybe not quite that big) on the back of my leg from getting out of the coach.

*Note – Maybe best to not look at this picture if you’re eating or its early in the morning, it’s not too pleasant. And also sorry if anyone is offended by my non politically correct American references – she really got my goat.

Onwards and Upwards...

After the joys of (the extremely) “Windy Welly”, we hit the art deco capital of NZ, Napier, after an exhaustingly long drive through gale force winds, the tightest hairpin bends in the country, and a diesel spill that went on for a good few kilometres, downhill. I also had to endure some “classic” (Keef) tunes on the Zen, as we’d decided to go through the music library by all tracks, and started randomly on P, and during the six hour drive, we had some “great” Menswear classics to name but a few. (I’m sad to say that I missed out on that great part of Britpop, damn.)

The campsite at Napier deserves a mention – not only was it massive and very clean, it had a few trampolines that we decided to play on and a jumping pillow – which is like a giant bouncy castle but without the sides. Not sure if anyone has ever been on either of the above with Keef (in recent years, at least), but I don’t recommend it – due to his slight height advantage over me, I nearly ended up over the sides of the trampoline and bounced onto my bum more than a few times.

All bounced out, we ventured into Napier itself, and it didn’t disappoint. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930’s, and as was the current fashion of the time, the city was rebuilt in an art deco style, which is more than clearly visible today. Some of the best buildings were the “Daily Telegraph” the “NFB” building and the “Masonic” building. Napier just had a really nice feel to it, everyone was super friendly, including an old lady who stopped to talk to us in the street, and ended up offering us her apartment to rent if we decided to come back.


From Napier, we headed to Lake Taupo, which is NZ’S largest lake and was formed by one of the greatest volcanic explosions of all time. It’s said that the explosion that created the crater (now occupied by the lake) was great enough to have destroyed the whole of the North Island and everything within 1000k’s was covered in poisonous ash. Taupo is so huge (606 sq km), that if you forget for a second that you’re at one of the most landlocked parts of NZ, you’d actually think you were by the sea. We visited “Hukka Falls”, which were pretty impressive (and in keeping with Keef's obsession with water falls at the moment) although these were more like a great torrent of water with giant rapids that just plunge through a rock – all the same though the water was amazingly blue considering how cloudy it was.

The following day we decided to try one of the scenic drives we’d found in our guidebook, as it took in Tongario National park, and also cause we could incorporate it into our journey to our next destination of Waitomo. To be totally honest, we hadn’t given Tongario much thought at first – NZ is abundant in national parks and we didn’t think there would be much more to see than in the others we’d visited. How wrong we were. Tongario has to be one of the most spectacular places in NZ, with 3 mighty volcanoes on display, and more importantly, two of these being used as Mordor in LOTR. The drive around was just incredible. Quite literally, out of nowhere, the first of the three volcanoes appeared – Mt Tongario, which was just awesome. When the second volcano, Mt Ngauruhoe came into sight it was obvious why Peter Jackson chose these for Mordor, in particular this one – it was exactly how you’d imagine a volcanic shape to be – it was perfect. Mt Ruapehu, the last, but by no means the least of the three came more into sight as we drove into Whakapapa (pronounced fa-ka) village, and just made our drive even more spectacular. In the village there’d been a snow fall the night before, and fresh snow on the volcanic peaks looked incredible.


We then continued our journey (rather begrudgingly after the sights of the day) to Waitomo, in search of glow worms…

Notes from a small island

As it’s been a while since our last news updates, I’ve split our recent adventures into the 3 posts below, so it’s all a bit easier to digest.

In “things with different names in other countries” news, shopping trolleys over here are called trundlers.

And a special message goes out to all those who have missed taking the piss out of my driving (you know who you are) – after the terrain and conditions over the last few days, namely climbing up single carriageway valley roads to about half a mile above sea level in 60 mph side winds with a 3 tonne campervan, only to find out that there was a diesel spill all the way back down – then I am now immune to your quips for I am King Of The Mountains!

The Cook Strait

Since leaving Hanmer (hope you’ve all seen the pic of Medway Road) it’s all gone a bit quiet, but this has been a good thing. It’s given us a chance to reflect on how amazing the South Island has been, as it’s been so difficult to take in everything we’ve seen and done. In terms of scenery there’s so much we’ve still not seen but as time is pressing the only things left to see were the Abel Tasman Park and Marlborough Sounds.

The Abel Tasman Park (old Abe was the first European to set foot in NZ in 1642 – this park, the Tasman Sea & Tasmania are all named in his honour) is a trampers paradise (tramping is the name the Kiwis use for hiking or bush-walking) and as we were still feeling the effects of the glacier we just took a drive out to the beaches at Kaiteriteri & Rabbit Island. Both very pretty & serene, and as they were less than an hour away, a nice getaway for the locals of Nelson. Nelson was a pretty cool little town, some excellent skate ‘n’ surf shops with stupidly helpful assistants (Tash got some cool trainers and I got a new beanie), a few galleries, arts & crafts and a crazy bus service where all the buses have a proper cash register attached to the drivers seat!

We then had a very cool drive around the edges of the Marlborough Sounds (I hope you’ve all remembered our little lesson earlier about the difference between a Sound and Fjord), with some very blue waters and quaint fishing harbours dotted along the way. This brought us to Picton, which was purely a stop off before catching the ferry to the North Island the next day. The ferry crossing through the Cook Strait was fairly uneventful (thankfully), we sailed out through Queen Charlotte Sound, which was nice, watched “the not as good as it should have been mainly due to the awful acting” The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Bride & Prejudice. We have somehow acquired a “happy peg” from a packet of washing powder and Tash thought it would be funny to make me look like a hobbit on the boat, and use the peg as an “Elven broach” as in LOTR, as you can see below. We then alighted in Wellington.


It’s very obvious why the NZ capital city is called Windy Welly; scarves are a definite must to stop the wind chill on your neck. It’s scary to think that the population of Welly is the same as the Medway Towns. Apart from the wind and general grubbiness of the streets (much like Melbourne) this was quite a cool city. Straight after getting off the ferry we went to this awesome museum called Te Papa and ended up spending nearly the entire day exploring all the exhibits, only breaking up our visit for the best Tacos ever at the food market nearby. The next day was intended to be a cultural & photo-taking walk around the city but after the disappointing Empire Cinema (where the LOTR films had their world premieres) we got a bit side tracked by the fantastic shops in Cuba Street. This was like all the best bits of a high street, Oxford St, Covent Garden & Camden all rolled into one. There were some amazingly cool retro stores (Mike & Stu – you boys would’ve been penniless), little cafés, record stores, clothes boutiques and shoe shops. So far every shop assistant has been SO friendly & helpful, but Max clothes store seemed to be staffed by the only bunch of miserable, snooty cows in NZ. One of the emaciated, little snotslags had the cheek to tell a customer, who happened to be Tasha, that the jeans she was trying on “look awful, you’re far too fat for those, you need them much bigger”!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Suffice to say we left immediately and took our custom elsewhere. And there was quite a lot of custom to be taken. The very thin and effeminate rock boy in Jay-Jays helped Tash find a pair of very sexy jeans (and a couple of tops to match), I found the Vans I wanted and the extremely helpful Liezl (Joe – you would have liked her) sorted Tasha out with some new boots after about an hour trying on several pairs (INSERT Wellington Boot gags here). We never did get our photos done but seeing as we drove past the buildings we wanted to see on the way out of Welly, we really didn’t miss much other than the interior of Old St Paul's, which was being used for evensong.

So after our shopping break it’s back to the culture with the drive to art deco Napier.

Chilly but awesome

It’s just possible that NZ has outdone itself here and in terms of scenery we hit the peak – quite literally.

From Wanaka we travelled up the West Coast to Franz Josef. It rained solidly for the entire day. So what I hear you say, it rains all the time in England. But here they can get as much rain in one day as the UK sees in an entire year, so this was the mother of all pissing-it-downs. We wanted to do a helicopter flight across the mountain ranges and were told there was little chance – so that night your intrepid explorers went to bed very grumpy. The next morning felt like Christmas, you know when you’ve hoped it snowed over night, except this time we wanted clear skies. We were too scared to look out of the window but karma was with us and things looked good, however to take advantage of our meteorological good fortune we decided against just the flight and did a heli-hike instead. So we got a nice scenic trip on a helicopter which was amazing, a lot less scary then a plane and more like a rollercoaster ride – especially when you’re crazy Scottish pilot insisted on dive bombing the mountain trees.

But the best came soon after, the helicopter actually landed ON the glacier! It was bloody awesome, the whole world seemed silent and still, the only noises were the crunch of our boots on fresh snow and the sound of rocks falling in the foothills. I can’t describe how cool it was to hike across something as huge as a glacier, this is literally a huge block of ice the size of Auckland and over 300 metres thick – and it’s constantly moving! There’d been a fresh ice slide overnight, so there were these amazing clumps of ice so pure that they were blue. Even though it was all ice up there, it didn’t seem too cold and our guide, Peter from Prague, did the whole thing in just shorts and a fleece. Despite some ridiculous outfits, this was the most amazing thing we’ve done (yeah I know I’ve said that before) and I can’t imagine it getting better.


After a truly amazing day, we travelled up the west coast and over Lewis Pass, which was very high and very scenic – it started raining at the bottom and was snowing by the time we got up to top, to give you an idea of the height we climbed (about 2/3 of a mile)! Our destination was Hanmer , which is famous for its natural hot springs in an alpine setting. The springs were like giant bath, a bit stinky around the sulphur pools, but very relaxing and well deserved after a day of hiking. Hopefully we’ll get some more natural hot water action up in Rotorua on the north island.

Pretty Towns

After the splendour of Milford Sound we visited Queenstown. To be honest we weren’t too sure what to expect as this is the adventure capital of NZ (and probably the world) – it’s known as Adrenalin Central – and the locals had all said it’s very commercial. Well, we were pleasantly surprised. I guess coming in the off season helped but Queenstown was a really pretty place and seemed very liveable. There’s enough going on to keep you sane if you lived here, nice shops, food & scenery and it’s totally understandable why every backpacker to NZ visits here to go bungee jumping, paragliding, jet boating, skydiving, high wire gondolas, etc. We fancied paragliding but time restraints and the fact a family of 8 were in the queue ahead of us means we’ll have to save this for the UK. We also went to watch the bungee jumpers at AJ Hackett’s (this was the Dutch guy who started the craze worldwide by leaping off the Eiffel Tower) and Tash is thinking about having a go in Auckland. Whilst it didn’t look as scary as I expected I’m still not sure about leaping off a bridge with a giant elastic band round my ankles.

We moved on to Wanaka (stop sniggering!) This was a lazy stop really, just taking in the scenery as the majestic Lake Wanaka is framed by the Alpine peaks. We visited Puzzling World, which is a cool little museum of optical illusions, mainly inspired by the fantastic MC Escher (whom you’ve probably all heard me bang on about before). We were also quite smug upon completing the hour long maze in 30 mins exactly – check our bad, invincible asses. Finally the afternoon was spent just wandering round the town, dreaming of buying a house there (well, Tash was already at the point of moving in!) whilst eating the biggest ice-creams you’ve ever seen, with the most delicious flavours – we settled on banana choc chip, maple delight, hokey pokey and caramel fudge.

Round to the bottom...

Ok, so maybe we jumped the gun saying that NZ is like home. Sure, they drive on the same side, the flora is European, road signs are similar and some houses are even made of brick rather than wood, but the thing that isn’t like home is the scenery. We’ve got pretty orchards, rolling hills and some tranquil rivers but over here, they’ve got snow capped mountains, crystal clear lakes, endless trees plus all of the above. This country is genuinely awesome and amazes us with every turn we make. Then when it gets a bit flat, the fields are full of little lambs all bleating and gambolling around. The Southern Scenic Route is so amazing to drive and despite several stops along the way, there’s still so much we’ve not seen.

Our next stop was Invercargill. Not really much happening here (apart from purchasing a nice Russell Brand style red & white scarf for me and a capped sleeved hoodie for Tash) however a short drive south brought us to a landmark in our journey – the furthest point South we’ll ever be. Reaching the bottom of New Zealand meant that we were also as far from home as we’ll get, about 11850 miles from London! Although we were still 3006 miles from the South Pole, as the only place on the planet closer to Antarctica than NZ is the bottom of Argentina (& we’re unlikely to go there) I guess this is the closest we’ll get to the bottom of the Earth.


So we then continued along the rest of the Southern Scenic route and up into Fiordland. The whole south western edge of the South Island is made up of huge lakes and fiords formed by huge glacial movement during the Ice Age (no, not the movie, the REAL one millions of years ago), and now contain some of the most amazing views ever. Although there are numerous fiords to investigate the 3 most well-known ones are Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound & Milford Sound, and with Milford being the most accessible from our camp at Lake Te-Anau, we took an excursion there. (BTW – Fiords are formed by glacial movement whereas a sound is a flooded valley, the Sounds in south west NZ are all true fiords that have been named wrong. Plus I’m sure fjord is spelt with a “j” but they use an “i” over here). The journey north to Milford Sound took us through the Homer Tunnel which was blasted through the lower mountain rock and is 1 mile of roughly hewn, virtually unlit, one lane of scary tunnel – glad we weren’t driving that day! This then brought us to the quayside of Milford Sound and once we started cruising along the fiords we were blown away. I have never seen anything so amazing in my life and despite us trying to capture it in our pictures, it was truly awe inspiring. Every turn was flanked by these huge rising cliff faces & rock edges, all strewn with patches of beech forest & cascading falls, whilst the snow covered Mitre Peak & Mount Tutoko stood on either side, dwarfing this already huge feat of nature. We cruised out to the mouth of Milford Sound, where it met the mighty Tasman Sea and then returned along past some of the waterfalls, where the skipper very kindly forced the boat under the falling spray, thus drenching yours truly. After our cruise we did a bit of hiking (or tramping as it is know in NZ) around the foothills, taking in some pretty spectacular waterways and views back of Mount Tutoko, along with the scars of a recent avalanche. Talking of waterways, you can sod your Evian & Buxton Spring, as we were able to drink from some of the coldest & purest water I have ever tasted from the mountain streams. This day went so fast, and as good as the last 3 months have been, this was also the most spectacular.

PS - to top off all this cool stuff, we found a shop selling old-skool, square bagged PG.

Kia Ora

New Zealand is the most beautiful place either of us has ever been in our lives. The whole place is like home, only a million times beautiful, with mountains that still have snow on them, and lakes and rivers that are so clean, you can drink from them.

We flew in to Christchurch, which is the Garden City of New Zealand which happens to be in the Canterbury region. Our drive from the airport was really quite spooky, it was cold and a bit miserable and everywhere we looked it was just like being in the UK – I think we thought we’d see someone we knew at any given point, just because it really did look all so familiar. The main river through Christchurch is the River Avon, and it’s flanked by Cambridge terrace on one bank and Oxford terrace on the other, and there was even some geezer in a boater, punting along. We did a bit of exploring and managed to find an 18 hole indoor crazy golf place called Caddyshack city which was wicked, unfortunately not themed on the movie, but every hole was great (no photos allowed though). We also went to the International Antarctic Centre, which was really interesting; we saw some more penguins and even got to experience a simulated arctic storm in a big ice room, which was bloody cold! On the exhibition complex is also an American air base, as this is the major departure point for International Arctic scientist (its right next to Christchurch airport)

The following day was “CV” day, time to pick up the campervan. Up until this point, Tash had been pretty okay with the idea of getting the camper that was until she saw the size of the van we had hired, and freaked. It was slightly bigger than either of us had anticipated – nearly 20 ft long, 10 ft high and about 7 ft wide. But it has got everything inside it:- Shower, toilet, permanent double bed, double sofa bed, table, tv, computer, microwave, hob, grill etc.


We spent our first night in a campsite in Christchurch, where we got a free hour in a spa, which was a bonus. Next day we travelled in-land, alongside the steep mountain range (the Southern Alps), and through Burkes Pass which is about 2/3 mile above sea level. On past Fairlie (where we eventually stayed that night) and up to Lake Tekapo, which was breathtakingly beautiful. The water was an amazing turquoise colour and it was surrounded by pebbled rocks and pine trees, with the Alps as a backdrop. The late afternoon sun only served to make it more spectacular. Nearby was a quaint little church and also a monument to the Border Collies used in the local area.

Next stop was Dunedin, which is Scottish for Edinburgh, so why on earth Edinburgh isn’t called Dunedin I don’t know. Anyway, this was quite a hilly little place but home to the only castle in NZ – Lanarch Castle. Nothing compared to the huge castles in Blighty but it was an amazing pieces of restoration work seeing as it had been left to rot for most of the early 1900s. However as the mist started to roll in we left Dunedin to head along the Southern Scenic highway, to find our furthest point from home...

Farewell to Oz

Our last stop in Oz was Brisbane, also known as “Brizzy” to locals and “Bris-Vegas” (due to the casinos and love of the pokies) to the rest of Oz. Quite a nice little place, nothing special as such about it, but that was what made it so great – you could live there without giving it a second thought, as it was no different to being in the city at home during the summer.

We just chilled for our last couple of days, took in the museum of Queensland, tried to avoid the thousands of kids on their spring half term, did some record shopping and finally made it to Sizzler – an all you can eat buffet and Steak house.

We were both quite sad to be leaving Oz, and even though we’ve done so much in such short space of time, we’ve only really scratched the surface on the East Coast, meaning we’re definitely coming back to do more and also to explore the West Coast. And if Oz gets the 2010 world cup by default, we’ll definitely be coming back because it will be mental. On a sporting theme, we also found out why the national colours of Australian sporting teams are yellow and green – The Wattle, which is the national flower of Australia, is EVERYWHERE, and is yellow and green. That’s your interesting (and useless) fact for the day! Useful word of the day is DOONA – which is what the Aussies call a duvet.


So it’s goodbye Oz and hello New Zealand…