Claire and Woody

Would you believe it after yesterday and promises by the weather people on tv that there is another storm on the way we woke up to clear skies and no rain - yipeeee!! Got up, dressed and ready for some sightseeing. Feeling a little peckish and as it was 11.30 I decided that it is never too early for a bit of cake so made Woody's dreams come true by suggesting that we go to the Cheesecake Factory restaurant on top of Macy's!! There was a special lift that took us up there and as it was beautiful and warm we sat outside - can you believe it! I had the Snickers (Mararthon Bar to you oldies) and Woody had the cherry cheesecake - Oh my goodnesss they were as wicked as they sounded! After this ... read more

After the rain of yesterday we woke up a little despondant as it was still chucking it down!!!! Eau de egg was still hanging in the air but we had had a good nights sleep and were not going to let the weather get us down!!! We has decided that we were going to go to Te Pui first which is in Rotarua and is all about Mauri Culture. As we pulled up it seemed very touristy and the rain was really lashing down - we made it to the gate but we didn't go in and turned back to the warmth and dry of the car - we decided that today was not the day to be walking round in the yukky weather taking in culture!!! We drove to the next stop which was called ... read more

Not too much of an early start today......up at 9am for breakfast - superbly presented by Kathy and Allen - and then a bit of blogging and map sorting, and then off. First visit was Waitomo Caves which are famous for ....... being caves !!!!! But ..... there are loads of thing to do here plus glow worms (or magots with radioactive s**t or so we were told). Anyhow, we arrived a liitle bit unsure as to what to do - do we do the full on action tour or the more sedentry tour. As we're getting old (especially me) we thought th emore gently one, but then thought "Oh, sod it" and decided on the full on, get wet, break your leg, black water raft one (which was departing in 10 minutes). We rushed on ... read more

Up and packed by 8.26 - checked in by 9 and on the plane by 11.30. We thought this was a long flight to NZ but the captain said it would be 2 hrs 55 mins and that the weather in Auckland was better than Sydney.... this was good news as it was raining and grey as we took off! Landed in Auckland at about 5 with the time difference and once we had been through the longest immigration EVER - passport check, questions about why we were only there 6 days, then baggage collect, through another check where we we were asked if we had any food, medicine or had been hiking in the rainforest etc and then finally all our luggagae had to go through another x ray machine!!! Very differnent to the Uk!! ... read more