After our wonderful stay by the river we woke early and got back on the road looking for somewhere to settle to do some NZ tramping. Now I will forgive anyone who thought the title of this blog is in reference to our current living status, although I look at some of the photos and I think christ what happened to the woman in designer gear and high heels???? She is still secretly there and she visits occasionally to pine over shoe shops!! However tramping is NZ equivalent to hiking and for that I obviously have my infinitely sexy boots. We [View Full Entry]

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The drive to Kaikoura was lovely. A sunny crisp and warming morning we headed south in search of our much desired whale watching trip. On the outskirts of the town to our delight we found fur seals resting on the beach. It is truly amazing to be close to wildlife that you have only ever seen on telly and we were in awe of how many of them were lazing in the sun and the young pups playing in the swell of the sea. It's even more unbelievable that it is free!!!!! Getting back into the van we headed off again [View Full Entry]

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The drive into Wellington was really pretty, rolling hills, sunshine and plenty to look at along the way. We arrived in the city late afternoon and found a nice hostel that would let us park the van at the back. It meant we slept in the van but we had use of all the hostel facilities. This meant warm showers and a kitchen which was all round was great for us. We parked up took a shower and headed into the city. As we had arranged to meet up with Sharon and Rick the following day (the Canadians we met in [View Full Entry]

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We woke to a glorious sunny day and as we were very close to the airport we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast by lake Taupo. I was surprisingly feeling very calm about the skydive and we got chatting to a couple that had done one the day before. Tim has already completed a parachute jump some years ago whereas this was to be a complete first for me. The couple we spoke to said what a wonderful experience they had had and I was feeling very upbeat about it. There are two options for the jump 12,000 feet or 15,000 feet. NZ [View Full Entry]

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We left quite early to get to the Whakaewarewa Thermal Village on a cold crisp morning. It is strange because even the air smells and feels like home. Getting to the thermal area by 9am the park had just opened. One of the reasons we chose this place in comparison to others is the guarantee the geezer will blow every day at 10.15am. We were still a little puzzled at this point how they were sure of the time but it did mean we got to see it which was a bonus. The park has a number of walks around the [View Full Entry]

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The flight to Auckland took three hours and we had to adjust to a further hours time difference putting us 12 hours ahead of the UK. We had the most bizarre introduction to the country when we filled in our customs entry cards where they wanted to know if we had been in touch with wildlife and been on hiking walks etc... We had to say yes to both as we had been to the zoo, encountered wild roos and also been in the outback. As we came through customs the guy asked to see our boots which were still quite [View Full Entry]

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Ever since I can remember I have wanted to walk the harbour bridge. Everytime we had planned to holiday is Oz something got in the way and before we decided to do our trip achieving this goal seemed very far away. We left Bondi for the city pretty early in the morning with a list of things that we had to see as we only really had one day to tour the city. We had pre-booked our bridge walk for 3.30pm which gave us most of the day to do other things. The bus dropped us off in circular quay and [View Full Entry]

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So there we were driving out of the blue mountains on the highway heading for the city. I was once again navigator and the ride went pretty smoothly until the lanes became wider and the traffic more congested. Our map was not the best in the world and was almost useless for the city. I was flicking between the main city map and the larger less detailed outer regions. Head in map directing away, over a large toll bridge and then all of a sudden all navigation skills went out of the window when the sydney harbour bridge came into sight. [View Full Entry]

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We woke again early and packed all our things away. The highway rest areas are convenient and free but they do not always have the best toilet facilities and there are no showers. We figured if we headed down to the coast we could get both and have breakfast too. We set off for hawks nest it was not too far away from where we had stayed and we were pulling up by the sea before we knew it. Tim got the kettle on and I started cooking the bacon it was only when we were sat eating and drinking in [View Full Entry]

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There was still some distance to be covered between Brisbane and surfers paradise so we settled in for the ride. Tim was driving which gave me chance to check out the scenery. That was until he became obsessed with me getting a picture of the distance signs for Sydney. We were still 1000km away from our final destination and he wanted a picture of the sign saying so. Im not great at picture taking particularly out of a moving vehicle at 100km. I tried and tried and continued to miss it or be too far away. I gave up in the [View Full Entry]

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