We are in Wellington at the moment and it SO windy. We arrived on Monday by ferry and the crossing was very smooth which was surprising as when we left Kaikoura it was raining and very windy and the car was buffeted the whole way. We did read in the paper on Tuesday that there had been hurricane winds all over NZ with lots of forest fires is some regions and over 170mm of rain in 24hrs in others. For once it was not raining on us! Yesterday we explored the city. It is a great city and we both really [View Full Entry]

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AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!! I hate the weather! We did not get to do our swimming with dolphins yesterday as it was too windy! It was not that windy in town but apparently it was very windy out to sea and a trip that had gone out earlier had to come back early. The thing that made it all the more irritating was the fact that we had booked it months ago before we left the UK as they get booked up weeks and weeks in advance. We think we will try and go somewhere in the North Island. We did go on a [View Full Entry]

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Went to WOW today which is the World of Wearable Art and collectable cars. It is such a cool place. It is a museum which houses costumes from the annual World of Wearable Art shows. All the costumes are really crazy and are made of weird stuff. Anyone can enter a costume and the best ones end up on the show in September. There are various categories but bizarre bras was my favourite. The designs had to be seen to be believed! Animal heads seemed to be a VERY popular choice. As well as the costumes there were the cars which [View Full Entry]

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Just spent two brilliant days in Abel Tasman National Park. I think this is the best place we have been so far. It really does look like it does in all the brochures. It is all clear blue water, blue skies and big stretches of golden beaches and secluded coves. We started our trip by getting a water taxi (very small and fast boat) to Onetahuti beach which is to the north of the park. Once there we got into our kayaks and headed along the shore. We were in double kayaks (as usual) although this time Tim got to steer. [View Full Entry]

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The sun is still shining and it's Christmas! Had a brilliant Christmas for many reasons. The first is that we got engaged on Christmas Day. It was on the beach - all very romantic. We started the day by a long walk along the beach. We took lots of pictures just to make you all jealous of the fact we spent Xmas in a tropical paradise! When we got to another quieter cove Tim proposed and I said yes, yes, yes! After a BBQ lunch we went back to the beach and spent some more time bobbing about in our rubber [View Full Entry]

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It is Christmas eve! I have never felt so un-Christmassy in my life. It is really warm and sunny (2 days of good weather in a row!) and I am at the beach. We have booked into a posh (by our standards) place for next 3 days over Christmas. We can see the beach from our window! Kaiteriteri (where we are) is really lovely and has clear blue water and golden sand. It is a big bay so the water is very calm and safe to swim in. We have already been in the sea! We stopped off at The Warehouse [View Full Entry]

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It's stopped raining! The grey clouds are gone and it is all blue skies. In some ways that is typical as we were left the glaciers today but it can't be helped. We are in Punakiaki now which is further north up the coast. We are in this really cool hostel that is situated in the rainforest. It is not one building but lots of small cabins each with its own kitchen and stuff. The views out of the windows are great. We went to the Pancake Rocks earlier (which is what a lot of people come here to see) and [View Full Entry]

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It's still raining!! It has been raining for the last 3.5 days pretty much non stop. I did not realise it could rain that much. I think the following poem entitled "Rain" pretty much sums it up! It rained, and it rained, and rained and rained. The average fall was well maintained. And when the tracks were simply bogs, It started raining cats and dogs. After a drought of half an hour We had the most refreshing shower. And then, the most curious thing of all A gentle rain began to fall. Next day was also fairly dry (save for the [View Full Entry]

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We are on the West Coast and it is very wet, very wild and pretty windy. We left lovely hot and sunny Wanaka on Monday morning and since we got onto the coast the weather has been so different. It is currently chucking it down and has been all day. I have not seen it rain so hard! It rains 250 days a year here so I guess it is to be expected! We hope to spend the next few days exploring the glaciers but I am not so sure now. We may well be exploring the hostel instead! We were [View Full Entry]

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We are in Wanaka and summer has arrived! It has been hot for the last 2 days and we have been to the beach and I actually got to wear shorts! We have also had 2 BBQs. We went to Puzzle World this morning which was such fun although Tim took the maze VERY seriously! Instead of having to get to the middle you had to visit each of the four corners. There was a different coloured tower in each one. We spent a long time trying to get into the green tower. When I stopped to take a photo Tim [View Full Entry]

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