After a truly wicked night out in Queenstown, 5 of us decided to rent a couple of cars and drive down to see the south coast (Dunedin, Invercargill and Te Anau) for a week. Me, James and Chris got a 10-year old Nissan Sunny (auto transmission) for an absolute bargain of $39 per day (which between the 3 of us came to just $13 each). Compare that to what you'd pay to go there with the Kiwi bus ($425 for 4 days) and there's no contest! It really was so nice to just get out there on the road and do [View Full Entry]

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They say that Queenstown is in many ways a victim of its own popularity - they may be right. This place is absolutely beautiful, but packed. Every shop has stuff to absolutely drool over - canyon swing trips; snowboarding equipment; Quicksilver fashionwear; Gore-Tex windproof jackets - anything at all to do with sports or the outdoors, this place has it in abundance. The bars are simply awesome as well. There's just nothing Queenstown doesn't have. Scenery? Go down to its lake, Lake Wakatipu, and you can see the incredible jagged skiing peaks, The Remarkables (which truly live up to their n [View Full Entry]

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I left Queenstown (I'll blog that place later) early one morning for a 2-hour boat cruise on the Milford Sound. [View Full Entry]

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9th November We pulled in today to the most beautiful place any of us had seen so far in NZ: Wanaka, a well-kept, relaxed town on the edge of a huge lake. On a clear day, the lake is a perfect blue, and it is surrounded by these amazing snow-capped mountains and huge rolling hills. At this point I had finally tired of the Kiwi bus and most of the people on it - with the amount of drinking and shagging going on every night the bus was turning into a Club 18-30 trip! Wanaka was the perfect place to get [View Full Entry]

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Well I'm a good week or so behind writing this blog - I'm currently in Te Anau with no way to upload any photos so I'll add those later. I've skipped writing about a few places - after crossing the Cook Strait on a ferry between the two islands, we headed down the west coast of the South Island through what has been my favourite part of New Zealand so far: Franz Josef-Wanaka-Queenstown, just off the Fiordland National Park, which has some incredible scenery. We pulled into Franz Josef, a tiny resort for ice climbing and hiking on the Franz Josef [View Full Entry]

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In Taupo me and some friends got together to do the Tongariro Crossing, a 20km hike and one of the finest walks in New Zealand. The bus to the walk's starting point left the youth hostel at 6.20am, so after an early rise and a 1 hour bus journey we were all psyched for the walk. However, we got within half an hour of the starting point and the weather turned bad, so we had to turn back. God were we gutted! So we stayed an extra day in Taupo to do the walk the next morning, and luckily the weather [View Full Entry]

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With the amount of time and effort it takes to write these blogs I've decided to just keep it simple and use captioned photos. If I get the time I'll put in more detail but for now I'll just keep it brief! Key events: -Curlys Bar: truly awesome bar at the youth hostel - everyone got completely bladdered and the barmaid let us pour our own drinks for free! -Caving/black water rafting: Abseil, zip-line, black water raft and climb waterfalls - tons of fun! In short, Waitomo ROCKS! [View Full Entry]

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We left Mercury Bay at 7.30am, and after a long drive we arrived in a little town called Matamata for a lunch stop. This place was the filming location for Hobbiton in the Lord Of The Rings movie, hence the sign with the Gollum statue! We then headed to our destination, Rotorua, which in my opinion was a bit of a dump. Greeted with heavy rain, the town is built over boiling mudpools and geysers, so sulphur dioxide rises up through the streets. Not good - the whole place smells of rotten eggs! It was 2pm when we arrived, and checking [View Full Entry]

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Monday 26th October - today I started the Kiwi Experience bus tour! Just before 9am the green Kiwi coach pulled into the Auckland youth hostel to pick up some of us. Everyone on the coach looked extremely knackered from non-stop flying and drinking! Today we were heading to Whitanga on the Coromandel Peninsula just off the north coast, and I couldn't wait to get out of Auckland and start seeing more of New Zealand. Along the way we all got to know each other. There's people from all over the world - Australia; Denmark; Switzerland; Israel and far too many Canadians! [View Full Entry]

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Kia Ora! Well after 36 hours of flying and an agonisingly dull 10-hour wait at Brunei airport, I finally made it here to Auckland, New Zealand. Having slept in departure lounges and eaten nothing but plane food for the last 3 days, the thought of clean clothes and a bed has never seemed more appealing! First of all I apologise for how long this blog is - I promise the next ones will be shorter! My first thoughts as I set out into Auckland were, "Oh great, another city!" and to be truthful, you can see why travellers don't linger too [View Full Entry]

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