We're now writing this blog from sunny manchester, having finished our fabulous trip a couple of weeks ago. It's grey and wet outside so what better way to pass the time than looking back over our time in the USA! After an absolutely amazing week in fiji we were quite sad to leave the island behind, but once we were on our flight to LA that was replaced with excitement at our american adventure still to be had. We landed in LA at 130pm on a saturday afternoon, having left Fiji at 10pm on a saturday evening....international time travel at it's [View Full Entry]

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After seven weeks of cold and rain in New Zealand, it was amazing to touch down in Fiji and finally see some sunshine! We spent our first night in a hostel on the mainland, where we got to spend the evening eating and having a few drinks around the pool. Was lovely and relaxing. The next morning we were up early to get our ferry connection out to the malolo islands where we were planning on spending the week. We were picked up by a man in a little minibus, and driven along a stretch of beach to the marina (not [View Full Entry]

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After our rafting exploits in Rotorua we headed north to the Coromandel peninsula. Our destination for the first night was Hahei beach, where we were on a campsite right next to the beach, lovely in the pouring rain! Up early the next day went on a walk to Cathedral Cove, a lovely little beach with massive cliffs and a cathedral shaped hole in a rock. The walk was really nice, and the beach was stunning. Our visit was cut short though as the rain clouds moved in and once again it looked like we were going to get a soaking! After [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Taupo in the pouring down rain we drove through the Tongariro national park but could not see Mt Ruapehu (Mt Doom) because of the cloud. Our first stop was Ohakune, land of the giant carrot. Ohakune is the carrot capital of NZ and has a monument to this in the shape of a giant carrot. Its also a big ski town, where we were hoping to be able to get a taste of skiing. That night we headed out into town to watch the all blacks game in the local pub. It was a liiiiittttlle scary in there, we [View Full Entry]

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After the ferry crossing from hell we had made it to Wellington! Instantly different to the south island, we were greeting with skyscrapers and traffic when we got off the boat, and we had to drive the van on a motorway for the very first time! Very exciting. We planned to spend a day in Wellington, so next morning we were up bright and early to get a bus into the city to explore. First up was the historic Wellington cable car, which rich was relieved to see was actually a tram and not a cabin suspended in the air. The [View Full Entry]

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When we woke up on our first day in Nelson it was sunny! Something we haven't experienced for about a week now. We headed off for a look round Nelson whcih is famous for its cafes and artists. There were lots of nice places to eat and drink which was good. In the afternoon we started driving up toward Golden Bay, on the northwest tip of the South Island. The drive was really scenic as we passed through Abel Tasman national park (where we were planning to go the following day). Golden Bay was very nice and we camped there overnight [View Full Entry]

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We set out from Wanaka in pouring down rain, aiming for the West Coast. The West Coast is apparently the wettest place in New Zealand, so we were pleasantly suprised to pass over the mountain range and descend into glorious sunshine! The drive up the coast was pretty spectacular, it's the Tasman Sea which is one of the roughest seas in the world, so all along you have massive crashing waves which look amazing. We made a couple of stops on the way, first being Ship Creek Beach, a very isolated beach where a shipwreck washed up 100 years ago, having [View Full Entry]

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After the scenery of the Fiordland we headed north for more fun in Queenstown, activities centre for the whole of New Zealand. Unfortunately, on our first day there it absolutely poured down with rain and we couldn't really do anything! The next day we awoke to much brighter skies, so set off to enjoy everything the town had to offer. Apparently it's essential to do some kid of extreme activity in Queenstown, we settled on Jet boating as neither of us had done it before. Basically you sit in a specially designed speed boat that propells water to make the boat [View Full Entry]

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Te Anau is the main town in the Fiordlands to base yourself to visit the Sounds on day trips. We spent our first day in Te Anau itself booking a couple of trips, once that was out of thw ay we waited for the rain to ease a little before heading out on a bit of a walk. We ended up walking a couple of hours along the Keppler Track, which is one of the great walks in New Zealand and is apparently quite famous. It takes about 4 days to walk the whole thing... Next morning we were up early [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Oamuru we headed south toward Dunedin. On the way we stopped at a place called Moeraki to go and view the famous boulders on the beach. The boulders were formed a long time ago, there are loads of them along the beach and they are almost perfectly spherical. They look quite strange! We also had a look around Moeraki, which was a little eery, we appeared to be the only people there. Later that day we arrived in Dunedin. Dunedin is celtic for Edinburgh and has strong links to Scotland. Its a nice enough city with lots of shops, [View Full Entry]

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