Day 73: Arrival in Picton It had stopped raining by the time I got to Picton. Despite it being only a short walk from the ferry terminal into town, I was quite grateful that there was a courtesy bus for foot passengers, dropping me right outside the hostel. After checking in, I set to hanging up wet clothes, and leaving books and various other random soggy items out to dry, having negated to wrap everything in plastic. Lessons have been learned! With my luggage drying, I called around the places I was due to be staying the coming evenings to confirm [View Full Entry]

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Day 70: Arrival in the Capital As is so often the case, I would have liked to have stayed a little longer in Wanganui, if only to see a bit more of the town, but with the list of things I want to do in New Zealand growing exponentially, I stuck to my plans and arrived at the bus stop at half-past seven ready to catch the bus for Wellington. Unfortunately I'd got my times a bit wrong and could have actually had an extra half an hour in bed, but I guess it's better to get there too early than [View Full Entry]

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Day 68 (cont.): Wanganui After a couple of hours driving along the Forgotten World Highway, stopping at the towns and cities to pick up and drop off those who lived in the towns that time forgot in the backwoods of Taranaki, the Intercity minibus pulling it's trailer of luggage, finally stopped in Wanganui. From the bus stop, it was a half hour walk through the pleasant town centre to get to my hostel, a large converted house overlooking the river. With enough provisions to whip up some delicious and tasty instant-noodle sandwiches (don't knock it 'til you've tried it), I didn't [View Full Entry]

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Day 66 continued...Lovely New Plymouth By the time the bus arrived in New Plymouth, I was feeling quite nauseous and definitely not at all in the mood for lugging my heavy load up to the nearest YHA hostel, a joyous three kilometre trek uphill. I was about 500 metres away when a kind taxi driver pulled over and offered me a free ride for the rest of the walk. For once, I realised that it wasn't the time or place to be stubborn and insist on doing things the hard way, and so willingly accepted. Up at the hostel, everyone seems [View Full Entry]

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Day 66: The Long and Winding Road So it hasn't been the most exciting of days. Having been woken up at five by people going to Tongariro (and been grateful that I wasn't one of them - who does stuff like that on New Year's Day?!), and again at half-six by others who had got up to pack, I eventually gave up sleeping at seven and crawled out of bed and down to the laundry to amend my rather desperate clothing situation. I caught the bus a couple of hours later and managed to sleep most of the two hour leg [View Full Entry]

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Day 63: Trekking Middle Earth I had been a bit enthusiastic following my arrival in Taupo yesterday evening, and having bought some food, and seen that today's weather was due to be good with light winds and no rain, I had been keen to make the most of it and get out into the great outdoors. I was a little less keen this morning when my alarm went off at five, but shortly after, I was waiting outside with a bag full of food, water and warm clothes, ready to catch the bus to Tongariro National Park. The bus pulled into [View Full Entry]

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Day 57: Soaking in Smelly Spas I left Waitomo at midday, to arrive a few hours later in central Rotorua with only a short walk through the city to my hostel, the 'Hot Rocks Backpackers'. As soon as I stepped off the coach, the rotten egg smell emitted from the many local sulphuric springs hit me. Although not entirely pleasant, it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, and like everyone else, it wasn't long before I stopped noticing it. Having arrived at the hostel, I was amazed at just how quiet it was. The only other girl staying in the [View Full Entry]

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Day 55: Slices of toast: 14, Lumps of prime beef: 10, Trimmed Angoran rabbits: 2, Electric shocks: 1 It wasn't a great start to the day when I was woken up at six this morning as the two women I was sharing a dorm with got up to start to start their packing (everyone knows that if you're leaving early, you pack up all your stuff the night before, especially if it's in plastic bags. Right?). Having to wake up at seven anyway, I didn't have enough time to get back to sleep, and so got up and head into town [View Full Entry]

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Day 54: An evening in Auckland Leaving soon after five this morning, I was definitely ready to leave the grey skies of Brisbane behind me and discover the delights of New Zealand. Having checked in at the airport, double checked that I was going to get some vegetarian food on the flight, bought chocolate just in case, had my suncream confiscated by security, and used up my last few minutes on my phonecard, I was ready and set for take off. The flight was fairly uneventful, although getting through customs and immigration following arrival in Auckland took nearly as long as [View Full Entry]

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Day 48: Concrete Jungle After not much sleep, with my drunken room mates coming and going throughout the night, I crawled out of bed early to check out and get to the bus stop. I was quietly quite relieved when it started to cloud over, with sunny skies such a rarity on the East coast of Australia at the moment, I think I'd have had a problem walking away from the beach if it had turned out to be a nice day. On the minibus, it only took two hours to get to Brisbane, and we pulled into the transit centre [View Full Entry]

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