bigtrip06

We had set ourselves an ambitious target in terms of driving for the next few days but we had faith Cleatus could deliver. We hit Hamilton at around 5pm that evening in heavy traffic. It was about this point we remembered the All Blacks were playing Canada the following night there and accomodation might not be as easy to come by as we had thought. After a bit of driving around we located a hostel on the main street and snapped up their last two beds. After eating we had a pint in a pub in town and then went to the cinema, Ocean´s 13 . The next morning we were up early and back on the road heading north to a place called Paihia. This is a jumping off point for the Bay of Islands. ... read more

After finding our first chioice of hostel was full we tried Hot Rocks hostel and were able to get in there. It had been a long day driving so we took it easy and had a few beers chatting with the first Irish people we have met in quite a while. Rotorua is in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island. It´s a big place by New Zealand standards with a population of about 65,000. It´s best known for its geothermal activity. There are numerous geysers and hot mud pools located in the city. It is nicknamed Sulphur City, and you only have to take one sniff to realise why. Our hostel had lots of thermal pools including a main swimming pool which even in Winter is roasting hot, compliments of the thermal springs ... read more

After a lunch in Kaikoura we caught a bus north to the small town of Picton. We checked into our hostel and had some dinner there. For possibly the first time on the trip we were the only guests in the entire hostel. We stocked up on a feed of beer and played cards in our giant free house for the evening as we had a ferry to catch the next day. We were able to walk down to the ferry terminal the next day which was very swanky. We were catching the Interislander to Wellington in the North Island. The ferry's are absolutely massive and cover the 92km journey in about 3 hours. The journey has spectacular scenery and takes you through Marlborough Sounds and across the Cook Strait. Once we had arrived and collected ... read more

Well the rain managed to last overnight and it was still raining when we caught our bus to Arthur's Pass. We had a stopover in a place called Greymouth for some lunch before continuing onto Arthur's Pass. Arthur's Pass is a mountain pass in the Southern Alps and is named after the bloke (Presumably called Arthur) who found the pass through the mountains. The village that sits in the middle of the pass is a tiny place in the middle of nowhere. It's sole attraction is the super scenery around the area. Unfortunately we arrived in weather that was less than useful for sightseeing. In fact it rained pretty much right through until lunchtime the following day. We (Us, Simon (An English lad), Laurent (French guy) and an American fella) spent our first evening playing board ... read more

The weather on the bus down to Te Anau was miserable with lots of rain and we began to question whether we would actually see anything in Milford Sound when we got there. We were dropped at our hostel in the tiny village of Te Anau which is sort of the gateway to Milford Sound. That evening after eating we arranged a trip for the following day. Milford Sound, is located in the south west of New Zealand. It runs 15 kilometres inland from the Tasman Sea and is surrounded by sheer cliffs. We were collected early in the morning by our very cool glass roofed bus. The road to the fiord is absolutely stunning. It was still overcast for much of the day but thankfully never rained. After the trip down along the spectacular winding ... read more