Earthquakes, ash clouds, mountains and sand dunes...

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Hi! Sorry it's been a while...

So my second week in Fiji was great, apart from having a dodgy stomach for the majority :-( I went up to Mantaray Island in the Yasawa group and met 3 of the girls that had been on Fiji experience. We spent 2 days sunbathing, snorkelling (absolutely stunning reef and there were hundreds of brightly coloured fish swimming around you) and doing nothing! It was fab :-) After that I went back to the mainland, then to Robinson Crusoe Island for a night, which wasn't anywhere near as beautiful, but was good for relaxing. Met some nice people (practised my Spanish with a crazy Chilean guy who was thrilled to hear some reggaeton again!) and then I left paradise the next day to fly to New Zealand!

My 2 weeks here have been brilliant. On my first day in Auckland I went on a free tour of the city, and somehow won myself a free jump off the Sky Tower here, a building 192m high! I thought the tour guide was joking for ages but it really was the 'prize'! Don't think I've ever been as scared as I was, standing on that ledge waiting to throw myself off. It doesn't help that all the workers joke that noone's died for at least a week etc! Anyway it was awesome, such a rush, when I did actually manage to jump!

The next day I picked up the campervan with Tim, the German guy who was in LA, and we left Aucklandtiful heading north. The weather wasn't the best for the first few days but when we got to the top, Cape Reinga, the sun shone and it was all worth it! So beautiful, I think that was when NZ started to live up to the hype for me. We visited some giant sand dunes, which were amazing, just wish we'd had some sand boards to get back down again! After that we went round the whole of the north island including stops in Rotorua (stinks of sulphur because there so much geothermal activity), Taupo (where I jumped out of a plane at 15000ft!!! What a rush!!!), doing the Tongariro Alpine crossing (19.4km in 6 hours across craters and through forests, with Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings as the backdrop), Wellington (brilliant night out - all the bars/clubs have free entry!), Gisborne (watch the very first sunrise of the day), Napier (wine tasting) and the Coromandel Peninsular (absolutely stunning drive along the coast). We dropped the campervan back in Auckland yesterday and were due to fly to Christchurch last night but due to a certain little volcano erupting, I'm still here! The earthquakes rocking Christchurch aren't helping matters, but I'm due to fly tonight, with any luck, and will be starting a south island tour on a bus pass on Sunday.

So, 3 more weeks in New Zealand before I hit Oz!! Hope you are all well :-) lots of love xxx

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Comments

[Adiam]

Sounds Amazing!
Really enjoyed reading ur blog, always nice to read other people's travel stories. Keep em coming :D!