Better late than never . . .

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After a 3 year sabbatical (if it's good enough for the Stone Roses, its good enough for us . .not 3 years but who's counting?), we are finally back to finish what we started. I know everyone's been waiting patiently for us to complete the story of our epic travels so here it is at last folks!

So, if you can remember, we last left off at Taupo. Next stop was Rotorua - not much to report apart from the stench of thermal activity - and that was just in our campervan! Only stayed one night, then moved on to Otorohanga and visited the mud pools at the Hells Gate thermal park where we indulged ourselves in a mud bath for $75 - we should have saved our money and gone to Glastonbury! More money madness to follow when we travelled on to Waitomo where Geen shelled out $60 to see some glow worms in a cave with a guide called Knowledgable Norm and I went to see an angora rabbit being sheared. This is all true in case you're wondering.

After a 7 hour drive north, we followed up these acts of randomness with a cruise around the Bay of Islands and watched in wonder at a pod of dolphins, playing and jumping out of the water, truly amazing. We were dropped off at a place called Russell, a lovely little town and we walked to Flagstaff Hill and Long Beach and then treated ourselves to a shandy in the Duke of Marlborough pub (the oldest pub in NZ) and a slice of chocolate cake in a cafe called Sally's (owned by a certain Sally Taylor, fancy that!) We also visited the oldest church in NZ, called Christchurch.

Heading back south, we stayed one night in Whangarei where our previous good fortune in blagging paying for one person instead 2 everytime we checked into a campsite came to an abrupt end. Resuming the usual position of corpse like stillness whilst Geen told a pack of lies to the owner that she was travelling on her own, I was scuppered by said owner peering into the back window, enquiring who the dead body was. . . Geen tried gallantly to fob them off, saying I was a native and that I had a headache, hence lying down . . and can you believe it, they only fell for it! We'll never go to Heaven . . .Next stop Auckland.

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