Blogs from Whakatane, Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 5

We flew out of Cairns on the 19th and it turned out to be quite a stressful experience. Our flight left at 5:45am and when we tried to check in at 4am we discovered New Zealand passports were not being accepted by the Qantas systems. After an hour of standing there and phone calls to Immigration and everywhere else we got our boarding pass for our flight to Sydney. That meant we had an hour to get our boarding pass for our flight from Sydney to Auckland, get from the domestic to the international terminal and get through security again! We managed to do it with our names being called over the intercom as we were about to board the plane! Once on the planes though we had no problems and we arrived in Auckland ahead ... read more

They say that New Zealand has 4 million people and 40 million sheep and almost as many cows. If anything we’d guess those figures are low, there are sheep everywhere. On one occasion we lamented about driving past a very picturesque green field, with many sheep grazing without stopping for a photo. An hour later we were held up in a kiwi traffic jam….a heard of 400 sheep, which were being shepherded from one pasture to the next down the main highway! As we roll around the country we are greeted by a landscape that presents itself after every curve in the road just as a postcard, even better than a postcard, more like a two page spread in a coffee table book. Rolling hills that seem three shades greener than the colour green naturally occurs. ... read more

White Island 50k off the east coast of the North Island. An active Volcano,with a crater lake of hot water and streams of steaming water. There was a toxic sulphuric gas bellowing out of every crack on the surface of the ground so we had to wear a gas mask.... read more

Hi everyone, Come on. we know it's cold and miserable back in the UK and you're all probably fed up, but please send us something even if its just to let us know you're still alive! We'd love to hear from you, even if its to be rude Karen :-) We're still travelling down the east caost of North Island and are now at Ohope Beech near Whakatane pronounced Fuckatane which John has to keep saying at every opportunity, can't think why. The beaches are glorious here andoff camp sites we were at last time near Roturura at Blue Lake, We spent a very hot day visiting the geysers one of which shoots about 25 metres into the air; quite awesome as we could feel the earth moving!! Tomorrow we move on down to Gisborne and ... read more

Today I went to the beach with Sheara and Tristin. We met their mate Brett there. We had an awesome time throwing the rugby ball around and body surfing. That night we went to a party and then into town. It was crazy because in town a huge fight broke out in a bar and about seven or eight Maoris were fighting each other. It got pretty wild pretty fast. Everybody cleared out of the bar and the police came... After that we got some fish n chips and called it a night.... read more