New Zealand... better than Old Zealand

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New Zealand is like the lake district, but with more cool stuff. Basically, like volcanoes, and bubbling mud pools and Maori warriors (who apparantly DON'T walk around in grass skirts and head dresses like you're led to believe) and tropical rainforests, and black sandy beaches, glaciers, thermal pools and lots of weird birds. We've been trying to see all of it in 2 weeks in a campervan that has the word "backpacker" on it. Weirdly, no one beeped at us or laughed. It has involved some epic driving though from Tim and some equally epic map reading and tuning of the radio by Emma. Luckily the roads are all but deserted, there's really not many people in New Zealand! Some of the roads where very bendy and very steep and in a campervan, that is great fun. Our pots and pans took a great battering.
Our campervan came equipped with a toilet and shower, stove and lovely curtains. We had to watch an instructional video before hiring it, very much like an Alan Partridge corporate video. I liked the bit where the man's moustache dissapeared between scenes. He instructed us how to dispose of our "Grey water" (which is poo to the rest of us) But didn't warn us not to try and empty it at night!
Everyone goes on about the landscape in New Zealand, and frankly they're right, it's the main attraction. The best thing about it is the variation. You can be driving through tropical woodland one minute, and then seeing Mount Doom (from Lord of the Rings) the next. There's also a spectacular walk through a coastal tropical rainforest (Abel Tasmin...not in Lord of the Rings) and numerous snow capped mountain passes and Glaciers (Possibly in Lord of The Rings)
Special mention has to go to New Zealand beer. Monteith's and Mac's beer kept us going through the dark times ie. Night time. Our last days were spent snowboarding in Wanaka where Tim was a natural, obviously and Emma almost mastered the art of not falling over. However Emma managed to make some spectacular jewellry out of bone in Christchurch, courtesy of "The Bone Dude". All she needs is a vice, a jigsaw cutter and lots of bone (take note family, christmas and birthdays coming up)
2 weeks is definitely not enough time but we got a good eyeful of a fantastic country.
Currently in Rarotonga, where we not only crossed the dateline and travelled back in time, we seem to have travelled all the way back to the 80's!

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