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Published: March 28th 2009
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Dear all,
On Thursday we said our goodbyes to Ken and got our flight to Auckland in New Zealand. It was sad to leave him but as we are meeting him in Fiji in four weeks he is not totally rid of us yet and there was no need for tears. We arrived in the evening and made our way to our room feeling very tired. Unfortunately we couldn’t sleep as it was strange to be in a different place after four weeks on Ken’s floor and we were now thirteen hours ahead of the Uk!! So when the alarm went off on Friday morning we had actually only managed to sleep for two hours.
So we picked up our campervan and got the good news that our two berth van was not available and so we had been up graded to a bigger van. At midday we left Auckland and started the 660km journey down to Wellington. On a motorway this journey would not take too long but on New Zealand country roads it takes a while!! We shared the driving and I drank regular amounts of coffee being careful not to drink so much that I wouldn’t be
able to sleep for two days! (that has happened before and it is very annoying!)
The journey took eleven hours! I can honestly tell you that I enjoyed every second of it. We drove over mountains, through forests, past lakes, through dry bushy bits, round farmland and past five different bungee jumps....it was amazing! I have been to a lot of places but I have never seen a place like this....it is beautiful. We finally arrived in Wellington at 11pm and found all of the camp sites shut so we went to the ferry port, put our bed up and slept in the car park! At 6am this morning we got up and checked in for the ferry.
The Bluebridge ferry took us from Wellington on North Island to Picton on South Island. It was a three hour journey down The Cook Strait, which can be a nasty bit of water but today it was calm like a pond. We arrived to sunshine and then drove for two hours through more amazing scenery until we reached Kaikoura. We stopped off at the seal colony where we saw a big male and started organising our whale watching for tomorrow
which happens to be my birthday! There is a school of sperm whales just off of the coast and so tomorrow we are going to see them.
So here I am sat in our campervan writing this! Camping has changed a bit since I was young and you can even get the internet at some camp sites. This one even has a hot tub which Dan and I made use of as soon as we arrived...no sleeping in a car park tonight!!
Love to you all...and think seriously about booking flights to New Zealand!!
Wendy
xx
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Biman hazarika
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without a doubt adventure capital in world