Adventure is our middle name - today that translated into a 16km kayak trip around the national park. The three of us (plus Dave our guide) paddled the seas for a good four hours, with some beautiful stops along the way. We set off from the impressive sand spit at Bark Bay and our first stop was Pinnacle island to see the seal colony. There were a couple of seals sunning themselves on the rocks. We continued on to our lunch stop at Adele island (named by a French explorer, after his wife) and this was the best spot of the day. The beach was beautiful, clear waters and great views of the national park - plus the lunch provided was pretty tasty! We had a couple of other stops after lunch and our arms were ... read more

We managed to get out of bed a little earlier and headed into town for a smooch around. Although Wellington has the nickname Windy Welly, the weather has been superb - apparently this had been the case since Christmas. Our first stop was the Te Papa museum, which houses a diverse selection of exhibitions about New Zealand. Odd yet rather interesting was the preserved Colossal Squid accidentally brought to the surface by eating fishing bait around 10 years ago and given to the museum. After a couple of hours in the museum we ate lunch along the waterfront and walked along some of the main shopping streets towards the beehive (parliament building). Despite being the capital Wellington is still fairly small, clean and relatively quiet compared to its big sister Auckland. To make the most of ... read more

We had the morning to ourselves at River Valley and so James went for a run and a swim and I had a tootle around the grounds and along the river. It really is in the middle of nowhere but it has a nice homely feel to it. They were looking for travellers to stay there and work in return for free accommodation, food and horse trekking. I have to say I was tempted!! We were on our way to Wellington by 1pm and I was super excited about staying with Liz for the next few days. Upon arriving we bid our fellow travellers goodbye and wished them luck at the hostel as we headed off to the apartment. We'll be meeting back up with a number of them on Friday to head over to the ... read more

Last night the hostel partied hard... We however did not as we had to begin our journey to the national park at 5.30am. I barely slept a wink but I think that may have been a mixture of the loud music and the adrenaline from the sky dive. We started the track at 7.00am and had a 10 hour walk ahead of us. Due to the volcanic eruption in August 2012 part of the original crossing is closed, therefore we opted for the 'highlights' walk which includes the famous Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings. I can safely say that this was the hardest mountain I've ever climbed, but the views from the top were phenomenal. I particularly liked the emerald lakes, that looked beautiful amidst the brown volcanic soil. Infact if you picked ... read more

Another scenic walk to get our day off to a good start! The walk took us out to the Ruaki forrest & caves and we climbed through some little tunnels. We arrived in Rotorua around midday and had the afternoon to explore the city. Rotorua is one of three geothermal hotspots in the world, everywhere you look steam is coming out of the ground! We even saw a bit of pavement cracked with bubbling water coming out, scary stuff. These hotspots are usually mud pools with a horrible sulphur smell - the city smells like this permanently. We did a 3km walking tour around the city, aside from the smell the lake and museum buildings are beautiful. In the evening we went to a mauri village and concert with a huge buffet dinner. On the way ... read more