After our kayaking trip and 4 nights of very limited sleep and hard work actually staying pointing in the right direction in the canoe, (and also trying to keep my teeth) we decided to stay in a lodge. We where kindly dropped off by our Kayaking company at the National Park. The kayaking company Blazing Paddles comes highly recommended for the whanganui river. Fantastic service and we even got a cake at the end!!! (lucky i didnt loose my teeth on the branch!!) The weather was crap for a couple of days but we needed rest and our lodge had acess to a jacuzzi............ Well finally, after waiting a couple of days for the weather to clear and the winds to drop we had a window of opertunity to do the much spoken about Tongario crossing. ... read more

Ilona>>>> we caught the bus from Te Awamutu to Taumarunui, We had the last 2 seats on the bus! lucky shot..! arriving 2 hours later we get picked up ( as arranged) by this lovely woman who owns the camping (together with her husband) we are staying at. we booked 2 nights and straight away we loved this camping, there were a certain atmosphere there. we got good friends with the owners, and they were helping us booking canoes and driving us to the supermarkets etc, again we are cursed with rain, drying our wash becomes a nightmare, and the canoe trip got delayed. due to heavy rain, the currents speed up al lot on the river. so we end up booking one more night in the camping, but this time we book a cabin, so ... read more

So finally Richard dropped us off at the climbing centre, we were both excited and relieved, he would not accept payment, he would only require a postcard at some point on our trip! We got to "Bryces Rockclimbing cafe" which states on a sign outside " Run by climbers for climbers " thank god! we thought to ourselves, well that was until we met Bryce, what a tit! His cafe/shop is located in the middle of nowhere, yet he has every conceivable object available to mankind in his shop for climbing, that includes guide books for the UK, and equipment used for big wall climbing in Yosemite valley USA. Not that useful on a 30metre high crag in NZ. First he tried to sell us everything instead of hiring, which we had agreed via email, wanted ... read more

So, Jamie kindly fed us to complete bursting point again!!! and dropped us of in Auckland centre for us to catch our pre booked coach to Cambridge, we went straight to the travel agent and double checked our departure time which the Chinese guy behind the counter confirmed as 12.51pm, so off we went to buy a few last minute things we needed and to eat some sushi before our 3hr bus trip. We returned to the pick up point where we met an angry little Hobbit lookalike, who informed us we had just missed our bus, it had left at 12.15 not 12.51 ARGH!!!! Angrily we decided to go to an internet cafe, print out our details and get our money back from the travel company....now let it be known that walking around with a ... read more

Please dont forget that we are 11 and 12 hours in front of sweden and uk. mobile phone number: 0064 22042 6982 talk to you soon, =)... read more