A Picture says a thousand words

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Hello lovely people,

So we have left it a very long time since we wrote the blog, for that we are sorry. However we have been very busy, having far too much fun and running out of money for the internet.
We are in Fiji now, it's lovely, however raining today so a perfect time to say hello.

New Zealand was AWESOME/SWEET AS and all those other Kiwiana words. We last wrote to you from Queenstown. We got snowed in on the day we were meant to leave, annoying but made for some very pretty pictures.

We will just give you a round up of the rest of our time in NZ, as the pictures will tell a better story, and show how amazing it is.
Our last stop in the South Islands was Kaikora which is famed for it's whales, dolphins and seals. We attempted to walk to a huge seal colony on our day there but it started raining A LOT so we gave up and spent the rest of the day in the warmth of the hostel.
After a very turbulant ferry crossing from the South Island we arrived in Wellington to start our North Island trip. We had about five days in Wellington as we met up with some friends from Brisbane and spent a while with them (trying to motivate them to get a job- women are so much better at these things than men)!
Wellington is a fun city with quite a lot to do- the museum and art gallerys provided entertainment, as did Cuba Mall and the shopping streets around there- lots of vintage shops to grab a bargain.

We were in Wellington for the England Germany match and found a good bar with lots of people to watch it in....sadly not great!!
We went to two different cinemas in Wellington (we have now seen everything that is out as we have been that many times). The guys decided to decline our invitation to go and see Twilight at midnight, they missed out as the cinema was actually an old Theatre and was so pretty.
From Wellington we went straight to Taupo where we did our Skydive. We didn't really have much time to prepare of get nervous as the bus dropped us off literally outside and then we had half an hour to get ready and jump!
We did it from 15,000ft as you get about 1 mintue freefalling. It was quite a bizarre experience, even though we were falling it didn't really feel as if we were, just floating around in mid air. It was also freezing cold when we jumped out, took us a while to regain feeling in our fingers.
We got some photos and a DVD of our skydive so that should be fun viewing when we are home.

Didn't have too long in Taupo, from there we went to Rotorua, which is a cool place to visit. It has a lot of Volcanic activity and as we wandered around we saw lots of hot pools and springs popping up all over the place.
Rotorua is also the Maori heart of New Zealand so that evening we went to a Maori village and had dinner. There was traditional dancing and singing, everyone had to perfom the Haka which was hilarious. The meal was a Hangi, which is meats and vegetables that are cooked in the ground. They dig a hole and heat it up with coals. The food is then put in and covered so that it cooks over the day. It was really good, apart from the stuffing that we all agreed tasted slightly like earth (not that we have tried mud but what we assumed it would taste like).

After the meal Mum's friend Jan and her daughters picked us up and took us to Mount Manganui where we stayed in their holiday apartment for a couple of days.
It was luxury having a place to ourselves and we very much enjoyed it. Mount Manganui was beautiful and on our first day we climbed the mount, was quite strenuous so we rewarded ourselves with a nice lunch from one of the cafes on the seafront.
Jan and her daughters Carmen and Soraya met us the next morning and treated us to brunch of waffles....yum! We had a wander around with them and then went back to stay at their house in Katikati.
It was a very good few days with them (they came to Nottingham back in 1998) and we borrewed one of the girls cars and went and visited some sights. We went into Katikati and Tauranga and the day after we drove up to Coramandel town which was so pretty. The drive up there was very scenic, along the coast road.
We could have stayed there for longer as it was very nice but we had to leave to make sure we made it up to The Bay of Islands.
We spent four days in The Bay of Islands and stayed in a place called Paihia. We spent a day driving up to Cape Reinga which is the most accesible Northerly point in the North Island. It is where the Maori believe that the spirits leave and is a very sacred spot. After this we called in at some sand dunes for a spot of sand boarding......so much fun!!! We drove back to Paihia along the ninety mile beach (not actually ninety miles but still cool)!

Our last stop in New Zeland was Auckland. Only had a few days here to sort our stuff out and have a wander around. Didn't actually do that much but we did manage to get our hair cut (for cheap) and meet up with Norv's friend Sarah for a few glasses (bottles) of wine.
It was a big city and we really liked it, although a lot of Kiwi's don't.
We were under the impression that our flight out of Auckland was at 6.10pm so we got up on our last day, checked out, put our bags in storage and went for a wander. We decided to pop on the internet at about half ten and double check our flight time........thank goodness we did as it turned out our flight was at 12.55.....oops.
Cue running around Auckland to get our bags and find a taxi as soon as possible as it was already 11am by this time. Luckily the roads were quiet so the taxi didn't take 1 hour like they told us it would but half an hour. We made it in time for the flight, and even managed to squueze in a quick Cappuchino in departures before our flight.....sadly no time to try on make up or spray lots of perfume....some of our favourite airport activities.

So that brings us to Fiji. We are having a week of relaxing and reading lots of books (mainly rubbish romances). The weather is nice and warm but it is their winter here so not as hot as Asia.
Hopefully going to meet up with some of the Smith cousins who get here in a few days.

Take Care Everyone,

If you didn't realise we are back in a week......yay 😞

Excited to see you all,
Loves,
Clare + Lucy
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P.s- have run out of internet time but will put the pictures which the title refers to up soon!!!!!!!!

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