1 Week, 1 Island, 1 Campervan!!

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We set foot on the North Island in shock that we only had one week left in New Zealand...and would be home in less than a month!!! shock shock horror horror!

So spent an extremly windy night in the nation's capital city Wellington and explored it the next day... it is likened to a smaller version on San Fransisco on a much smaller scale cos all the houses are perched on the hillside overlooking the pretty harbour... and the city is proud of its cafe culture apparently having more cafes per head than New York!!..so there you go, we had a good look around the free national museum Te Papa, which was brill and we could have got lost in there for a few hours but had to drive to Lake Taupo...

We ended up staying just south of the massive lake in the middle of the North Island... and had a lovely day in the sunshine there chilling... then drove to Rotorua the smelly capital of NZ... it is famous for its thermal pools and steaming holes in the ground all around the town. it smelt strongly of egg mayonaise and we became quite fond of the smell in the end! we explored the thermal parks of bubbling mud...looked like a scene from Dante's Peak or the Dinosaur age! We also went to an amazing Mauri culture night where we had a meal that was cooked in the ground and experienced the full warrior dances, night walk, ceremonies and of course the HAKA...which means breathe-fire...which was used to intimidate the enemy and increase the moral of the warriors before battle... incredible to watch!!

After Rotorua we drove to Auckland where we dropped Ollie off to see family and then drove upto the supposedly beautiful Bay Of Islands! stayed overnight in Paihia got up the next day and unfortuately our trip was called off due to a tropical storm blowing over...so we got the car ferry over to the lovely little village of Russell booked into a campsite and spent the day there hoping the weather would improve tomorrow...

drove back to Auckland and stayed overnight there before getting ready to fly to Bangkok!! our time passed over so quickly in NZ but we loved every minute of it..especially cos we got to share it all with Ollie! over 4000km covered in 3 weeks and not one minute of TV watched!!lol

3 weeks and we'll be back in the UK...and straight the The Lake District to gently re-adjust us back to Britain! Chow for Now xx

p.s sorry for any excess emails recieved from the travel blog... the system went down but seems alright now! fingers crossed!lol

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Comments

[My name is Colin]

Hey Dudes!!!
Well hello there guys, how are you both doing? I must say that guys costume resembles my style, Really cant wait to see you both, cos we all miss u over here, wey kind of lol. U better not come home with a strong aussie accent mind lol, you know summit i have no crack today, aint got a clue wot to type so i wil say i have no crack a few times so it looks like i have crack, u see a fair bit of writing now bout me havin no crack, any way am gonna shoot off nd fill up the time im not sittin in a phone shop as i am off today, i might go see a man bout a dog woteva that means. toodles my lurvelys, x x x x x love you x x x x x x

[daniel (bro)]

miss u
loved catching up on all what you have been doing, hope you both are still enjoying yourselvs, mum, dad and madison say Hi and we are all well, hope you both are too, can't wait to see you again(for the 3rd time) love u lots, good luck with the rest of your trip,bye for now. xxxxoooxoxoxoxoxox :)

[grandad george]

great blog
First ones I have seen, first class reads like an excellant novel, very impressed by tigers on last blog. Just had excelent meal at your Mam and Dads only the 6 veg with roast beef and yorkshire pudds. You look well will see you when you get home. Love Grandad xx