The end of New Zealand

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After seeing all of the South island we headed back up to the north as we had to hand our camper van in and we flew out of Auckland. We stayed in Wellington for a day and went to the local museum, where we saw a giant collossal squid (was pretty horrible) and had a look at the other sights. Our next stop was Napier and it was really nice here. We were tempted to do another wine tasting course but we thought we would give our livers a rest. Napier was struck with a really bad earthquake in the 1930s and the town was pretty much gone. The new town they had built was really nice with some really cool buildings. We did a trip to the old prison, which only shut in 1993. It was a pretty pathetic prison as there were so many places to escape and we were told that many of the ex prisoners did. It was cool to have a look around and hear all about its history.

That night we headed back to up Rotorua to do abit more luging 😊 Still Dan beat me everytime, however i wasn't mean and didnt ram him off the track, instead i was going to fast and nearly came off myself.

After Rotorua we still had a few days to spare before we had to hand the camper van back so we head to the top of the north island to see some more sights. We did some snorkeling and sun bathing as the north island has some really nice beaches, however the snorkeling was abit rubbish as we are just comparing it to when we did it in Oz. That night in the campsite we had to drive through some sand in the car to get to our parking space and we nearly got stuck. A few hours later another car came through and this time they got stuck. So me and Dan were the ones pushing/digging it out, it finally got out.

The next day we headed to a pace called the Bay of Islands. On the way we stopped at a Kiwi house and saw our first Kiwi (Its just a big fat bird with a really long beak.) We booked a trip to sail around the Bay of Islands on a small sailing boat. It was a really good day, we saw some amazing views, Dan helped sail (i sat and took pictures), did some more snorkeling and saw some more dolphins. This time they were the bottled nose dolphins and theye were amazing. We have seen loads on our travels but none like these, we also saw a few baby ones.

The next day we headed to the bottom of 90 mile beach to try and do some sandboarding! We got given a sledge, it wasnt a sandboard. As we were walking up the beach a guy drove by and offered us a lift in his trailer to the top, which resulted in us getting some brused bums as it was a very bumpy ride. Once we were at the bottom of the sand dune we realaised that the sand was way to hot to stand on or even climb. So we took a very long way around up abit of grass to the top, still in alot of agony with our burnt feet. Once at the top you had to sprint across the sand and jump in your pezzy sledge...alot harder than it sounds! After being in serious pain we jumped in our sledge only to find that they wouldnt go down so you had to push your way to the bottom. Was not impressed, i also lost a flip flop and it was to hot to go looking for it. Se we gave up and sulked our way back to the car.

The next day we did some walks around some forests and saw the massive Kauri trees. Some get up to 50 meters tall and 16 meters wide. They are huge! Was really wierd to look at as some of them are just in the middle of a normal forest you would find at home. That night we did a walk around a forest near our campsite to spot some more Kiwi however they were all hiding from us, or the annoying loud Sweedish woman behind us, so we saw none. Our tourch also went out halfway though!

Our last few days we have just been relaxing and cleaning the car (which was pretty minging). We leave for Fiji tomorrow, we are gutted to be leaving Auckland. We have had an amazing time in New Zeland and it has deffinatley been one of the best countrys we have been to x

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