New Zealand - North Island

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From Picton we took the 3 hour ferry crossing over to Wellington, where we spent a couple of hours in the city including looking around the museum before continuing our journey up to Wanganui for the night (stayed with family friends). The next morning we had a drive around so we could see the town, and also up to a view point overlooking the town.

After this we headed onwards to Lake Taupo where we stayed for a couple of nights - was quite nice staying in one place for more than one night as we´d done so much driving over the previous few days. I took the opprtunity to go sky-diving over Lake Taupo - just as with my hang-gliding in the south island I enjoyed clear blue skies, so had a great view of the lake and surrounding countryside.

After Taupo we looked around some geysers, mudpools etc on the way to Rotarua, where we stayed for a couple of days. While we were there we spent a day sightseeing around the town including seeing some Maori sculptures and buildings, and also some more geothermal pools.

From Rotarua we drove up to Auckland as we had to fly out of the airport there. In Auckland we stayed with an ex-colleague of Claire´s (who also used to work at the JR) for a couple of nights so enjoyed the luxury of being a in house and having our own rooms, rather than sharing with several other people in hostel dorms. We left New Zealand on Wed 16th Jan, and flew to Santiago, Chile.

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