Maclynn Lodge Wanganui

... Art Deco. We ended up in a Mongolian restaurant of all places - it looked pretty cool and indeed turned out to be just that. You chose your own raw ingredients, like a supermarket pile-in salad, then handed them to the chef who cooked them on a huge hotplate whilst you waited. Was pretty nice. That's about it for today - tomorrow it's a big-mile day to put us within striking distance of Auckland. Hopefully thee's still be me for a diversion or two though.

... Mt Rupeha, but didn't manage to see it coz it was raining Picturesque Whanganui We didn't exactly take the recommended scenic route right by the river, but it was nevertheless really pretty. By the time we were at wanganui proper, Jaykin was sleeping, so we decided to take our cafe break later.

We left Wellington early and stopped at a Lord of the Rings filmstep where they filmed the battle of Helm's Deep. It's back to a normal working Quarry though now, although the castle was there up until only a couple of years ago. The road past the quarry was through the Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt, which is to the North of Wellington Harbour, behind Petone, where IBM was. We came out of Wellington ...

... no end; we even started to seriously consider a career in two man polar-tramping ;)

There were signs on the hut asking us to remove our coats and shoes, and to leave them outside (in the freezing cold), so we were good little boys & girls and did as we were told, despite ...

... canoe trip thru Wanganui National Forest was one of the most amazing things I've ever done, and it was definitely life-changing, in more ways than one. There were 4 of us that went on the journey, 4 strangers on separate paths brought together for a single, shared journey, and it was absolutely perfect. We were basically given 2 canoes and sent down the river, without much direction of what to do or what we were in for. We were off into no man ...

... Park Village and then on to Whakapapa on Mt Ruapehu, then up to the ski fields car park at the top of the road. The views would have been spectacular had there not been low cloud shrouding the mountains. It was pretty cold and windy but we decided to march on anyway. We took a short walk up to a ridge on Ruapehu that looks out over Mt Doom (much easier than spelling Ngauruhoe ...

It's ok people, I know how worried you've all been over the past few weeks but I can now safely reveal that I am not in fact dead. Unfortunately the internet here broke and even though it was a five minute fix with a new modem it took them over a week to get round to it. So a quick round up of the last fortnight, I have finished spending a week and a half using a blow torch on ...

Well I've finally made it! Back at River Valley lodge after a couple of days in Wellington which were fairly unproductive, apart from going to a jazz concert in the botanical gardens and sitting in the top of a tree looking out over the fog that should have been a perfect view of the capital. Just finished my first day ...

... from before being riped apart by the water. This is where the A team moved in paddling back into the rapid behind the rocks. Baring in mind what had happen at "The Washing Machine' when we attempted the same move on a much tamer bit of water this move seemed like suicide, but we handled it with ease. Our guide then jumped onto the rocks and pulled out the damsel. All that was left to do was get her into the boat ...

... of the Tongarario park, and climbed slightly, the heavy rain turned into sleet, then into snow, it was unbelievable. We were driving through a snow blizzard with big chunks of snow falling, "it won't settle" Lee said, then two minutes later we were surrounded by hills covered in snow - doh! We drove onwards and upwards, still snowing, along the desert road. It finally stopped snowing just a we hit dense fog. On our right hand side we should have been seeing a stunning mountain range ...