Waikawa Bed & Breakfast North Island

... is a tower in the middle of the country. It was built by a man who owned most of what Matamata is today, some few thousands of acres. David showed me around the museum and all the different exhibits, many of which he made himself. He also took me to see the archives which was cool. The amount of work that must have gone into this place must have been tremendous!
We drove around the country some more and got close to the Kaimai Range. It was raining and very ...

... Volunteers in the community put out peanut butter and ink to find out where the rats are most prominent before putting out rat and possum poison. This was hard work, but hopefully we saved some Tui lives.

Despite the slipping and sliding, bush walking also offered very nice views. It ran up by the town dam and by the trail to the Hakarimata Summit (which unfortunately had no landscape views from the top as it was ...

... Being able to drink the tap water, my own bed and shower, and my own car to go wherever I want whenever I want.

This trip has been amazing. A real eye-opener to both of us. The countrys have been beautiful, our experiences have been completely different to anything we could've imagined and the thing I will remember the most.....is the people.

From the ...

... and put him straight to work on a database which he was struggling to develop.


The following morning we were shown the jobs which needed doing around the farm and Celia and Todd set to work whilst Lee spent the first few days helping Don with the database. As it was the weekend the kids were helping us to dig up shrubs, clear out winter debris from under the trees, plant flowers and weeding (though they had more fun riding in ...

... Dann gehts im Bus zurueck nach Roturua, wo wir gegen 18.30 Uhr auf dem Top 10 Camp**van Park ankommen. Divendres VI - II - MMIX Avui és "Waitangi Day". Commemoren l'aniv**sari del "Tractat de Waitangi" signat el 06/02/1840 entre els anglesos i els maori. Hi ha molta gent que va a la costa, nosaltres, sortosament ens estalviem les cues ja que ens dirigirem cap a l'int**ior... jejeje... La prim**a parada s**à a prop de Hahei. Hi ha una "hot wat** beach - hot springs-. És ...

... units (with the added bonus that you could start the movies as soon as you boarded. Why one has to wait until cruising altitude to do that on the Air Canada flights, I'll never know); · Seeing the Bay of Islands...stunning! · The improved accommodations from what we have grown used to. We quickly found out that hostels in New Zealand, while of a high quality, don't work for us since they charge per head. $18-$25 per person is fine for a ...

... in town, the Thirsty Weta (which happened to be virtually the only place in town open in the evening apart from Subway) and stay in the comfortable Palm Court Motel (sadly no orchestra). A weta is a sort of cave beetle, since you ask. The restaurant/bar was promoting a national NZ campaign to persuade men to grow moustaches this month in aid of men's health. I'm not sure how well it will go down in Sonning Common.

... tour guide had to rescue one of the sheep who'd fallen on its side and couldn't get up. Apparently, when sheep get "cast" like that, they can actually die if they're not helped back up on their feet. Our guide then took us to the "Party Tree" where Shannon and I were the only people dorky enough to run around it for pictures. Our guide showed us where they filmed the first scene in the movie in which ...

... been to Auckland once before, 9 years ago, so it was good to see how it compared to how I remembered it. I have to admit that I don't remember anything about the city centre itself, other than the Sky Tower. I found it to be nice enough, despite the fact that pretty much every other traveler I had spoken to about it hated it. I've discovered that a lot of backpackers hate big cities just because that's exactly what they are. I have ...

... of larger towns always do, large, new superstore complexes. In the car park, Jacob got himself into trouble with a security guard. We noticed that one of Lucy's sliding side windows didn't have a catch to keep it closed: it could be opened from the outside which basically meant anyone who was so inclined could nick all of our stuff with minimum effort. Improvising, Jacob trimmed a small branch from a tree in the car park, intending to cut a section from it to ...