Kingsgate Hotel The Avenue Wanganui

... Incredi-bull (groan).<br><br>It was only a short hop from there to Wanganui, our stop for the night. We quickly got checked in to the Acacia Park Motel at the side of the Wanganui River. This has even bigger rooms that the night before. I think we'll soon be having a house to ourselves if this goes on much longer. Took a wee walk by the river then headed into town in search of some dinner. The town is quite old and really elegant and I managed a daily fix ...

Slept late again, but it was not a good night sleep. We had brunch in a cafe in Taupo - felt like gypsies. Coz we had to ask them for hot water, as well as brush teeth and wash face there. As we were running a bit late, we decided to drive all the way to Wellington today. We apparently drove ...

... for a kip. (We are on holiday!) We got up and thought we'd better go out for food as it was too late to cook, but everywhere was bloody closed or closing and it was only 9pm. We ended up going to a pizza hut take-away. Not what we really wanted but it was cheap. We ate it in the TV room where some kids were already there so we had to watch Disney Channel!

... a 2 hours descent through the central crater to get to the hut, which suddenly appeared like a shadowy oasis. Boy we were glad to see it, we were tired, wet and starving hungry.<br><br>We were walking so fast that we actually caught up the Irish guy who passed us earlier, which pleased ...

... the mind goes when its just you and the river- no distractions. The second day we got a taste of the beginning of the challenges we were to face, when we had to use our minds and creativity to figure out how to get to our campsite. We ended up having to drag our canoes up the side of a cliff and tie them up to a stump and hope they'd be fine. Then, we had to empty them and drag our buckets up to higher ground. This trip was definitely not a ...

... en hoe ik van 5 meter hoogte in het water viel, maar het feit is dat ik het presteerde om uit de boot vallen toen we bijna stil stonden!!!!! Na ongeveer 3 uurtje op de rivier stapte we uit bij de lodge en was het tijd voor een welverdiende warme douche. Na wat lunch mochten we de bus weer in op weg naar de Hoofdstad van Nieuw Zeeland (en nee dat is dus niet Auckland!!!) maar daar de volgende keer meer over!

... included mostly 40-50-ish year old competitors dancing to Rock and Roll music. They were having an awesome time! I don't really know how they all got up the next day to do a tri-athalon or touch football or the like. Maybe they were the ones playing in the scrabble tournament. The next day was great touring around Wanganui, meeting more of Kerry's family, seeing some sights and having a great lunch!

Darnations! It seems Brian (the man in charge) found out about my castle scheme and moved me into the kitchens where I can cause no more damage. Either that or the loss of another slave means I'm actually needed there. Scrubbing pans for six hours a day is far less fun. Went paddling again and I was right. Borrowing a decent boat this time it felt like I could paddle again rather than just doing wha tthe river eantede me to do.

... The Washing Machine" (Which was just a practice rapid!). To be fair to me we actually got over the rapid pretty well, no thanks to the driver. We had a Northern European girl in the boat who was there learning to be a driver. I use the word 'driver' because of the lack of a better word to use. Basically it's the person sat at the back of the dinghy, who has more control over the boat than anyone else but to be honest ...

... ages and in the end decided to get the van back to town and get them to drop it off to me tomorrow. Being so late there meant that we'd missed the bunjy and not only that, more bad news was to come because there was a note on the door of our room saying they'd made a mistake with the rooms and had double booked us and could we move to another room. The room we got was horrible, it was a dorm room that looked more like a prison cell. They apologized loads and gave us the other ...