The Waterfront - Penthouse 11 Nelson

... in Wellington. I bumped into them again in the bar I chose for Dinner – Harry's Bar which was not a nod to Hemmingway but a bar with an Asian restaurant. The Indian family had a couple of drinks and headed off to find some Indian food whilst I settled down to Pad Thai noodles with prawns. After this I went back into the bar and ended up chatting to the bar man and a friend until we closed the bar! Good to find a place with Brucladdich!

... Walks'. It is named after the explorer who actually discovered New Zealand over a hundred years before Cook but didn't set foot on the land as was scared away by natives, so sailed by, but it was Cook who first settled here. The track is set over five days with stopover huts at locations for each day. We didn't stay overnight but instead got dropped off in a ...

... t have wanted to miss these. Again a spectacular drive, much of it in rain and sun at the same time. I think we were lucky to get across Arthur's Pass yesterday as they were forecasting snow above 600m today and we were definitely above that yesterday! We're in an unusual hotel - more like a really upper class Butlins with cottages, rooms, a village green, shops, restaurant, pool etc just ...

... Day. So this time I took my medicine an hour before the trip. We were a small troop of 6 people and our guide, Chris. We suited up in lovely spray skirts, life jackets, and sunglasses, and headed into the water. The kayaks were really nice, outfitted with a rudder and peddles. This was probably the cheaters option, but it made life in the backseat of the boat much more enjoyable. I started out in the back as I have kayaked twice in my ...

... After a plate full of Chips he seemed a whiole lots better thank goodness! We crashed that night but I woke up bright and breezy eager to pick up the dogs who had landed in Auckland around breakfast time. We had to go to the Biosecurity dept and then off to customs but basically it wa sall pretty easy and within half and hour we were being led by a very nice man who was very impressed ...

... huddled round the camp fire with some germans, trading beer and chocolate, before finishing the night with a big bowl of chocolate fondue. I slept much better on the second night, having been told that the therma rests actually blow up (clearly I'm not a seasoned camper), and we woke to another great breakfast of Spanish omelette. Today was our biggest day of paddling, and we covered some ground in the morning as we made our way to Fisherman's island, and ...

... a walk into town to find an internetty place. Sadly plan B didn't work either ... The wind was very strong and mummy thought it would be a bad idea to try and walk along the cliff path - she knew that daddy would be cross with us if we did something silly like that, so we just headed for the seafod stall. However they had shut up shop and gone home because it was too windy! Phooey! Plan C ... We walked along the beach into town. On ...

... re a backpacker :). After food 12 of us headed to a local sports bar where we watched the AB's beat the Springboks in the tri nations rugby match. After the game we all headed to the local nightclub and used up our free drinks tokens :). Tomorrow we have decided to skip Greymouth and head to Franz Josef, which unfortunately the Magic bus does not allow us to do so we've booked with another company. Love to everyone back home. xxxxxxxxxx

... stay one night in eack spot. We went for a morning bike ride then set off to Rotorua. We were not too impressed by Rotorua, very touristy and kinda had a disneyland feel, but we headed South to a spot in the Lonely Planet that was described as the only place the public could go in hot springs for free. AMAZING!!!! As we were snapping some photos of a steaming lake, a van pulls up and it is one of the guys I WOOFED ...

... I kind of like paddling for two, it feels like more of a workout). The following beautiful day started late (11:00am) and ended somewhere else(Nelson), but had quite a bit of hiking in the middle interupted by a nap on the beach which was interuppted by a dozen beaching kayacks no more than four feet from my unconcious body which happened to be laying on a nearly deserted gloden beach that was over 1000 ft.long, what the **** (seriously, what the ****). Seemingly ...