We take the ferry from Picton and head towards the North Island which takes us about 3 hours and is rather cold and rocky. We get to Wellington and jump off the boat and rather dissapointed to find it's just as cold as the South Island! We walk into town and drop our bags off at a hostel and then wander around Wellington city until Liv's friend ...

Unfortunately the weather put a stop to Matt's skydive at Lake Taupo so we decided to keep going and continue the long drive to Wellington. The drive was was broken up by a few beach stops and another unique waterfall called Huka Falls, with water so blue it looked like the the valley was being flooded with some kind of domestic bleach. It was u...

In a typical fashion, we woke up on Christmas Day to the sound of rain hitting the window. It had been nice all week leading up to Christmas but unfortunately the day itself was a washout. Good thing we didn't plan a barbeque! Thanks to the marvellous technology that is Skype, we spoke to my parents in the morning (UK Xmas eve) and then in the e...

After heading out to see a rental this morning, we got there and discovered it had been rented out already (a note on the door). It started raining on our way there. We had planned to take the bus & go hiking in a local park but the weather changed those plans. We decided it would be a good time to go hang out in a cafe for awhile. There's a...

The 3hr ferry journey from Picton passed incredibly quickly with the help of a good movie (Blood Diamonds)! Not the lightest of stories, but thought-provoking! Anyway, back to the travels! Arrival at the campsite to find that, unlike our foresty or wilderness sites so far, we were in fact paying for a space in a glorified car park!! Hhhmmm! And ...

After the 3hr ferry journey to Picton in the south island i headed on through Marlborough vineyard. We stoped at the coastal town of Nelson before heading onto Motueka to get supplies on our way to our night stop of Marahau on the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. We stayed for 2 nights, managed to get one hour worth of sunshine so made use...

I left myself 4 unplanned days to get back to Auckland for my flight to Sydney, so I needed to figure something out. During the tour, a bunch of us discussed renting a car on the north island and driving back to Auckland. In the end, there was only one person whose schedule overlapped with mine (Giuseppe, a student from Brazil), so we mapped out...

Hello Guys, We have finally arrived in New Zeland. BIG culture shock after spending so much time in South East Asia. Hope you all have received your wedding invitations, if not let me know... More pictures of India will come soon this week and obviously some pix of New Zealand, it is such a beautifull country. Laetitia

We drove to Wellington, a bit sleepy for a capital, and a bit of a sleazy feel to it, we decided we much preferred Auckland. It was the first time we had stayed right in town for a while so we went out drinking, ended up in Kitty O Shea's Irish bar, enough said and as it was a Sunday night nearly everything was shut when we finished so we satisf...

I got up early today - mainly because I had ordered room service to bring breakfast up at some ungodly hour. Note to self, make that a bit later tomorrow! Anyway, breakfast came and it was good. In fact, it was the best breakfast I had ever had in a hotel - truly massive with a huge variety of foods. Certainly didn't need to eat for the rest of ...