So as you all know we are using a bus called 'Kiwi Experience' as our transport around New Zealand. We have a pass called 'The Funky Chicken'. Now if you do this by their rules and stick to the itinerary it will only take 20 days to do the whole trip, we have 2 months in New Zealand. So that is quite a difference! They do however have optional hop offs and if you can actually work out the buses and there is space to get on the next bus then you can jump off a...

It was once again grey and damp on our journey into Taupo. We have been pretty lucky with the weather so far on our trip so it was bound to turn wet at some point, New Zealand is clearly the chosen country. Before we headed into Taupo we stopped off a Huka Falls, a fast flowing river / waterfall. The river itself flows so quickly that 'you' are not allowed to use it for commerical rafting, you can't charge people to go down it. It was impresive to see how qu...

On our way into Rotorua our bus driver warned us that there may be a slight 'whiff' when we got off the bus, slight wasn't any where near strong enough. Due to lots of geothermal activity in Rotorua sulpher is realised into the air, making the majority of the place smell like rotten eggs and in some areas very strong stink bombs. Despite the smell, all the geothermal activity was quite the sight when we were coming into Rotorua. On a grey day with constant d...

A nice 7:30am bus awaited us when we left Hot Water beach and like when we left Auckland we had a couple of planned stop off's on the way to our next over night stop, our first was Karangahake Scenic Reserve. Here we went on a 40 minute walk through the scenic gorge, following a track which crossed over a river on swing bridges and through a dark, railway tunnel (obviously not still in use). It was nice to stretch the legs and a nice bit of scenery before we...

After another very brief stop over in Auckland it was time to head back on the Kiwi Bus and down to the first stop on our 'pass', Hot Water beach. So, after leaving grey Auckland we were about 15 minutes down the road when we arrived at our first sight seeing stop, Mount Eden. Mount Eden is a dormant volcano which looks over the whole of Auckland and the surrounding area. All that is left there now is a grassy crater and 360 degree views. Although the rain h...