hello chums!! i know we havnt wirtten a blog in a while (and we are very sorry about that- seems some you have had to do revision instead?? we had no idea things had got so bad). But we are back!!

landed in sydney today and its so cool, nice to be in a city but of course it has been 3 weeks since last update so i will talk you through the rest (prepare yourslef... this may be LONG!!)

ok... from rotorua we headed to auckland HUGE city in the north of kiwiland, about a 1/3 of the WHOLE population live there so that gives you an idea of its scale. Quite different to the little towns we were used to an im not gonna lie... we werent to impressed.... although i (jess) got my fix of sushi and shopping and so i warmed to it (god how cheesy do i sound??). In auckland we bumped into ruth a mate from home which was nice but short lived as she was flying out to fiji the next day. That night we went out for dinner with the kiwi family (as we sadly had to break up the next day) all very nice and civilised! but it all went downhill from there as we ended up in margaritas bar, bumped into the candians we'd met in queenstown and ended up drinking/ lame dancing/ photo taking and pool playing the night away.

Me and laura were the last ones to bed in the wee hours... MISTAKE as we had to catch a very early bus (with the others) to pahia where charlotte and chris and rob were having a day trip and isabelle would be spending a couple of days with us before they all headed off the destinations unkown... ish.

Me, laura, char and isabelle stayed at the YHA which wasnt exactly party central but was very cute, owned by a very nice french guy and we got a mini chalet thing to oursleves. we opted out of stayin at the renound phi phi patch as it apparently lived up to its name... so the kiwi family and rob all had lunch and then we left the others to go on a boat ride (which we avoided due to hangovers and laura's acute hate of the sea). we basically faffed about in pahia (and there are worse things to do!!) its a really pretty seaside town. Then we met the others off thier boat and had a bit of an emotional goodbye to chris and charlotte (yup there were tears guys... at least on jess and laura's part).

after this emotional turmoil we all cooked fajitas (yummy) and watched power of one? slightly random and headed off to bed where there was a slight drama with a cockroach that involved me opening her eyes to one 2 inches from here face, jumping out of bed and pushing isabelle in the path of danger. i then spent the next hour searching the room and making laura check all my bed sheets for more buggies.... little did i know there would be bigger and badder things to come in fiji.....

anywho, the next day we went on a day trip to cape reigna (top of nz) on the BRIGHT YELLOW awesome adventures bus.... the journey took a while and as usual we zonked out and i woke up to find laura half way down her chair, bum off the edge and isablle occupying four seats withe her legs across the isle.. funny stuff. Our first stop was the puketi kauri forest home to the kauri trees which are HUGE silver monstrosities. the moari use these trees to make their wakas (boats). We then headed up to the top of the cape where the tasman sea and the pacific ocean meet and a place of spirital siginificane for the maori as they belive that the tree on the penisula is the last place your soul meets before it enters the spirit world.

After lots of photo taking we headed off to a tapotupotu beach for lunch where some boys braved the sea and we all got wet arses from sitting on the sand... not impressed, all looking like we had pissed ourslves we jumped back on board to drive down the 90 mile beach (which is actually only 64 miles), the bus was driving on the surf and sand and along the way we saw the skeletons of cars that had attempted the same and got stuck and basically had to be left there... after about a week of sea damage all that was left was the wheel and some random pieces of metal.

after this we went sandboarding - a huge mission to climb up the dune and not necesarily worth it as your life flashes before your eyes and you end up with mouth, ear, nose, eyes, bra FULL of sand. Isabelle the speed freak loved it though. On the way back we stopped off at Mangouri for "fush n chups". When we got back we had dinner (nachos for like the fourth time), and watched american beauty and had an early night after the adventure of the day.

the next day me, laura and isabelle hired bikes and went on a very gruelling bike ride to haruru water falls which were very pretty. The bike ride back was slightly scary as i had a sneezing fit and swear to god it was a near death experinence. That day isablle left us and it was very sad again. and then we were 3. the next day we had a final wonder round pahia, bought some trinkets, sorted out some fiji stuff and the (reluctantly) headed back to auckland. So we were back in auckland (at the dreaded base hostel- up there with the bad of bad hostels!), this time we were in a 4 bed, which is good, but it was destroyed by the fact that it had no window.... or it did but it overlooked the corridor.....no natural light for us..... this lead to us waking up late, thinking it was the wee hours of the morn and getting very spun out!

When we were settled we headed off to the trusty food court for some cheap eats and on the way back bumped into the noisy boys from kaikoura (who we now consider to be nice). that night we headed downstairs to the globe bar for some drinks and lots of pool playing, i feel we will be masters by the time of our return (even char!).

The next day me and laura left char in bed and went SHOPPING! although it did not prove to be as fruitful as i had hoped it was still fun. we then bumped into the boys again and spent the next few days milling around with them. Auckland was basically spent preparing for fiji, we just wanted to go!! we watched the boys in a pool comp. marc won free drinks which he kindly extended to us. We went up the sky tower at night which had AMAZING views and we all sat there getting very romantic and contemplating life! PHEW, ok a guy stuart we met travelling has just turned up here so im gonna end it there!! but there will be more to come very soon! love love xxx