We stopped at a cool freesite on Porangahau Beach. The beach had lovely golden sand and went on for miles. We got in the sea for a surf in the morning, the waves weren't great so James spent most of the time trying to teach me how to stand up on my board . . . Not very successfully but fun all the same! We drove on inland to Holdsworth DOC campsite on the Tararua Range. It was a big site by the river. We found a lovely spot and spent the evening chilling out by ...

We camped overnight in the car park on the edge of the Ruahine Range that led up to the Sunrise Hut. It was a rainy and windy night but we were greeted by clear skies which was perfect as we worked out that we could do a good day loop tramp up to the Sunrise Hut and then down the river back. The climb up was steep but we were greeted by amazing views as we came out the bush to the hut. There was snow on the hills!! The wind was suddenly freezing! The hut was awes...

We stopped off on our way into Napier at a fishmongers suggested to a lovely couple that we met in the bay of islands. We bought some really tasty snapper. Unfortunately the weather was pretty rainy that afternoon and we didn't want to see Napiers Art Deco buildings in the rain so . . . Debs remembered that Breaking Dawn 2 had just come out in the cinema (Lucky Debs . . . not so lucky James!!)! Another couple (Rhys and Tara) that we met at lake Waikaremoana sugge...

On our way to Taupo we bought up a vague conversation that we have had a couple of times that Taupo is the best place to do a skydive, they are the cheapest . . . Have been doing it the longest and it has a pretty awesome view. James has already done a skydive in the UK and is budgeting his big spends for hiring bikes and steaming it down tracks. I however have not done one, we (James) decided to head straight for the Tandem Skydiving Centre to 'enquire' . . . n...

Our next stop was Rotorua. It was great driving towards the Lake and seeing the steam rising from the ground (due to all the geothermal activity) the smell was really strong too at first! The steam smells like gone off egg sandwiches, but it was funny how quickly we got used to it! We stayed at a funny little holiday camp called Cosy Cottages which was pretty cool, it had under ground geothermal heating for tents, an outdoor steam hangi oven and some hot mineral ...