Hi Guys, we have finally made it to New Zealand! We left Sydney in a fair hurry on Thursday, having finally sold the car. Unfortunaltely we were in so much of a hurry we didnt buy any return tickets, which are required to prove that we werent going to try and stay in New Zealand forever (apparently), so cue my sprinting around terminal one desperately trying to buy cheap return tickets, not a great start!! We landed in Auckland 3 hrs later with relatively few hiccups (apart from customs - ryan must just have a dodgy face!), and a screaming child on the plane, much fun.

Auckland is pretty cool - explored the pretty harbour area on Thurs night, before settling into an irish bar for some well-needed alcoholic sustenance. Friday saw us going across the harbour to climb up the volcanoe on Rangitoto island - great fun hiking up impossibly tall hills next to lava flows (yes, they were cold!). The view from the top, once we finally got there having questioned our own sanity several times) was extremely worth it, looking out across the bay and to auckland itself, all ver green with distant cloud-shrouded mountains!!

We spent Sat and Sun up in the Bay of Islands. We travelled with Kiwi Experience which was a lot of fun, and met some cool people in our hostel Pipi Patch in Pahia. After an afternoon and evening exploring the little town and having a few drinks, we spent sunday on a highspeed baot trip around the islands, before being dropped off at Otehi bay to spend a few hours exploring a paradise island. It was really beautiful, rolling green hills (think hobbiton!) and secluded bays where we sat and ate our picnic (mum you would be proud!). The scenery is absoultely amazing - the bay is peppered with small islands teeming ith fish and dolphins (we didnt see any, but they insist they are there!), and distant mountains make the whole place look virtually uninhabited, except for the sheep, of course! We were sad to leave the bay yesterday, but the kiwi bus faithfully took us back to auckland, and during the trip we watched whale rider (until the dvd gave up, extremely irritating!!). Today we pick up our camper, and head south for further lord of the rings based adventures and hopefully a skydive...for me anyway...!!