Ooops, we've moved on a little bit!! We're not in Mexico anymore and a whole month has passed since we wrote anything...time flies when you're travelling around the world :) We did try to keep the photos coming though!

We're now in New Zealand and have nearly reached the 4 month mark since leaving home. The past month has been more than amazing and probably the main reason why we haven't got round to writing (that and really expensive internet combined with our rapidly shrinking budget hehe).

After leaving Mexico we spent a few days in Los Angeles...for us this was moving from one extreme to another...poor to rich, cheap to expensive, hot to not so hot, under developed to the rich and greedy!! But anyway we were lucky enough to meet some locals who offered to show us around the city for free and we actually had a really fun time and saw so much in just a few days from Holleywood boulevard to Sunset Strip, Malibu beach, Venice beach, Muscle beach...it was so much fun.

Next came Rarotonga and we think the pictures speak for themselves. It was absolutely beautiful and we really were in paradise for a week. We stayed only a few metres from the beach and met a group or other backpackers (there wasn't many of us on the island) and spent our days at the beach, snorkelling, riding round the island (you can do a whole tour in 40 minutes) and even managed to do a cross island trek!! In fact that was probably the hardest part of the week finding our way through the overgrown jungle with no map and barely a path to follow, and we only managed to get lost once when Nikki took an involuntary dive into the river (but that's another story)...the rest was just paradise :)

So now we're in New Zealand and we've spent the last two weeks out of the sun, in fact our tans seem to be disappearing by the minute and we've got so many layers on there's no chance that any slight ray of sunshine may touch our skin but the amazing scenery makes up for that. This is probably the most beautiful place we've been, neither of us have ever said 'Wow' so many times in our lives, it's just incredible!! We spent a few days in Auckland with Nikki's aunty where we were properly looked after and ate real food for the first time in weeks, it was lovely :) After a few days the real adventure started and we hired our very own SPACESHIP!!! Hahaha (wait for the pics). We cook on the roadside and have to make our tea in a saucepan but it's all part of the fun :)

First we travelled north to the very north tip of the North Island, Cape Reinga and since then we've been on our way south stopping off at the Bay Islands, Rotorua (very smelly - anyine who's been there will know), Lake Taupo, Tongariro and Wellington before crossing to the South Island.Since arriving in the South Island we've been even more surprised at the stunning scenery, it's so incredible. In Kaikoura we saw seal colonies and even looked out for whales but weren't so lucky. We did have a fair few excited false alarms though every time we saw a rock that looked remotely like a whale :D This island is more than amazing and we can't begin to describe so you'll have to wait for the pics at the wekkend but for now we have to get on back to our spaceship.

Hope you're all well, we definitely are and just incase you're concerned swine flu isn't following us around the world!! We're pretty confined in our ship haha. Keep checking for the pics and see you all soon. Nikki and Maria xxx