Next stop was Rotorua, only a short half hour drive north of Taupo. Rotorua is an extremely geothermal place with hot water streams and geysers all over town, so consequently there is a lingering smell of eggy farts in the air everywhere you go due to the amount of sulfur being produced. We'd booked on a Mauri cultural tour and Hangi meal for that night, Hangi is the traditional Mauri way of cooking food in the ground. So we got picked up at 5pm and got taken...

In the morning we had a quick look at the bungee jump and the 1km long zip line they had set up, despite the staff's best efforts to get us to do a jump we declined as we had something MUCH bigger waiting for us in Taupo. To get to Taupo we had to go via the desert highway. I never imagined New Zealand to have a desert but it does. Its not your typical sandy desert, instead its a barren volcanic plane where hardly anything lives. The road cuts though it pass...

The next day before heading off to catch the ferry we called in on Eddie and his friends who were all as hungry as the day before, they even tried to eat my shoe! It was our last day in the south island and a beautiful day it was. The ferry ride through the Marlborough sounds was very charm and peaceful. That is until we came to the Cook straight where it became rather choppy with large swells. We both felt a little ill but managed to talk to a guy at the infor...

The whole reason for coming to the Marlborough region is to go wine tasting, so in the morning we drove to Spring Creek where we would be staying the night and the tour was picking us up from. As the name suggests the camp site is situated next to Spring creek which is a of home the long finned eel. They are the largest freshwater eels in the world and can live to be over 100 year old, at the end of their lives they swim to Tonga to spawn then die and the young e...

We woke up to blue skys for a change, had a shower, sorted the camper out and set off to Picton. I had found us what looked like a short cut on the map, actually driving it was a different matter! Charlotte Drive was the steepest, windiest road we've been on yet, so much so we had to pull over for a while because it was making Mel feel ill. Its no wonder its not the main road any more. We actually wanted to get to Blenheim so we could do some wine tasting ...