As we only had a double duvet, which Bob rightly claimed, I was adamant that I would be plenty warm enough under the small blanket which I had 'borrowed' from Air New Zealand. I was wrong, which resulted in a midnight stumble around the room to find warm things but otherwise it was a blissful night out of the enema. The 22km of toil the day before lead to a leisurely start and Bob's shin induced a certain amount of hopping and cursing whilst I inspected the air ...

After a mosquito filled night, the 5:45am alarm was particularly un-welcome. My mood was not improved when, having spent several hours drafting, tweaking and being thoroughly pleased with yesterday's blog entry, I managed to delete it as I closed the app down... In a silent rage I rewrote what I could remember, finally finishing around 130... We crept around the campsite in the half light of the chilly early morning getting our things together before setting off ...

Our nights sleep in the free-camping car park was hampered by several things, the raucous wedding party in the yacht club, the Alcatraz style search lamp which shone straight through the rear windscreen of the camper and the knowledge that the next day I was throwing myself out of a plane at 15,000 feet. Never the less I very much enjoyed my 8km run along the sleepy lakeside the next morning, before returning to freshen up in the facilities (the lake) and put th...

Our first 'lazy' start was a bit of novelty but soon the rafting guide arrived to increase the adrenaline levels! After Bob had stopped ogling the well built, tanned, cool, witty, charismatic, on trend raft guide (who also happened to be in a long and stable relationship with a Swedish medical student) we arrived at the rafting depot. A nervous disquiet surrounded the amassing group from whom our raft crew would be selected. It was fair to say that most of them ...

A surprisingly un-grumpy morning was made significantly better by an excellent nights sleep, not hitting my head on the ceiling of the bedroom and finding my missing sock in the laundry. The morning news updated us on all the issues which mattered to New Zealanders, primarily rugby, cricket, the failure of Australian politics, the Volvo Ocean race and concerns over fruit flies at a local vegetable growing contest before a cursory mention of a double homicide in W...