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Since the first day of arriving in Auckland we have been quite busy, doing both site seeing and preparing to go off on the camping trip to the south Island. We are staying with Nikki and Bruce and their two children Beth and Jonny. Michele worked with Nikki in a school in North london in the early nineties and have remained great friends ever since. For new year we went to some friends of Nikki and Bruce's and joined in with their celebrations, seeing the new year in with the children at about 10pm which worked really well. Our's loved it and danced their way into 2008. We were up early on the 1st to start our journey South. Our van was developing a few mechanical issues and I was starting to understand why it was a really cheap rental! It made a series of very weird sounds which apparently related to the cooling system having airblocks in besides very little water! Obviously my superior mechanical knowledge prevailed....and I ran straight back to the rental place for help! The mechanic proceeded to put about 5 litres of liquid in the van and reassured me it would be OK and I could swap the van in Wellington if it continued overheating - sounded ominous eh?
Well we made it to the half way point to Wellington where we had booked a campsite with incresingly stunning scenery. Tongariro National Park is dominated by Volcanoes, main one being an active one called Mt Ruapehu. It has year round snow on it and in the last ten years (you Geographers will know the correct name) had an eruption where the lake in the crater collapsed and the water gets flushed down the mountain through cracks. Fortunatley it has always happened at night and the skiers on the slopes during the day just escaped! Our campsite was lovely with a well equipped kitchen and playground for the children.
Our journey the next day down to Wellington was fairly smooth except for the van overheating. By the time we got there the noises were scary so we went to the rental place and negotiated to swap the van except for the replacement was a people carrier and we could only get another Bongo van in the South Island! After swapping all our kit we headed off to stay with some friends Andy and Jen. Andy is the brother of one of my best friends (Rob Bowley) from Uni and has settled in NZ with his lovely wife, three dogs, three horses and a donkey. Well Rosie, connie, Ilsa and Meg had a ball playing with the dogs and helping with the horses and we were looked after really well. Andy and Jen live in the hills outside Wellington with stunnig views and a beautiful house. It was great to have such creature comforts before we have three weeks in the van.
We are now on the ferry crossing to the South Island watching a chidren's entertainer - kids are loving it. The ferries they use for the crossing are ex cross channel ferries - ours has 'Pride of Cherbourg' painted over on the side of it! Not sure whether that is reassuring or not that it has survived the English channel for many years or on its last legs.
Hope you all had a great new year's eve and good luck for 2008.
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