Hi All - time to update you!

Our trip on the Annaconda III on the Whitsundays was fantastic once we got over the shock that we had to share with a French/Canadian couple - we were supposed to have a cabin to ourselves but they messed up. The weather had been v wet up to the day we went but miraculously brightened up for us and we had the best 3 days of sunshine with not much wind which meant no sailing but lots of diving! We did 4 dives which were all amazing - saw small reef sharks, turtles, eagle, sting and manta rays, and countless fish. I have to say though that although it was really good and the coral was amazing it was just as good in Bali and other places I have dived in the world. They told us to make sure we washed off our sun screen cos the magnesium in the cream is distroying the reef. I think they should control how many dive the reef each day as I would rather have done 1 dive in the interests of saving the reef for generations to come! We met lots of cool people on the boat - even a Canadian couple who had had the maple leaf tatooed on their bodies :0). We all met up for a night on the town on the last night we arrived back in Airlie beach.

After the boat trip we headed up North towards Cairns and stayed in a few places - Mission Beach and somewhere else. We were pretty restricted in what we could do as it rained pretty much every day from Airlie to the day we left Oz - it's the tropical North!

Cairns was quite cool and we had another good night out there after eating Japanese (again - its now officially our favourate food). We also did a day trip up to Karunda national park on a choo-choo train and saw a butterfly, bird and kaola park. We also managed to buy some aboriginal art where most of the profits go back to the artists so that was cool.

We left Oz 3 days ahead of schedule as we were bored of the rain and eagre to get to N Zealand. In Auckland we checked into a tiny room at a Backpackers hostel - again we decided that it's just as cheap to get apartments or B&B's where you get much better value for money. Backpackers are only cheap if you are happy to go into a dorm! We found a really nice indian/oriental restuarant called Monsoon Poon by chance and had a fantastic veggie meal there. The next day we went on a ferry from the centre of Auckland over to Devonport which is a suburban area that has 2 (extinct) volcanoes and a beach so we had a nice walk around there before heading back to the city centre. That eve we found a good bistro on the waterfront which had a hostess who was so snooty we decided to order 2 bottles of good wine, ate the most expensive thing off the menu and complained when she gave us a crap table. Needless to say we ended up quite tipsy and despite it being a Monday night (although it was some kind of public holiday) we managed to find a club and several drinking establishments that stayed open late whilst collecting a motley crew of Brazilian and Melbournian girls and boys on the way - Welsh girls are popular abroad!

Driving up from Auckland we headed right up the Northland to a place called Bay of Islands which was absolutely stunning with gorgeous waterways, wild flowers, and ferns and palms all over. We spent 2 nights there before scooting south again to stay by some springs which ended up being a large swimming pool but at least had cabins in the middle of no where so that in the evening you could see the milky way.

We visited Waitanga Caves which had lots of stalignites and stalactites and glow worms on our way to  a small town called Rotorua which smells of eggs due to hot sulpur springs.  We went to a cultural show which involved lots of nearly naked maori men doing various dances and songs including the traditional Haka - I can tell you that the Kiwi rugby club don't have a patch on these guys (and neither did the Killer Whales doing it to 'Humpty Dumpty' - staff uni days for those who don't know).  We think there were some women in the show too but we didn't really notice them!

As we have decided to spend most most of our time on the South island as we hear it's more beautiful we have been spending one night only in most places on the North Island (except in Auckland and Wellington).  We are now in Wellington for 2 nights and are catching the ferry to the South island on the 14th. 

We plan to spend three days getting down to Queenstown to meet up with Gwynnie and Mike and spend some time with them - now a married couple!!!!

Lots of love to all - keep the emails coming!
Nes and Rhi