Dear Fans,

Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank fans back at home for your continuing support. It means a lot to us. The 600 odd views of Steve with boobs at Mission Bay, we still can't quite understand, but are happy we provide people with entertainment! Either that or someone really REALLY likes those pictures!

So after Waiheke Island, our 'holiday' on holiday, we took a day to chillax at home and appreciate our 'luxury' accommodation that we've got here (for less than a week now might I add!). After Friday though doing nothing, we didn't wait around and on Saturday decided it was time to go on the ultimate treck...up Mt. Eden. So we woke up early...ish, for us, at about 10! Ben strapped on his MASSIVE walking boots (which we all had much enjoyment from, but we weren't the ones laughing in the end!) which I swear could do more damage than a brick! But anyway, we set off for Mt. Eden. We got off the bus at Mt. Eden Village, not really having a clue where it actually was (you must be thinking you can't really miss a volcano, but seriously, it is possible whatever people might say!) and began walking down the street towards what looked like a pretty big hill in the distance. After deciding that that surely couldn't have been Mt.Eden otherwise we'd be in for a massive disappointment...we turned around, only to see a HUGE volcano in the distance at the OTHER end of the road. So yeah, we all felt a bit stupid but hey at least we make our adventures more interesting! We got to near the bottom of it but decided we needed some fuel, so stopped at a cafe for lunch (and 2 Red Bulls each, BRING ON THE MOUNTAIN!) It being a giant volcano and all, we didn't really know where to start walking up, so thought why not just start walking up as soon as possible. So we headed up a path, which was pretty steep and got fairly high quite quickly but we had Red Bull in the system so we were unstoppable....until the path ended halfway up and there were no more pedestrian walkways or any other pedestrians for that matter! It was quite the noodle scratcher but we thought we came out here to have an adventure so hopped the small fence, and climbed up the grassy side past the cows (who were looking at us and making us feel pretty uncomfortable but also made us wonder...how the hell did they get up there?!). It was VERY steep, but we knew we had Ben's boots so if any of us were to slip, all we had to do was grab a boot and we'd be saved. About 15 minutes later we reached the top...where we met about 5 coach loads of tourists (with their coaches I should add) who all CLEARLY went the right way up Mt. Eden...but we call that the boring way! Where's their sense of adventure (or stupidity?! oh well). We stayed at the top for about half an hour, soaking up the views and also the oxygen as let's be honest, the football proved our fitness levels weren't exactly at their peak so climbing the side of a volcano was a bit of an effort! We then decided to walk down into the crater, so we did although it was a lot further than we thought! After stealing a couple of volcanic rocks, someone suggested walking back up the side up the steepest part of the crater with our new found climbing skills. Once again, we underestimated the steepness and literally had to use the grass to stop ourselves from slipping down! Tom also challenged Ben to the top...of course the man with the boots won! Although they did have to stop a couple of times as did Steve and I, and eventually we all collapsed at the top and waited for a bit to catch our breath! We then thought it was time to move on, so walked back down Mt. Eden, but don't think for a second we took the normal route! Oh no! We decided we'd go back the way we came, safe to say...bad choice. It was pretty slippery even for the almighty boots! But us being the adventurers we are, managed to reach the path again in safety!

At the bottom, we thought we'd try and find One Tree Hill (Ben and I are quite the fan of the TV programme and couldn't believe there was actually a place called One Tree Hill) so we walked back down Mt. Eden Village road, and asked a couple of people in shops if we were headed in the right direction which luckily we were. Unfortunately, we underestimated the distance to One Tree Hill and after an hour and a half walking thought we were lost, but asked another shopkeeper who said we were going in the right direction! So we carried on trecking, and took a turn down a random road, and found ourselves in the middle of a residential area. About to give up we headed a bit further but then found the One Tree Hill domain!!! We then stood around for a bit contemplating if we could be bothered to walk to the top or not...but thought we may as well as we were there! So we trecked on up which didn't take too long. We soaked up the view again at the top, and also praised ourselves as we could see Mt. Eden and how far we'd walked! We're quite the explorers now! We walked all the way around the top, but found no 'One Tree'...we were slightly confused (but found out today it'd been vandalised and taken away in 1999) so that would be why we couldn't find it! But we decided to head home, so walked back down (just realised how many times I've said walked or trecked, hope parents are proud of all this walking!). We caught a bus to the bottom of Symonds Street, and decided we HAD to do a food shop no matter how tired we were. So we walked around Foodtown like four zombies, grunting to each other and throwing stuff into our trolley as we went, and then thought enough is enough, and as our legs were about to fall off we took a bus to the top of Symonds Street with our shopping (which cost 50c, and all along we've been walking this road in the past, even with 120 beers! What chumps!). We then got home, unpacked the shopping, mustered up the energy to shower, and crashed out....it'd been a long and adventurous day but one day people will write stories about the great treck you just wait!

Easter Sunday was our 'laundry day'...we had all run out of clothes and were wearing dirty stuff so thought some stuff needed a wash! As it was Easter Sunday we thought we'd hold up the tradition and did absolutely nothing all day, apart from eat a bar of chocolate each. Least we celebrated and don't worry guys, you can just give us our easter eggs when we get home no hard feelings for not sending them over here :)

Monday the adventure continued of course! And we decided to go to the zoo (me, Steve and Ben as Tom didn't fancy it). After a bit of a mission trying to find the bus that went to the zoo we got there at about 4pm (it closed at 5.30pm!) so if you think you can't get round a zoo in an hour and a half you CAN! The zoo was really good and as none of us had been to one recently, or to memory, we pretty much regressed to children again. So there was the three of us....stood...laughing at a hippo sat in the water for about 15 minutes...we then moved on to the penguins and did exactly the same thing as you can see from a couple of the videos! (by the way, if you get the chance to see penguins, they're the funniest animal in the world...brilliant!) We saw a fair bit of other stuff as well, a female lion! Baboons (which too we found quite funny so just stood laughing at them for quite a while...I really don't see how these gap years make people more mature!)and meercats, elephants, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, rhinos, cheetas and quite a few more which you can see in the pictures! Most the people there were parents with their children, but, as you might be able to tell, we had the best time out of everyone! Now can't wait to go the zoo in Australia!

Today we haven't let the adventure stop either! With such a broad fan base we can't afford to, so we went to Kelly Tarlton's (or Kelly Clarkson's as we like to call it) underwater world. It was good because we blagged student prices by using our gentlemanly charm and good looks on the ticket lady(or we just lied but c'mon we're poor!) To be honest, the main reason we went was to see the sharks and of course, the penguins! But it was pretty good! We saw the shark feed as in a couple of the pictures and then took a snowcat trip around the 'antarctic experience'...where we sat and laughed at penguins again. Apologies for the number of penguin videos but we couldn't get enough of the crazy critters! And probably could've watched them all day!

Tomorrow night's our last night out drinking (starting the evening with the Centurian challenge...we'll let you know the results, some may want to look up what that is, parents may prefer not too!) So expect another blog in a couple of days but give us enough time to recover! Then we've got our last meal, the rugby and packing as we're out of here on March 31st!!! Bring on the real travelling...hostels all the way!

Hope everyone's well and had a good Easter!

Nick (I've been your blog guide for today, lol), Ben, Steve and Tom