We went on a Dolphin watch ecotour last Friday with a friend of ours. It was fabulous! I had worn shorts and just shaved my legs that morning, and with the sea as rough as it was, the salt spray stung so much! But it was so worth it. We saw about 100 dolphins in the end, some just swam by, but one pod in particular played round the boat for a good 10 minutes. One dusky fancied itself as a racer and raced the boat when we left to move on again. We saw a couple of ...

We are now officially living in the Malborough Sounds for the Summer season! Having been working at the Portage Resort for just over 6 weeks we realise just how much we have fallen on our feet here! Pete and I work no more than 50 hours a week and both get two days off together. We have made friends with some of the locals who have lived out here for years, and we are really enjoying the rural life. A couple of weeks ago we bought a car which we use to ...

We drove from Picton around the Malborough Sounds. We have been offered Summer jobs in a resort up there. Its about 30kms away from Picton - the nearest town, but it takes around 2 hours to drive up there. The roads are so twisty & winding & quite hairy at times in a campervan. The quickest way to get to the resort we found out was by watertaxi - so we start on Monday 14th. Need to top up the funds a bit. Its only part time to start with, then in Octobe...

Drove onto Porirua the next day which is a small town just a few km's north of Wellington. Had lunch there & braved walking down into the town. The wind was so strong & the rain was lashing about like nothing else. Both togged up again, we must have looked like a right pair! In all fairness, Porirua was rubbish. We decided not to spend any time in Wellington as the weather was far too bad. So instead booked a ferry crossing on the Cook Straight to Sou...

Stopped at Green & Blue lakes on way to Rotarua - went to viewing platform - then to the blue lake for lunch. It was a lovely day inbetween very wet & windy days. Parked up at the Rotarua Thermal Holiday Park and walked down to the Te Wakarewarewa Thermal Village. There we saw two geysers - the one in the picture - boiling mud pools, natural thermal pools, a maori carving school & another nocturnal kiwi house which Pete had to drag me away from in the end....