Firstly, yes I know my spelling was bad- the last computer I used had buttons in all the wrong places.

We have begun our Kiwi experience- yay! We discovered pretty quickly on the first leg of the bus trip that we werent allowed to do the route we'd wanted, unless we paid more, so new plan- we have rushed it up to Aukland and are going to work our way down the north island and then do south, then fly back up to Aukland to catch our next 2 flights... how I love a good bit up of unecessary travelling :)

I'm going to rush this a bit as quite franly it's just been one of those days and I need a drink!

So far, we've gone from Christchurch to Kaikora, which was pretty- we did a nice bit of seal spotting on the way- loads of them all over the rocks on the shore, having a bit of a sunbathe and being qattacked by birds! We had a pretty quiet evening at 'The Lazy Shag' (our hostel) and met a few people- mostly, though, so far we dont seem to have a bus of people who are all going the same way as us- its pretty much been mostly new people everyday. The next day we did Kaikora to Picton (a tiny town where everyone seemed to be scottish). We booked a plane ticket in the back of a shop in the half our we had to wait for our ferry, while some guy with a massive backpack knocked over a huge display of key rings or something, scattering them all over the shop... good move, haha- that is why you check your bags in before exploring...

The ferry was reasonably uneventful, but made more interesting by a bit of whale spotting (we took so long to find the thing that by the time we saw it, it was quite far away and just saw its back and a puff of water, but still, it was a whale!) and company from Mike, Simon and Cat. This ferry was definately a little more 1st world than the Fijian one, though I still am not sure why half the seats had no seats?!

We got straight onto another bus which took us into Wellington, just as the free museum that everyone told us to go to closed, so instead, the 6 of us just pottered about, found the beehive (and failed massively to take photos with people and beehive, though top marks to Nicole and Cat for jumping up and down in the road between traffic, risking their lives for the sake of a pretty pants picture! :) Wellington is nice, it seemed pretty chilled out and just a nice place to wander about of an evening. We spotted some people (maybe firemen?) attempting to do some sort of drill which involved moving a very big ladder or something in a very small space... they didnt do so well, which I think is nothing to do with us basically stood in their way laughing... We found a very very exciting kids playground and proceeded to set a trend (seriously, other grown adult people copied us after!) by trialling the bit spacerocket-like slide and getting stuck in the swings... We tried out the see-saw too (one of those things on a big spring- Nocole went up, I went down, she screamed and leaven forawrds, I thought she was about to fall on me, let go and fell on my back, flinging her off in the other direction. Fun times :)

Day 3 involved another long bus ride to Taupo, through 'desert road' and past the volcano that was Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings (ironically it has a heart shape in the side... not so scary from where we were stood). It was perrty much at the point where the road disappeared in a straight line in both directions, when our bus gave up the ghost and decided not to play- maybe it hadn't spotted Doom's heart? So we had a fun hour or 2 killing time with a bit of squished card playing and being picked up by the naked bus (all passengers appeared to be clothed...maybe they didnt read the sign?), dropped off in some random place and then picked up straight after by our bus driver with our revived bus- he literally must have been about 10 seconds behind us... all that lugging bags about repeatedly was so worthwhile. We made it to Taupo at about 3, so had enough time to walk to the natural hot springs, which were pretty cool- scalding hot waterfalls that fell into pools and swriled with very cold water from the lake... pretty cool. Not so good when I realised I'd arrived in my only pair of travelling jeans, smelt like a pond and had my one and only towel with me that I did not fancy drying myself with and then using after a shower later... I settled for a bit of very public changing behind a towel that Laura very kindly held up for me. I think the people living on the top of the hill may have got a little more of a view than they had expected, but needs must! Backpacking and dignity do not belong together!

We had a bit of a late night with some of the people from our bus, painting Base bar red, which was very good fun, I nearly lost my arm a few times as one of the fellow Kiwi Ex passengers practised some probably made up version of ballroom dancing on me... strange! I think they are all nearly done with their trip so it'll be new people again now. Spent a good hour or so giggling as Nicole attempted to stop a couple rocking her to sleep on the bottom of her bunk, by shining a light around and laughing. Pretty entertaining!

On our way to Aukland, we stopped at some hot mud pools which stank (not good with only a few hours sleep and a hangover... at least I am testing those travel sickness pills properly- big thumbs up so far!) but bubbled and steamed away pretty impressively! Mike somehow slept right though that bit and none of us were alert enough to realise... I guess he'll have to settle for looking at our photos! woops!

When we got to our hostel today, we were told that they didnt have enough beds for everyone, so us 3 opted for sharing a double, which actually worked out pretty well as we only had to pay for 2 people (very handy when the rugby makes the prices of the cheapest hostels more than double!!!); we habve a private room and an en suite; and they gave us free breakfast and drinks tokens for the 'inconvenience'... well I won't say no to that. Planning our Kiwi stops has caused us to instantly go grey and then pull most of our hair out, but its all gravy- nothing that can't be solved by a nice 7am pick up... ;-S