Hi Guys! Sorry we havnt written in a while but we have been very busy!!! Hes what you've missed!

So we landed in Aucklanc on the 26th October, and our first quest was getting to my cousin (sarahs) work place. Well it would have been an easy quest if we werent jet lagged and also unable to pronounce the words! (we still cant say it haha) Sarah gave us a few clues on how to find her, she works near the police station so we start to proceed to the police station and a guy next to us says, 'I normally see people with a toothbrush coming this way, but you two look like you're moving in!!' Refering to our backpacks :) Well we found her eventually in the ghetto (a tad intimidating) and then spent 3 days crashing in her pad! Love you sarah and Thanks!!!!!

We then also went to visit some family friends of mine; Mark, sandra and their daughter Becky. Well mark was lovely and took us back to his house for tea and brownies, and we had only been there about half an hour before they had a call to say that there were two stray calves on the road that needed rescuing. So being the good people that we are, Sandra volunteered us to go and help. haha. Once we had driven in the 4 x 4 down, Mark possibly realised that we werent the best to help, so he said to us could we drive the 4 x 4 back to their house. So Sam jumps in the drivers seat, me riding shot gun, (bearing in mind there is also a trailer!!!!!!) we then managed to guide the 4 x 4 + trailer back up to his house (which has the same terrain as wales, very hilly). Well we did it and lived to tell the tale, sam and me are very proud of her driving :)

We woke up the next day to get on the kiwi experience bus, however the night before we had been informed that it is known as the 'Chlamydia Bus' so needless to say we were jumping for joy after that! hahaha. We first stopped off at Hot water beach (Whitiangu) and checked into a pretty impressive lodge and met our new roomies (and we still cant get rid of them now were in wellington) so we headed to the beach with our aim to create our bath in the sand! So there was 6 of us and one shovel (geniuses!) and then more people from the bus were next to us so we decided to team up there was now 16 of us and 2 shovels. We managed to get some more shovels and eventually got a mini bath full of cold water, great! So the boys had to dig a tunnel of the hot water to allow it to fill our giant bath! Quote of the day; Sam; 'Can you hurry up and turn the hot tap back on please!!' hahaha.

The next stop was waitomo caves, it was a brilliant activity (black water rafting) but extremely cold! Our guide was a but of a joker, and took great pleasure in winding us up, for example; he made us all turn off our torches and we sat in the dark, he then tried to give us directions such as, 'Be careful of this here guys, try and do this until you're out of the way' so we laughed (it was cool seeing all the glow worms though and we probably wouldnt have made it out without their help!) That evening Me and some of our roomies made a lovely pasta dish (the only thing i can cook so far) im very proud of myself :).

The next stop was Rotorua (eggy town) that evening (halloween) we went to a Traditional Maori Evening at a traditional maori village. SO the guy picked us up from the hostel and started teaching us some maori words while we were travelling. He said "Can you say mawi tuka?" which we did, and then he said "and on the left you will see mawi tuka." Which was...Mcdonalds! hahaha. It was a brilliant evening filled with smoky food (cooked traditionally underground), dancing and dodgy singing. However the highlight of the night was the trip back to base rotorua which involved driving round a roundabaout 5 times singing 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes...' Crazy driver!

So after a few days in Lake taupo (including a crazy night out for maxines birthday) we travelled to River Valley. We didnt really know what to expect as we were told that we were staying in the middle of nowhere in a giant bed! Well when we got there we realised that they were actually 4 bunk beds that you could fit four people on each. So we shared a room with 32 people. We slept with 32 people in one night! hahahaha. We were soooooo excited for the best part of being there...we got a sunday roast!!!!! And it was well worth the $15! Next morning, Sam went white water rafting which she says was amazing!!! (she was very proud of jumping off an 8m high rock!) I went to yoga with a couple of other girls. We liked it there so much that we ended up staying for 3 nights!

We then arrived here (Wellington) yesterday afternoon! So more stories about our adventures to come!

Love Sian and Sam x