After 5 weeks in New Zealand we have finally left and arrived in Fiji and our last week was certainly very eventful! My last blog finished just before we were due to get the Tranzalpine on Wednesday 8th so I will start this one from then.

We were up far too early, again, and drove to the train station in the freezing cold and rain - not a good start! This was probably one of the coldest days we've had since we've been away and as we have both sent all our warm clothes home (protecting all the booze we've bought and sent home) we were wearing as many layers as possible and ended up looking like massive heffers underneath our rain jackets! The journey itself was around 4 hours from Christchurch (East Coast) to Greymouth (West Coast) and went through the Arthur's Pass National Park which goes through Mount Arthur. Some of the scenery was truly spectacular with snow capped mountains, viaducts, and forests and lakes which made the journey seem really quick. The viewing deck of the train also made the views seem even more spectacular and in no time we had reached Greymouth. As this was a day trip we were due to get the same train back and so had around 45 mins to walk around. Overall, it was a lovely day out as we both love trains and it was a quick and enjoyable way to see what we saw, but the train could have been a bit more special and old fashioned to make it a cuter experience and if the weather had been slightly better we would have seen more and got better photos. However, we had a great time.

The following day we left Christchurch and headed to Picton to arrange our ferry trip back to the North Island. We passed through some really lovely towns, the pick of which was Kaikoura and then did a quick drive on yet another unbelievably scenic route called the Queen Charlotte drive. I was far more impressed with this than Kav but probably because it reminded me so much of Cornwall and it was stunning. As we were short on time we just stopped in Picton for the night before catching the ferry to Wellington very early, again, on Friday (Good Friday). By the time we had reached Wellington it was around 11am and as we were heading north to Turanga we got caught in some Easter traffic jams. Seeing as this has been the first time in 4 months that this has happened to us we were very calm and just sat in it until it passed!

The reason we were in Turanga was that Kav had planned to tackle the Tongrariro Alpine crossing on Easter Saturday. This is a very difficult 19.5 km day walk through just about every terrain that you could imagine and in parts you climb to almost 2,000 meters. For those of you who have watched Lord of the Rings it's 'Mount Doom' and so consists of 3 active volcanoes. I, apparently wisely, declined doing the walk (for reasons I shall explain later) and so dropped Kav off at the start of the track at 8.30am. We thought we would get there early to avoid the crowds, but when we got there it resembled Piccadilly Circus at rush hour! It's a very famous walk and apparently the whole of New Zealand wanted to tackle it this Easter! After I dropped him off I went back to our hostel to do the wifely chores of laundry, shopping and tidying our room! I had decided not to do the walk because while I've enjoyed all the other hikes and walks we've been doing I've been having trouble with my groin joints and after around 3 or 4 hours get awful pains every time I make a step, and seeing as once you've started the Transalpine you can't go back or stop I decided it would be a better decision not to do it. Plus I'm not sure if I'm quite fit enough for that yet so I settled with just seeing photos!

Just in case you are interested in what it was like I've copied an extract from Kav's blog for you - "The first climb was a steep set of stairs with at least 1,000 steps. I got to the top and thought the hardest part was over, then I looked up and there was an even steeper climb coming up, but I powered through thinking that must be it. When I got to the top it was a giant crater and the view was amazing. The whole place was covered with snow but the sun was shining and so it was actually quite hot, and beautiful, and the flat walk across the crater was a relief on the legs, but it wasn't to last long as there was another even steeper climb coming up. By this point the climb was almost completely vertical and the snow and ice made it quite dangerous. Steadily I made my way to the top and was rewarded with the most amazing sensation of triumph. Standing at 2,000 meters really makes you feel on top of the world and I felt so proud that I had reached the top. And when I looked in one direction and noticed the most beautiful trio of thermal pools, I knew that all the hard work was worth it. So I continued the walk and headed down towards the thermal pools which again was an experience. The climb up was on snow and ice and the climb down was on dirt and again was such a steep decline that you could sit and just slide down! I reached the pools and had a quick snack and continued towards the Blue Lake. The lake was a gorgeous clear lake that was completely still and so it was the perfect place to have some lunch and think about the fact that I still had half of the walk left. After 6 hours, 19.5 km, about 5 blisters, a sore left knee, pulled groin and hamstring and a thumping headache I reached the end line. It was an awesome adventure, probably one of the highlights of my trip so far and something that I will never forget and definitely worth all the pain and blisters." So there you go, still very glad I didn't go!!

Needless to say that Kav was very sore on Sunday and so I drove us to Waitomo - famous for the beautiful glowworm caves - and we just spent the day lazing around our hostel. Kav had booked to go on a caving adventure on Monday so was resting his aching limbs. Again, I decided not to do the caving adventure because I'm afraid of tight spaces and caving in general and you get very wet too and I have a very weird but incredibly serious phobia of being wet and especially being around other wet people. By the time Monday arrived Kav was still really sore, but bit the bullet and went on his caving adventure. This involved him having to first abseil down 27 meters to the entrance of the cave. From there they went on a 1 hour walk in water to see the glow worms which apparently was pretty amazing. From the glowworm caves they made their way through some tiny gaps and holes (I think the buddha belly just about made it through!) to an underground river for some black water rafting. This basically involves getting in a rubber ring and letting the river take you down a pitch black cave. When Kav told me this story I nearly keeled over! Someone had mistakingly taken his designated rubber ring (the larger size one) and so he had been left with a smaller one and was having huge trouble fitting his bottom into it but didn't know why! Apparently it was like trying to fit an elephant into a polo mint! He spent about 5 minutes jumping on the ring and flipping into the water before the tour guide who was bursting with laughter realised and gave him the bigger ring, poor love. After a few hours of walking/climbing/swimming in the caves the tour ended with a 27 meter rock climb back to the top.

I had a lovely day myself actually and this time I wasn't stuck with laundry and cleaning! I took myself off to see some Angorra Rabbit Shearing! Yes, they shear rabbits in New Zealand as well as sheep! First I took a quick walk around the pen to take a look at the rabbits which incidently are enormous even without their hair, and have adorable little faces. Then I went inside to see the daily shearing demonstration, and this isn't for the faint hearted! They put these poor little things onto what can only be described as racks. I'm not kidding, their back paws have rope tied around each one, and then their front ones and then the ropes are pulled until the rabbit it totally stretched out. I've got it all on video and the gasp from the audience is amazing, but amazingly the rabbits don't struggle and really dont mind it at all, and in fact they are put into these racks as young as 3 months old to get them used to it and they are sheared 3 times a year so you don't feel so guilty watching after you know that. The reason they need to be pulled tight it to make sure the skin doesn't have any slack in it otherwise the shaver would cut their skin. It's amazing how much fur you can get off on one rabbit, and then we watched a lady make wool out of it which was really quite interesting. Basically they they use a foot pedalled weaving machine and hold a clump of fur in their left hand and a reel of cotton in their right hand and while the machine takes in the cotton through the clump of fur it twists the cotton to wrap the fur around it to make angorra wool balls. Simple really!

After our activities we both then went on a less tough glowworm experience which was a guided talk and walk down though a massive cave which then had a 10 minutes boat ride at the end where I got to see some glowworms in the dark too. It really is stunning and give jaw dropping and I'm thrilled I got to see them too.

And so on Tuesday we left Waitomo and on the way to Auckland stopped at Rainbows End (a theme park) for the day. As you have probably guessed by now we are both huge theme park fans and are planning to do all the big ones in the USA and so had a lot of fun spending the day there.

We arrived in Auckland on Wednesday and after giving our little car back spent the day walking around the city and on Thursday we took a ferry to Rangitoto which is an island with a volcano around 20 mins away from Auckland and did our last walk for a while all the way to the top for some amazing views of the city before coming back to Auckland and going for a lovely dinner on our last night in New Zealand.

So that was it, no more New Zealand but we got a lot done in our 5 weeks and I think any more and we could have been a bit bored and broke! It's not terribly expensive but everything costs money obviously so you have to pick and choose what you want to do wisely. New Zealand is stunning, it really is, and it's prefect for adventure seekers and people who love scenery, but I think Australia has more to offer on a more fun and varied level which I prefered.

So now, after quite a scary 3 hour bumpy flight to Nadi we are in Fiji. We've had an eventful few days already but I'll save that for my next blog which I'll do when we get to Hawaii - our next stop.

We're half way through now which is exciting and sad at the same time, and still having a ball!

Love to you all, keep in touch,
Sally xxx