I'm going to be brief because I don't have long on the timer. Firstly, apologies for the late silence. All will be revealed (waves magic wand in mysterious, eery, Trelawnley-esque manner) In Wellington we went to the Te Papa museum and learned about a flightless parrot with an incredible sex drive and lots of NZ history. We walked a wee bit along the harbour, saw the beehive and took a cable car up to some botanical gardens where we wandered and played in...

Leaving Rotorua soon for Wellington and don't expect to do much today; we have a 7 hour bus journey to look forward to. Yesterday we walked the 3 km to Te Puia, an area leased to the government by the Maori tribes and currently a place of intense geothermal activity. We saw a few geysers (see pic) and learned a fair bit about Maori tribe life. We witnessed a welcomnig ceremony and a few tribespeople performed some of their traditional songs and dances for ...

We've stopped off at Rotorua for a couple of sleeps. Today before we left Waitomo we went Black Water Rafting in the glowworm caves which was great fun but unbelievably cold. The water was freezing despite the wet suits but certainly an adventure for 2 main reasons. Firstly is that about half an hour in I had desperate need for a device known as the 'toilet'. The second reason is that our guide (who handily forgot his own rubber tube so had to hang off of...

There are 4.1 million people in NZ, 1.3 million of whom live in Auckland. There are 40 million sheep. We saw a lot of those sheep today. Yesterday you may remember me mentioning that we awoke to the melodious sound of a fire alarm? Well, all was forgiven when one of the firemen was a hunky Tom Hanks lookalike. We woke up and popped 'round the corner for some milk before breakfasting. Then we went for an exciting wander and saw many strange things, posin...

Finally here! It was a relatively uneventful trip thankfully. Our first flight was 12 hours long and we were a bit delayed, which was fair enough but only left us with 20 or so minutes to catch our next 9 hour flight at the other end. But this was fine. Singapore Airlines is luxury on ice; shaken, not stirred. 80 films to choose from, comedy channels and multiplayer video games, what more do you want? Chocolate, I hear you ask? Well, snacks available to us ...