Our first proper full day in New Zealand had arrived for which we had planned to go see the Waipu Caves as we were in the area and the write up on caves in New Zealand had been pretty good. We found the caves without too much trouble, but on route discovered this was another country that liked to leave half the roads as gravel tracks instead of finishing the job properly, so it was a bit of a bumpy ride. We decided on walking boots for this trip for obvious reaso...

In the air heading for New Zealand, eta 22:20, actual time of arrival surprisingly enough 22:20 New Zealand time not Oz. It didn't take us long to collect our bags and clear customs and passport control, which was quite a novelty. Now in the arrival lounge we looked for a full set of seats to get comfy on as this was to be our home for the night, we had decided because we were arriving so late we didn't want to pay for an expensive hotel when we could go true bac...

After we had been diving we tried to relax over the next few days. We went out on valentine’s day as it was Steve and Jo’s last day and we thought as it was Valentine’s day why not. We bought ourselves a mini laptop as well as we figured we would save so much as wireless is cheaper than internet cafes and we should be able to keep up to date easier. Over the few days running up to Carina’s bday we went to the lagoon in the town centre a few times and Davi...

So here goes!!! It was an early start up at 4.15am which was a shock to my system to say the least, especially when I didn't have a clue what was going on, that's right I wasn't allowed to know anything including what time we had planned on getting up! When I got back from the shower I was greeted by balloons on the bed surrounding a tinkerbell box with goodies inside. I was only allowed to open 1 of the 2 pressies inside; the other was to be opened later. With o...

So we finally arrived in Cairns at about 1.30pm on Monday 9th Feb after the interesting journey from Townsville. We stocked up on the alcohol as we decided we all deserved a celebratory drink. The evening was full of chit chat about the day’s events and how we actually made it to Cairns. It wasn’t such a late night as we were all so tired from being up t 3am! We spent a bit of time going round supermarkets trying to buy the essentials as the shelves were stil...