Tahiti 15th-21st February 2007

We left New Zealand at 2pm on February 16th 2007, after a smooth fight we landed in Papeete Tahiti at 9pm on February 15th! We had passed the intrnational date line and it was Anna and Debbie's birthday again! Happy Birthday again!

We spent our first night in the airport hotel and enjoyed the plush sourroundings, airco, fridge and kettle. The next moning we caught Le Truck to the ferry with all of our stuff on us it was quite a hot journey! After catching aother Le Truck on the island of Moorea we were at our hotel. We could only aford the cheapest room which was luxury compared to hostals or the back of the car!

We were in a nice hotel with a nice trpical garden but the most imortant bit was the lagoon it was fantastic, there was a narrow white beach followed by the lagoon of various shades of turquoise until it met the open sea with three small coral moto's dotted around.

Most of our time was spent lazing around in the shallow lagoon, we also went on a dive which wasn't that great as we went deep 25 metres and the cheap underwater camera we had bought in Auckland was slowly filling up with water! It was supposed to go to 30 metres. The boat ride out was realy nice though along the turquoise lagoon and where there was the pass through the lagoon dolphins follwed us at the bow of the boat, they were lovely.

We also took a kayak to see the sharks and rays, it was in about 4 foot of water and there were loads of black tip reef sharks and stingrays all around us. The boat trip out there feeds them sardines.

For six days we survived mainly on bread, butter and cheese as it is so expensive to eat out there. Everything there is expensive but it is also a very very beautiful place. We didnt want to leave.

New Zealand 10th January 2007- 16th February 2007

Our five weeks in New Zealand has really flown by. We could have easily spent three months here and haven't really had any chill-out time. We have seen some lovely places, though, and don't think we've missed much out.

The Kiwis seem more friendly than the Aussies and the Maoris are fully integrated into the society, unlike the Aborigines in Oz.

We really liked the South Island with it's mountains, lakes, fjords and remote landscape. The North Island is more volcanic, although it is still very hilly. It was warmer in the North Island but probably cloudier than the South Island.

The wild flowers at this time of year are fantastic, with lupins, verbascums, foxgroves and poppies in the South Island. Both islands are covered with agapanthus and crocosmia, and the North Island has lots of tropical plants, especially in Northland where there are aloes, agaves, echiums, gingers and fully grown date palms. The other native plants like phormiums, pampas grass and tree ferns are everywhere-the tree ferns are beautiful and also very tall!

Our car was smaller than the one in Oz but it did the job and we enjoyed having a fridge and power cable this time. We did have one incident where the rear view mirror fell off and only a couple of hours later we managed to reverse into a boulder! Luckily we had paid $180 to reduce our excess to nil, otherwise it would have cost us $850! We also managed to get a $40 parking fine within our last half hour of having the car. It was whilst we were unloading the gear into our hostel! Suprisingly we've done almost the same amount of miles in New Zealand as we did in Oz - about 5000km.

We are now looking forward to a few budget busting days in Tahiti before Easter Island and South America. We will miss being able to eat our "normal" foods and it will be especially tough with Lent starting 20th february! (Helen gives up sweets and chocolate).

As it is not too long until we get back now :-( if anyone out there knows of any cushty jobs in North Somerset going, please email us or put comments on the blog. We will also be on the lookout for any good offers on broadband internet at the moment.

Auckland 13-16th February 2007

In Auckland we finally managed to see the film Borat. On valentines day Steve treated me to a posh meal in the restaurant of the revolving sky tower. For starters we had Potato and Roast Garlic soup finished with white truffle oil and chive creme fraiche. I had a main course of Venison Loin on a kumara and chestnut mash with braised red cabbage and cranberry compote. Steve had fish of the day which was snapper.

In the afternoon we took a harbour cruise and I enjoyed another box of Lindt Lindor chocolates whilst Steve had a toblerone!

On the 15th I managed to speak to Deb, as it was her birthday, and even got to speak to my niece Raia (whilst she was eating her breakfast) as in the pic. Unfortunately Anna didn't have any internet access. Happy Birthday to you both. Love Helen and Steve

Matamata and the Far North

One of main locations from Lord of the Rings we wanted to visit was where the filming for The Shire & Hobbiton took place. We made it to Matamata with one minute to spare before the tour left. We managed to actually get inside the Bag End hobbit hole, where Bilbo & Frodo lived, and explore all around Hobbiton.

We finished off our Advanced Diving course by diving Poor Knights Island. It is supposed to be another of the "world's top 10 dive sites" offering sub tropical diving. As usual we picked a bad time to go, with 2 and a half metre waves on the journey out. We were both seasick but Steve suffered the most, shaking between the dives. The dives were not that succesful either: Helen's camera conked out on her Photography Dive: we only found one invertebrate, insead of 5 on the Underwater Naturalist Dive: we were all over the place in surge and kelp on the Navigation Dive; Steve even managed to pop up to the surface whilst looking at his compass! We still managed to pass! Recently a diver saw four killer whales eating short tailed stingrays there.

Finally we made it up to the far north- well to Bay of Islands. We went sailing for a day but again the weather was quite dodgy-luckily the seas were quite sheltered and we weren't seasick. It was still a nice day and we saw the third species of penguin to be found in NZ, the little blue penguin. We had the best fish and chips we have ever tasted at a shop in Paihia called The Twilight Zone. On the way back to Auckland we visited the Kauri trees that once covered the Northland. One, called Te Matua Ngahere, has a trunk measuring 16.41 metres around.

Rotorua

We spent a night in Taupo and enjoyed a private thermal mineral pool at our campsite. After moving up to Rotorua we visited Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland, which was cool. There was bubbling mud, smoking vents, white terraces and the champagne pool. Afterwards we bathed in Kerosene creek - as in the photo. The creek was about 40c, like a hot bath. We managed to go to a concert too! Boyz 2 Men and Ka Ci and Jo Jo were playing in the town on one of the nights we were there. We thought we had better do one of the activities NZ is famous for, so we went Zorbing! Luckily they weren't doing the harnessed rides, as it was too windy, so we got to roll down the hill in the big plasic ball full of warm water-it was great fun.

Wellington 1st -3 February 2007

The day of our ferry crossing was quite cloudy, it rained in the night and alot of our gear got soaked. There seemed to be a lot of "stag do's" on the ferry, after battling with the traffic and trying to find somewhere to stay we spent the night by the side of the road and the sea. The next morning we had a cup of tea at the chocolate fish cafe-that was frequented by the LOTR cast during filming. We caught the bus in town the next day with three nurses and darth maul! It turned out that the Rugby Sevens was on for the two days we were there. We took the "cable car" to the botanic gardens and also visited the Te Papa museum but the most amusing part was the fans in fancy dress. There were american presidents, nuns with fake boobs, aliens, borats and lots of men dressed as women!

Fox Glacier to Abel Tasman

Whilst driving to Fox Glacier we saw a strange bird on the roadside, it turned out to be a Fjordland Penguin. We were about 300ft above sea level at the time. Elephant seals also have there pups in the area but we couldn't get down to them.

Arriving at Fox Glacier the weather was looking a little dodgy, so we opted to stay at a Backpackers called Ivory Towers. This was a really nice little place - very homely & cosy, and we even had a TV in our room. It turned out to be a good decision as, the following morning, it was raining copiously.

Nevertheless, we decided to make the trip to the glacier anyway, and we were glad we did. The rain eased and we managed to walk right up to the glacier, paddling across a couple of icy streams to get there. We also stopped at Franz Josef Glacier, but only took a short walk to a viewpoint. This was when we realised we'd left a load of stuff in the fridge back at Fox, so had to drive all the way back!

We finally made it to Greymouth and the next day spent the morning at Shantytown, where we tried our hands at goldpanning again. Helen found the flakes which were "planted" in her sand, but we had no luck in the wild.