Bog Bandits

We have been away from home for quite a while now, and although we are a pretty well behaved bunch, foreigners have a knack of getting in trouble with the law away from home. I didn't think this would be us. I guess even the strong can fall. Imagine the scene, it's late at night, you've just arrived in a new town, and you need the toilet. Now none of the public toilets are open at this time, but we spotted a sign for a caravan park and didn't think it would be too much hassle if we just popped in and used the toilets. So Nic and I park the van up outside the park, all the lights are off everywhere so we thought we would sneakily get in and get out without causing any bother. So apres toilet useage, we are commenting on the excellent hand soap, and we leave the toilets. As we leave we see a torch being shined around the kitchen area of the park and so we make a bolt for it thinking that this light is after us. Sure as anything I get a torch shone in my face and a shouted of 'OI!', I look around and Nic has scarpered (nice solidarity there) and so I try and make another run for it, guessing that the gruffness of the 'oi' rendered him too fat to chase me. Well I find Nic behind some building and she just says to not bother running. So we confront the man, as I guessed a fat hairy man from Northern England who wanted our blood. We explained our situation that we needed the toilet and thought it wouldn't bother anyone, and thought we would be on our way. Oh no, he gets out his phone and then proclaims that he is taking our photo and sending it to the police! Nic was totally gobsmacked and pretty much told the bloke where to go. He didn't like that and also told me to 'wipe the smirk off your face'! So we're there, in the rain, late at night, arguing that he was going to call the police, because we used the toilets. The guy wouldn't budge but I tried taking the sympathetic route and just said sorry and asked him to see it from our perspective. That was met with more talk of police. By that point Nic and I had both had enough and just started kindly explaining to the delightful man that he was, in fact, a complete idiot. So after a while he gave up and we were told to 'clear off'. Never would I have thought that using the loo would have been such an issue!

Napier and our dive buddy!

Scrum time baby!

Napier prison. Oh and backpackers

You may remember that on our dive trip, Nic and I made friends with 2 yanks, and fortunately for us, one of them now lives in Napier on the East coast. Patrick was more than happy to show us around, and show us around he did! We went to wineries, a cheese factory, a honey factory, Te Mata peak which is a lookout above Napier and Hastings, a tour of Napier prison (now running as a backpackers, like everything else in Oz and NZ), and finally a rugby game! The match was really good, it was the Hawkes Bay Magpies (complete with Magpie mascot) against the Mooloo's, a team not far from Napier so it was a bit of a local derby. It had a lot of tries and a lot of Jono Lomu types that I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. The NZ chants leave a lot to be desired however, with the Magpies whole heartedly singing
'Come on the Bay, Come on the Bay, Black White, Alright, Come on the Bay'. Oh dear. It was a catchy little number though I won't lie!

Zorbing, Mordor and a lot of sulphur in the air

We are now Zorbonauts

Sulphur lakes in Rotorua!

Tongariro National Park, aka Mordor!

We continued our journey South as we left Auckland, through a couple of national parks. On this trip Nic and I have gradually forced ourselves to learn to like walking, not just walking 5 minutes to the shops, oh no, like, hiking hard core, needing to take water supplies. Well, we like to take it easy and so when venturing into the Coromandel Peninsula we decided to take the 50 minute walk to the waterfalls. These waterfalls appeared more and more illusive as 2 hours down the track we were still lost, heading up some seriously steep cliffs and growing more and more annoyed. We bumped into some fellow 'trampers' (the technical term for those in the know) who showed us where we were on their secret squirell walking map. Ie we were miles from where we thought. We headed in the 'right' direction and then found that the track followed the route of this stream, and crossed the water about 20 times. It had rained the night before and so navigating a dry route across the river via a few rocks was getting tough. It was about the time we reached the 19th crossing that I really lost it. Having so carefully made the crossing before I was keen to keep dry, but the river had other plans. One slip in the wrong direction and you guessed it, I fell in. Nic laughed for a while until the 20th nightmare and she also met with her watery mishap. So we trudged back, wading through water to the van. In case you were wondering, trainers and jeans become very heavy when they are wet.

Back on dry land we made the trip to Rotorua, which is a really interesting place, not only because as soon as you arrive you can smell rotten eggs. That's right, this place is teaming with volcanic activity, and even in the centre of town they have bubbling mud pools and steam rising from the ground as a result of the hot volcanic rocks not far beneath the surface, and as a bonus, it kicks up quite a sulphury smell! Rotorua is proud to boast that it is the birthplace of a 'phenonmenon' called Zorbing. Imagine yourself as a giant hamster, in a ball, and then imagine that ball is being pushed from the top of a steep hill. Oh and add some water inside so the hamster sloshes about a bit. Now replace hamster, with yourself, and you have Zorbing! Nic and I got in our togs and made the ascent to the top of the hill, and we were officially now 'Zorbonauts'. Individually we got in our watery ball and were pushed and shoved around down a zig zag course until we made it to the bottom, where as drowned rats we had our photos taken, and then exiting the Zorb meant pretty much falling out the bottom of it with a flood of water resembling something, not unlike, a rebirth. Beautiful.

We then moved on to a place called Taupo, which has a huge lake, formed from a volcanic crater, and is overshadowed by none other than Mt Ruapehu, aka Mordor from Lord of the Rings! It is an absolutely beautiful place and is perfect with the snowed capped mountains. We stayed in the town for a while and investigated more steaming mud pool and craters, and then made the trip to Tongariro national park, home to Mts Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro, of LOTR fame! In our haste to do a walk (ok exaggerating slightly now) we drove straight to the top of the snowy mountains (which are also still in ski season) and tried to do a walk. It wasn't long before it started snowing on us however and believe it or not, our 10 ton van could not withstand the terrain. We were pretty close to becoming a casualty of Mordor so we decided to head back, but it was an awesome day!

Dive Trip Photos at last!

Nemo!

Grey reef shark

Troy puffing up a puffer fish!

Nic caught this awesome snap..and managed to avoid getting stung!

Floating like an angel!

That puffer fish again!

Everything's ok baby!

Angel fish!

Potato cod

Cod, Nic

Scuba Steve

STOP PRESS!

Cosmo's all round, Nic got a hair cut!

Nic had a hair cut! It looks awesome, and after a long wait of over a year, it has been cut

Good things about New Zealand

When you enter a country that calls Burger King, 'Hungry Jacks', you are relieved when you go back to one that calls it by the proper name, and compared to Oz, New Zealand has got lots more things right. They have Marmite rather than Vegemite, alcohol is sold in supermarkets, everything is much closer together, and they don't have any pesky kangaroos that scare you half to death if you're driving at night! Indeed the countryside is a lot more interesting and varied than just looking at the red dirt for hours on end like in Oz, so we are liking it here! So for the moment, all is good!

NZ so far!

Cape Reinga

I'm hoping the other 100 Must Do's in NZ are slightly better than these toilets

The view of Auckland from One Tree Hill

Whanengarei Falls

After messing around in Auckland for a few days, going up extinct volcano craters and having trouble parking, we set off up North towards imaginatively titled 'Northland' to the very Northernmost tip of the country. Up in Cape Reinga, you can actually look out and see where the Pacific and the Tasman Oceans meet and collide, its awesome! Plus there is a really good view at the tip with a few islands and these enormous sand dunes! The 2 hours windy dirt road was worth it! Since then we have been coming back down South through Auckland stopping at all the 'brown signed' areas (that's tourist attraction signs to you guys). One of the highlights has to be the Kawiti glow worm caves, which are obviously caves, that are inhabited by glow worms! There are a few in NZ but we picked the best one, one that had no other visitors and was run by some guy who seemed to be our age but had clearly spent too much time in the caves, with his glow worms. It was good to see though and we were the only people on the tour with him (suprise suprise) and we looked up and the worms looked like stars! Really bright! We have also been following the 101 'Must Dos' in NZ, one of these being none other than some public toilets in a place called Kawakawa! So we went, we saw, and we left...relieved!

New Zealand, and more importantly THE VAN!

'No I have not put on weight, our beast really is that large

No matter where we are, we can always cook up a storm

Nic, post 'Pak N Save' food shopping, in our huge kitchen, just look at it!

We touched down in Auckland on a Friday night and checked into a hostel ion the city, so we could pick up our rental van the next morning. We decided to get the van as we only have 2 months to do the whole of NZ, and arguably it's one of the best ways to see the country. In true Nic and Kat fashion though, we didn't skimp. Oh no, we end up with the largest van that Britz rents, has a shower and toilet combo and is generally a house that any family would be proud of. It is basically awesome. We struggled for the first few days (particularly when Nic was driving) negotiating a few curbs, forgetting that we are now the length of a few cars, and I don't know if you've noticed, but car parks are NOT campervan friendly! No space is big enough for our beast! It has done us proud so far and we have stayed in some lovely spots right by the beach and we can sit there and watch the sun go down! Plus we have earnt massive respect, it is hard to go past any 80 year old couple in their motorhome without receiving a wave, almost a secret campervan circle of trust wave, that many laymen like you just wouldn't understand. The van is a hard beast to tame though anddoes require maintenance, such as refilling the water tank every day, emptying the dirty water that we affectionately refer to as 'grey water', and (worst of all) the toilet 'cassette' must also be emptied. I have kindly given the last job to Nic. Some of the sites we stay at do provide suprises though, such as making up on sunday morning to find that we had parked in a miniature railway car park and the Eurostar was in full flow!

Yes, we finally sold the stupid car

Ok, so holding on to the hopes that some guy in a socks and sandles combo would buy our car was a little like wishful thinking. It was pretty lame because he kept us hanging on for ages and then said no for a stupid reason, I guess he's entitled to it and I guess he didn't appreciate that we literally had 2 days to sell the car. Nevertheless we thought we would just go for the next best offer, as our last alternative was giving to a dealer for about 50p. So our wishes were granted when at 9pm at night some random weirdo (just our type) rings us up for a test drive there and then. This guy was desperate, really desperate. He needed to buy a car there and then, and it was all a bit dodgy. I mean, he could have quite easily ram raided the nearest Bank of Australia with our Nissan Pulsar as his accomplice. He had cash on him there and then but we were still waiting for a decision from our Indian pal, so when he let us down at the last minute we didn't really have a choice but to give it to the weirdo. We didn't get much but we still did ok given the fact that we sold it one day before we left the country. So thank god, the biggest headache in the world, is finally over!