Finally in New Zealand

Well, after a months delay and a long trip via Lisbon, New York and then Los Angeles, we finally made it to Auckland on the 25th of January! One of the days the clock kept going back so much that we were on our feet for 27 hours! Still it did mean i was able to get in two breakfasts and a couple of lunches!
Once we had recovered by staying the night in the Auckland Novotel (50 yards from the front entrance of the airport!) we caught up with our friend Steve who popped over to visit us from his home in Manukau just down the road. The next morning our camper van arrived a following an extremely thorough briefing from the Van owner  - you could tell he had a vested personal interest in the thing - we set off with a bag of oranges from his garden, to the Coromandel peninsula. That first evening we spent in Thames, before continuing to drive around the peninsula via Coromandel itself - lovely quaint town!

 Here is Jane with the van - considerably smaller than the american lumber tub! Instead we have a fuel economy about 4 times better and it actually goes where you point it!.

 Our first stop near Coromandel was the driving creek railway - originally designed to transport clay to the owners pottery; he handbuilt the railway up the hill by himself, evenaually extending it to 3 km in length - absolutely bonkers! Look him up on the internet.

 Then it was onto hot water beach where a hot spring rises on the beach, so you can build your own hot spa - you can see people sat in theirs behind me as i pensively study the surrounding area to avoid having to do too much digging!

 After leaving hot water beach our next night was spent in Rotorua, the central area of hot thermal activity in North Island. As you can see there are plenty of geysers, hot springs and hot mud pools in the area, including the local parks, such as this one!
We then moved onto Lake Taupo, the biggest lake in NZ, actually an old volcano which has filled up with water - rather a lot of it as its about 2400 sq miles in size. Whilst there we took some to time to relax in the hot pool at the campsite and also did some lovely walks along the river to Huka falls and watched the jet boats zoom up and down to the falls.









 Jane also took the opportunity to demonstrate her trampolining skills - see picture opposite! I attempted something similar and nearly broke my neck as having landed the first time the second landing was somewhat uncontrolled! The next day we went onto Napier, and took in a wine tour and tasting - the lady kept expecting me to spit it out, but once again I couldnt bring myself to do it. Luckily Jane had opted to drive that day!

Then it was onto Wellington and a look round the Fabulous Te Pape national museum - you could actually spend a week in there on the interactive displays alone!. Then it was up on the cable car to the top of the hill; Kelburn, with fantastic views all the way to the South Island. That night we spent in the Wellington City Camper van park - ie a harbourside carpark with showers! - Still did the job as we were up early the next day to catch the ferry to Picton on the South Island. the journey through the straits down to the port of Picton was truly beautiful.

Once we arrived in Picton we stopped off along the scenic Queen Charlottes Drive on the way to Nelson where I am writing this. (The library has one hour free internet access - yippee!) anyway that is rapidly coming to an end and so therefore is this  blog, which I will try to keep more up  to date than in Peru. All for now then, back in a week or two.