G'day Australia. Aww Yeah, Yeah Nah.

Another painless flight took us to Sydney international where we bought an exorbitantly priced train ticket into the centre of the city. In fact, Australia seems like it may be a fairly expensive place, not least because we have gone all in and booked pretty much the entire month ahead thanks to super organised, ideas full Melle who basically planned it for us. The only thing that is not expensive is ‘Goon’, which to the uninitiated is Australian boxed wine. Ten dollars (Six quid) buys you 4.4 litres. 4.4 Litres!! Dangerous to say the least, the stuff simply never runs out!

From our hostel in Sydney we beat a mean pace round the city, walking approximately five million miles to take in almost everything it had to offer, most notably the Sydney harbour bridge and Opera house, which unlike other famous landmarks we have seen actually looks surprising different in reality, in this case thanks to the fact that the roof is covered in Swedish tiles, which you simply don’t appreciate from pics on TV. We strolled through parks and the botanical gardens, through Hyde park, oxford street etc...! We also grabbed our bus pass to cover the country. Back on the buses!! In the eve we acquired some of said Goon and promptly got battered. Stu managed to make it into town to meet up with Jo Lowe, who coincidentally happened to be in town. His Goon infested state saw him ‘helped’ from the bar by big burly men however, a fact that was lost on Stu until he was reminded by Jo in the morning. I fared little better, kicking back at the hostel with some girls who I somehow managed to insult greatly, and who have since not spoken to me. Goon is dangerous indeed!!

The next day we carried rather heavy heads to Coogie beach, which is very nice. From there we took the coastal walk to Bondi and met a nice Irish girl who I personally blame for introducing us to Melle. She told us about the travel agency in her hostel that Melle managed and even let us walk back with her and pointed us inside. After meeting Melle it was game over. We initially wanted only to book a day trip to the Blue mountains for the next day, but we left several hundred pounds worse of, having booked this trip but also a three day, two night trip around Fraser Island (self driving jeeps round the beaches), a two day two night sailing trip round the Whitsundays (great barrier reef), a four hour surfing lesson in Byron Bay and a total of 7 nights accommodation. She also printed out a calendar, arranged all these things, told us which buses to take, held our hands, warmed our milk and put us to bed. She was amazing, and we are now fully set!

On our last day in Sydney we did the Blue mountains trip on ‘The Happy Coach’, which, among other things left very early and was driven by a very hairy and very Australian man. We stopped off on the way to the mountains to drop in on some kangaroos, which are very cool animals. We also spotted some kookaburra and ate some value chocolate chip cookies (hairy Australian was also fond of these).

When we reached the mountains we saw some spectacular vistas and were given some spiel before Mr. Happy sent us on our own into the bush. To be fair it was all part of a cunning plan to avoid the other tours, he drove the bus round to a pickup point and ran in from the other end to meet us, but not before he gave us a medi-kit and the low down on all the dangerous snakes and how best to deal with a bite should one occur. It was in a tentative manner that we entered the bush! He re-emerged whilst everyone was still intact however and we made our way to Wentworth falls before taking a very awesome cliff side walk to the coach.

Lunch beckoned after this and we were given pies at the three sisters, an important aboriginal site, after which we entered ‘scenic world’ which we were sceptical about, but actually really enjoyed, not least our ride on the world’s steepest railway (52 degrees!) down into the rainforest, at fairly high speed accompanied by Indiana Jones music. Hilarious. We wandered around the rainforest before climbing the Furber steps out to meet the bus and head back.

That eve we caught a night bus to Byron Bay with Emma the Israeli and our first taste of Premier motor Services seemed a pleasant one, though we prefer a little more recline on a night bus seat if we’re being picky...

Goodbye Liz, Goodbye Sonny, Goodbye NZ....

With a yet again hungover Liz still in tow, we set off early and at breakneck speed for Mt Cook Village and an afternoon stroll around NZ’s highest peak. On route we took an unexpected break at the famous Moeraki Boulders and with no-one else to bother us we enjoyed the morning beauty of this mystical feature of the east coast. Then, with Steve and Liz ‘counting sheep’, leaving me to play Horse on my own, I pushed Sonny on to our destination with perfect weather conditions greeting us on arrival. At 3755m Mt Cook is the highest of the Southern Alps and with a cloudless sky, makes for an excellent afternoon jaunt around its ridges and ravines. With energy levels running low, a slow, enjoyable, conversational pace was set and a superb afternoon was had by one and all. To make sure we shatter all living records, and to finish NZ off in style, we decided two more nights in the car wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially as Liz had already checked-in to the hostel so we could use the facilities! So after a quick viewing of Rain Man we retired back to our crib for car night 13!

Our last full day in NZ was upon us and to Lake Tekapo we went to break up the journey to Christchurch and view the stunning vistas that the lake has to offer. With time to burn we walked up Mt John to enjoy NZ’s incredible scenery for the last time and with a crisp blue lake, mountains and forest all coming together, yet again we were not disappointed. Our last stop was the Church of the Good Shepherd, unfortunately with thousands of tour buses, before saying our fond farewells to Liz and making our way towards the flight to OZ. Having already been to Christchurch, we didn’t give ourselves long here (as there isn’t anything to do) and so after night 14 in the car, nearly 1 in 2 for our NZ adventure (great moneysaving tip but not good for your lower back), we handed back our borrowed duvet and our beloved Sonny and jumped across the Tasman Sea.

With NZ being the biggest draw of the world tour pre-departure, it exceeded all the high expectations set as within a month we managed between us to sky-dive, bungy jump, white water raft, glacier hike, canyon, horse-trek, fish, see top level cricket and rugby, body board, kayak (sea and fiordland), explore caves, whale watch (sort of), view various indigenous wildlife, get lost, climb a volcano, be entertained by a Maori tribe and even manage to find the time to have a couple of drinks along the way....It’s a hard life eh?!

A post dedicated to LIZ who has in no way got on our back about getting a mention in the blog and is most unlikely to read this to see if it happened…

So then, another day on the tour dawned, and we once again rose from a night in the car. I concur with Stu on the temperature, this was a poor car’s night sleep even under our duvet. To wake up we took a shower in a hostel down the road… these people really should learn, I mean the security on some of these places… before I went to see a nurse about a suspected hernia and Stu hit up some wireless Internet in the library. This was until a builder literally drilled straight through the router knocking the place dead, which meant we had to go and actually PAY for Internet to keep you guys updated. Pah!

After this we took the drive to Milford Sound, which anyone in the know will tell you is a very scenic drive. This is even by New Zealand standards, where simply everywhere you drive is beautiful. It did not disappoint until we reached the homer tunnel, 1.2km of hole blasted through the mountain to get to the sound. There were no Kea!!! We had been told by many different people to look out for these mischievous parrots, and there were many signs around the road warning us not to feed the buggers, but we are now at the stage where we question their existence as we haven’t seen a single one! Anyway, redonkulus drive continued the other side until we reached our quarry. There’s not a lot in Milford Sound. In fact it comes down pretty much to a car park and a pub. Having decided we would get food on the go for dinner we obviously ended up in the pub. Tarmac isn’t very tasty. Thankfully very expensive pizza is though. That night we thought we spotted a Kiwi, so I jumped out the car armed with the camera. It turned out to be a close relation to duck-bird thing from the Amazon however, and I merely got marauded by a small army of sand flies who give perhaps the most painful bits we have encountered. After that we hunkered down in the car yet again thinking about all money we were saving on accommodation… and simply blowing on pizza.

The next day we rose early to reach our morning Kayak crew and hit the water in the most indescribably fashionable leggings. The trip on the water was fantastic, the highlights being the seals who came swimming with us and, you guessed it, the amazing scenery, which is dominated here by the near vertical sides of the sound. We had a about 5 hours on the water to oooh and ahhh including a nice stop in the middle of the sound to partake in some traditional Kiwi drink. After this, having already realised that Milford Sound pretty much was only the Kayak trip and a friendly landlord we made a move further sound to Invercargil, enjoying the drive out from the other perspective and stopping to luncheon by a very nice river. It was in Invercargill, obviously after another night in the car, that we teamed up with floral dress wearing, hippi tree hugging, 60% of the time drunk all the time, hailing from Buckinghamshire Liz (hows that liz?!?) who we had met previously in Queenstown. We headed north together up the coast (there really isn’t a lot to do in Invercargill) to Dunedin where aforementioned rugby was to be viewed. On the way we swung along the southern scenic route, well, we eventually did after somehow getting lost and saw some more rugged coastline and a rather large Sea lion. We took a lunch stop at a very impressive section where wave was bashing rock with some considerable force and also walked to a waterfall which was suddenly inundated on our arrival by hoards of school children, who somewhat dampened the tranquil feel but were very entertaining.

Arriving in Dunedin we actually slept in a hostel! Praise the lord! before taking a days wander in the rain (probably the only serious day of rain we have seen) and then went large in the evening, guided by local friends of Liz who generously allowed us into their student flat to get mildly battered (Liz with two bottles of wine… dear dear girl…)and then dragged us round Dunedin’s bars where we made merry and danced. Both of us managed to end up back at the aforementioned student house which severely cut down the hours of car sleeping required that night, however I managed in my drunken state to create the impressive combo of sleeping in a Romanian housemates bed, the sofa in the hostel we werent staying in anymore and the car, while Stuart simply enjoyed the bed component.

In the morning, graced by much better weather we took a drive out to Otago Peninsula, where we spotted seals and albatross along with some very nice views and a chill spot. Part way through this venture, Liz summarised the mood of the group post hangover and lack of sleep nicely when on hearing, ‘look, another albatross’ she intoned the hilarious, ‘I know its really bad, but I simply don’t care’.

Either way we had a rugby game to get back for, so that is what we did. One of Liz’s friends from the previous night also joined us, and it’s fair to say it’s a good job she did given that our idea of where the stadium was differed greatly from it’s actual location, and our thoughts on where to park were far removed from where we actually left the car. Anywho, two halves of close action including contributions from All Black legends Rokocoko and Mealamu followed. The Otago Highlanders (our adopted team) managed to keep the Auckland Blues at bay and reached half time up by a promising 12-7. After the break however, two quick tries turned the gamed around for the Blues and only a penalty kept the highlanders in with a chance as the score reached 19-15. After surviving another spell of pressure they looked like they were going to make the needed score in a final flurry of attack but our main man Vainikolo, who had the previous day signed posters for us and given us free sausages in a promotion for the game (thus making him a hero), managed to first knock on and then fumble (thus making him a numpty). The score held for the final whistle, whence a small pitch invasion allowed us to go and meet the players and get more signatures and photos on the hallowed turf. After this we dropped off the girls so they could go and get battered again (I mean really, this Liz girl, lets just hope she’s not gonna read this shocking recount of her antics, or it becomes public, eh Liz?!) before we hit up a car park, er, to sleep in the car again (can someone get in touch with Guinness and see if this is a world record or something?)

Bungy Day!

As promised a dedicated blog post to the Day of Bungy.....

Stu: After waking up with a slight 'Queenstown Headache' I headed down to get on the bus to the Nevis Bungy Site to undertake 'The Nevis'. At 134m it is the biggest Bungy in Australasia and the 2nd biggest in the world...The jump takes place from a pod suspended over the Nevis valley by steel cables, this means during high winds the pod is moving 2m or more, and with said high winds starting upon my arrival, emotions were running high! The scariest part of the whole experience occuring upon watching the first person fall out of my group...then it was my turn...standing on the edge felt like i may have bitten off more than I could chew....but just went for it and free-fell for over 8 seconds, the first 4 being exhilaration, the second 4 thinking I was going to die! What a rush! Definatly the scariest thing I've ever done, hopefully the pictures do it some justice!













Steve: Luckily I had horse trekking in the morning to allow recovery from the night before, but that also meant I had a few hours around mid day when I was purely bricking it for my afternoon bungy at Kawarau Bridge, the site of the first ever bungy, and NZ highest availiable water touch jump. The funniest bit has to after the initial fall, as you spring back up thinking 'Ah, i've done it, that was fun...' and you start falling again, and then do it again and again until the bungy runs out. The second fall took me by complete surprise!

Walking, Trekking, Jumping, Lashing, Canyoning and Freeeeeeeezing!

NOTE: 200+ picture uploaded, see links in pictures section! Health warning: These pictures are merely the tip of an iceberg; we have now taken some 3,200!!

Armed with enough Ginger Nuts to feed the NZ army, we headed out early for our epic 8 hour Glacier walking trip and were welcomed by perfect weather with the clouds and rain of the previous day thankfully not present. Laden with all our required kit, we headed to the glacier and put ourselves in the ‘fit and keen’ fast group with guide ‘very fit and very keen’ Asa. After a quick assent up a rock mountain we got on the glacier proper where for the next 6 hours we hiked, traversed, rappelled, climbed and absolutely loved the Glacier. With Asa cutting us steps when required and getting us lost when not, we saw and went through various caves and crevasses of the Franz Josef Glacier which even the photos don’t do justice (even with my uber cool new lime green camera). With the group working well we managed to get as high as the guide had taken any group before, going through stunningly blue crevasses on route. All in all (even with getting very wet in the last 5 minutes), a great day.

Night 8 of sleeping in the car took place beside the beautiful Lake Wanaka, where we decided to kill a few hours on route to Queenstown with a stroll along the lake with striking views to boot. Arriving in Queenstown signalled the start of a crazy 48 hour period. Queenstown is known as the ‘Adrenaline Capital of the World’ and doesn’t disappoint with the activities offered and by far the best nightlife in NZ so far. After grabbing some free soup in a hostel that wasn’t ours (bit cheeky but all good) we headed to World Bar for their notorious cocktail teapots and a few free drinks for being an organ donor. Also met up with a girl that we met at the free soup that is to join us later in the week for some road tripping.

Day 2 in Q-town was probably one of the busiest an best days of the trip so far....
Steve spent the morning horse trekking. Steve... ‘Really great fun and a great way to soak up some scenery. Even managed a few trots without falling off Mojo, the largest horse in the paddock, who was gifted to me for the mornings jaunt. Felt like Aragon after half an hour or so, we are certainly in the right place for it, though after a couple of hours my groin was quite glad other modes of transport have become more popular.’

Then it was Bungy Time! See dedicated bungy blog post to come......


To celebrate surviving our bungy ordeals and use up the adrenaline fuelled energy gained, we undertook the ‘One Big Night Bar Crawl’. This meant crazy Barry leading around 81 excitable backpackers (including Ron Weasley and Nessa from ‘Gavin and Stacy’), the small but lively Queenstown streets. We bezzed up with a couple of crazy Scots and three Aussie sisters and a great night was had by all, with the unexpected and sweet-as ending of me winning a $165 Canyoning voucher trip for being a super-lad/jammy git* (delete as applicable).




With only one day to use the voucher and only 3 hours sleep, I headed and booked myself onto the 9 am Canyoning trip without really knowing what Canyoning was! It turned out to be an incredible 2 hour activity around one of Queenstown’s Canyons undertaking adrenaline-fuelled activities like abseiling, rock climbing, zip lining, rapids sliding and rock jumping, with the highlight being an 8m jump into a barely deep enough pool below. And with the water temperature at around 4 degree, it proved itself to live up to its billed status as the ‘perfect hangover cure’

The last few hours were spent at a much slower pace, thank god, in which we undertook some Frisbee golf, with the world’s worst Frisbees, and watch some Lawn Bowls whilst soaking up the
sun before deciding to head toward Lake Te Anau, suitably shattered, for the best fish and chips this side of the Rose Green Fryery and night 9 in the car! This night proved to be horrific with sub zero temperature felt in the car that even our stolen duvet couldn’t resist, cue engine revving at 4oc in the morning for some heat! Next up Milford Sound.......

Fours, Sixes and some annoying Zeros.

Having already decided a Whale watching trip in Kaikoura was probably too expensive for our budget all we really planned to do in town was a short coastal walk to try and spot some more wildlife. As it happened whale watching was not as expensive as we thought, and there was also some fishing trips Stu was interested in, so we ended up spending most of our evening musing over possible plans of action. We gulped down some free soup from the hostel and came to a decision. I was going for the whale watching, and stu would go fishing. So off I toddled to the whale watch centre to book. The only tour with seats available on the only day we had was at 6.45 in the morning, so I went all in! After rising at stupid o'clock, I found myself in the whale watch centre getting pretty excited. We were lucky enough to see some hectors dolphin (very rare) before we even got on the bus. Our tour had a motion sickness warning, but I had no fear. Until we left the marina. The boat we were on was more like a speed boat than a tour boat and it travelled pretty fast over some considerable swell. Luckily I found I got used to the sensation fairly quickly, but many, many others did not, and there was a lot of used sick bags by the end. To add to this problematic start, we didn't find any whales at our first search location. Or the second, or third. In fact, we only had time for four stops, and despite finding some whales on the fourth stop, we were so far from home, and the whales were still so far away that we didn't have time to hunt them down and wait for them to surface. Long story short, we didn't see any whales, but we did have a really long rough ride back to port!! Not seeing a whale is so rare (98% success rate) the company refund you 80% of your money if you don't see any, so all was not lost, but the lady who refunded me said she could not remember the last time she had to do it. It turns out the whales we eventually found were 12 miles off shore, compared to only three the day before. And no surprises, every tour now had a 'severe' motion sickness warning. I was very disappointed, but at least I hadn't spent money purely to get sick. I'm not kidding, some people were really bad, even back at the whale watch centre afterwards. I felt terrible on the boat when I was enjoying a nice morning packet of crisps as people all around were sending food in the other direction!! I did also manage to see a few different types of albatross and some other interesting birds.
When I returned I learnt that Stu had actually decided against fishing, so between us the morning had been rather a damp squib. So we did our walk and then drove down to Christchurch where we planned to see the Canterbury Wizards play the Wellington Firebirds in a one day cricket match the next day. This day was far more successful!! We also managed to get hold of a new camera for Stu, which will aid us greatly in boring you with photos when we return, as mine has dust in the lens (again) so we have pretty much given up on it till I can get it sorted properly in the UK. And we also managed to finish last in the local pub quiz, even with the help of Jap the crazy Dutchman and 'Bruce Willis', having to do forfeit shots at one point for scoring zero in a round. They were looovely....
Anywho, the cricket... After entering the cricket ground and taking our seats, expecting someone to come round and sell us tickets, nothing transpired, so we got in for free! (Big shout to those who carried a sofa into the ground, great idea). Wellington opened and boshed a mighty quick hundred, followed by a rather dull middle stint before having another bosh at the end to reach a very respectable, and frankly quite worrying, 299 after 50 overs). Canterbury did not start as quickly, lost some early wickets and also had a fairly dull middle period. Thus they found themselves stuck in what looked like an impossible position. Clearly the two men at the crease backed themselves however. With about ten overs to go, Stewart hit a stunning six, and the flood gates opened. He went on to hit a century off 76 balls, having reached his fifty after 58. You can see the difference. Supported by Brownlie, who hit and unbeaten 83 to win the match, the partnership was worth 180 before Stewart left on 101 (hitting another silly six). The 'equation' (cheers commentator) was steadily dragged in the favour of Canterbury and the final result was a five wicket win with 7 balls left to play. Stunning stuff, and really good ice creams to boot.
After this we drove to Arthur's pass, carrying on the back seat a duvet we have 'borrowed' from a Christchurch hostel to improve the car sleeping. (Since we are actually going back to Christchurch, borrowed is actually apt). The drive was amazing, the scenery was unbelievable. Like, stupidly good. The game of horse is also hotting up, but I'm currently trailing Stu quite considerably. After a sneaky Pizza in Arthur's pass we found a spot to crash in the car and had a considerably improved rest under our nice new duvet (its not as gay as it sounds).
Today we have driven down to Franz Joseph Glacier and have just booked a full day glacier walk for tomorrow, mmmmm, icy...

Life on the road...

Being in NZ’s capital gave us an opportunity to experience some city life once again and we headed out for a few bevies on a Wild Wednesday in Wellington! Another city added to the ‘I could defiantly live here, Jesus NZ is amazing!’ list.

With a day to explore Welly before our ferry south, we started by watching the NZI Rugby Sevens parade with adequate cheering for the boys in white, and booing for the sheep-loving boys in red! With cool freebies and chocolate galore (even with the injuries gained getting them) it was well worth it and also provided a free lunch for our day wander. Wellington is by far the most cityish of the cities we have visited for far with a lot of ‘suits’ walking around, but compared to London Town the pace was somewhat slower to say the least. Excellent converted docks also provided some tranquillity and shelter from the notorious Wellington wind. With evening approaching and another night in the car looming we headed for a free open-air film showing of the NZ comedy ‘Eagle vs Shark’ with about another 500 others who had the same idea. It turned out to be hilarious, definitely worth a watch, and a great way to finish off and incredible 13 days in North Island.

7.30am what a lovely time have ferry crossing....made even better by thick fog and no views, great.....This was made somewhat amusing to see ‘The Pride of Cherbourg’ on the side of the ferry and a ‘Made in Portsmouth’ sign underneath....Thankfully we were heading to South Island and not Northern France! Luckily, by the time we reached the picturesque Marlborough Sounds the fog and tiredness had cleared and we were treated to some spectacular views as the ferry docked into Picton. Yet another change of plans meant we headed straight for Abel Tasman NP, on route completing something we have wanted to do for a while now....pick up hitchhikers! Unfortunately they were German and smelt pretty bad, but it was great fun and ticked a vital travelling box.

After much deliberation we decided to spend our day at Abel Tasman NP, which has no roads, with an AquaTaxi to the centre of the park (Bark’s Bay) and 20km stroll back to the car. The taxi ride provided an excellent perspective of the park from the water at a fairly high rate of knots! We then undertook a redonkulously scenic walk around the golden bays of the National Park with a half-time eat, dip and swim at the beautiful Anchorage Bay with around 25 crazy Thai people posing for some hilarious photos. Abel Tasman, tick.

Night 5 in the car was spent in the Picton/Blenheim area, starting to get bored of this! But we decided what better to do on a Sunday morning at 11am than do some wine tasting around the famous vineyards of Marlborough. Two vineyards and a legal limitish amount of Pinot Gris later, we got back in the car and drove down the coast hugging SH1 towards Kaikoura, stopping only to watch some Fur Seals enjoying the almighty power of the South Pacific Ocean.

P.S Some points of note:

We have so far seen far more cows than sheep!?!

Also, we have met far more ‘real-life’ Germans than local New Zealanders!?! All very strange....

Following in the Footsteps of Frodo...

After jumping out of an aeroplane, not much else was achieved that day. I did however have time to drive all the way to Rotorua (and the accompanying smell) and back to pick up all the things I had left in the hostel there (seriously, don‘t ask, after five months of knowing where everything is and packing it away in the same way almost every day the car has made us completely useless. I left a large portion of my clothing drying in the hostel… but thankfully it was all still there!)

The next day we took a walk from Aratiatia dam, back toward Taupo via Huka falls. The dam opens every couple of hours to let a torrent of water down river. The walk followed the Waikato river all the way. We even managed to grab a sneaky peak at the Prawn Farm!

In the evening we managed to find an Irish bar (god knows how, there are soooo few of them around the world…). It was playing the Australian Open final, so now we can say we were in Taupo when Andy got another whooping. After this disappointing turn of events we retired to sleep in the car again in the YHA Taupo car park, a very good undercover car park perfect for a bit of car sleeping if anyone is ever in the area. So good infact that we were one of three cars there that was full all night!!

In the morning we settled behind the wheel again and drove ourselves to National Park (actually the name of the place, named after the park apparently… original!). On the way we noticed the beautiful sunshine, inviting cool blue of lake Taupo and the many picnic sites by the side of the road. Needless to say we jumped in and it was awesome. We also stopped at a historic site, which we couldn’t make head or tail of. Apparently everything noted on the map of the site was still buried, which kind of made the visit a little pointless. Nice view though! We also drove to some caves, but they were actually for caving, and I didn’t get very far in before the need for at least a helmet became apparent.

National park itself is tiny, only one shop, one pub etc… but it has nice hostels so we grabbed a bed and prepared ourselves for the next day, for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The crossing is meant to be one of the best day hikes in the world, about 20km of volcanic landscape. It’s something we had been planning to do for a few days but had until this point failed to embark upon due to the weather. The crossing itself turned out to be pretty easy compared to the other hikes we had done, we would have completed it in about 5 hours if we hadn’t taken on the extra challenge of CLIMBING MOUNT DOOM!! (as in Lord of the Rings). There is no path up the mountain, infact climbing it turned out to be bloody dangerous. We literally had to scramble/boulder/climb over volcanic scree and rock, pick the wrong foot hold and you go sliding back down! We huffed and puffed to the top though, and were treated to fantastic views and a seriously cool crater to peer into (really nice echo if you throw rocks in…). After a ginger biscuit and banana break we had to make our way back down. In the end we actually decided to take the advice of the bus driver (who had very short shorts) and ski/slide down a pyroclastic flow. This was probably even more dangerous than the climb, but we figured less dangerous than trying to climb back down the rock ridges. A couple of northern kids slid past us at speed at one point with the genius addition of ‘socks on hands’ for all the times our feet got a little carried away and we ended up on our bums. How they managed to film Frodo in this area I have no idea! Anywho, great walk!! Lot of steaming and craters and other shit that the guy from the geography field trip was chatting about…

Today we drove south to Wellington along the Wanganui river road (awesome and totally different views included) and are about to have some beer…