Back in Australia

As the title says we are now back in Australia and have left wonderful New Zealand. Sydney greeted us with clear blue skies and warm sunshine! Funnily enough Mick and Lin said it has been a cold summer in Oz terms and the sun only came out a week and a half ago. We are leaving Sydney tomorrow to head up the East Coast until we arrive in Cairns but we thought we would let you know how we spent our last days in New Zealand. Thankfully we didn't get attacked by any Orcs on the Tongariro Crossing.

The Tongariro Crossing was fantastic, you actually walk through craters that were made from volcanic activity and the crossing itself is situated in the most active volcanic areas with Mount Ruapehu being the highest and most active. Probably a good thing not to mention that until after we had finished the walk!
A little hobbit

Craters

More craters

The next stop was Rotorua which is nicknamed 'sulphur city' as it has the most energetic thermal areas in New Zealand with bubbling mud pools, gurgling hot springs, gushing geysers and horrible smells! We couldn't get used to the smell and I don't know how people live in the city as the smell is really overpowering.
a colourful steam pool

After all the smells we headed up to the Coromandel Pennisula which is known for beautiful beaches and clear blue waters. It really was beautiful and we saw the famous Cathedral Cove which is a gigantic arched cavern that is only accessible at low tide. This is where Gav flung himself into the sea for a swim and when he got out discovered he had the car keys in his pocket!!! That would have been interesting had they fallen out into the sea....
Beautiful sea

Cathedral Cove


With our last days in site we decided to head for the Bay of Islands and took in the North West coast famous for the huge Kauri forests. The Kauri trees are just massive, our jaws dropped when we saw them. The second largest tree had a girth of 16.41metres and a total height of 29.9metres. The largest tree had a girth of 13.8metres which is a bit smaller but his height is 51.5metres. Massive or what?!
Twin Kauri's, these ones are quite small though with a girth of 6metres each

The Bay of Islands were lovely and we saw the oldest stone house in New Zealand which was built in 1835, so not that old by Scottish standards. The Bay of Islands is named this as it is dotted with around 150 islands. We climbed a hill called St Paul's Rock and had the most magnificant view of some of these islands. The beauty of the place was amazing and you felt like you were alone in the world taking in the beautiful scenary. It was the perfect end to our New Zealand trip.

We hope you are all doing well.

Life after the farm......

Well we have certainly come down to earth with a bump after the comfort and pampering we experienced with Paula, Roger and Ruby on the farm. After waiting for so long for rain we finally came across some rain on our first night camping. Just a slight drizzle of what we heard was predicted to be 200mls in one night!!!! We spent most of the night driving around the small town of Fox Glacier looking for alternative accomodation as neither of us fancied even trying to put the tent up, however everywhere was booked and we settled for the cosy and intimate lodgings of the McKinleys automotive lodge. If any of you are thinking about sleeping in a car take it from us it isnt all its cracked up to be but it sure beats putting a tent up in driving rain. Jess thought she would capture this moment on camera as we are sure that we will want to look back on it fondly in years to come.

Modern day sleeping beauty

Well the night in the car proved to be worth it as the weather cleared and we had a perfect day for climbing on the glacier. We were properly kitted out with crampons and looked like real everest climbers! I think Jess liked this as it was one step closer to her dream of base camp.

The proud explorers after overcoming the famous "McKinley Step"


Fox Glacier in all her glory (well a bit of her!)

After this icey environment we decided we needed more of a tropical beachy feel and we headed up the coast to Abel Tasman National park. On day one we got a water taxi up the coast (as there are no roads throughout the park) and walked 16Kms back to the campsite. It was a beautiful walk through the forests and we stopped off a secluded beaches for a swim and a relax along the way. Sounds perfect....and it was until two naked people ran past us into the water and seemed not to be embarrased at all. We shoved our picnic down our throats and politely and calmly walked onto the next beach. The next day we took a kayak along the coast and experienced the park from the water. This proved to be a fitting goodbye to the south island as it is a beautiful island full of majestic and stunning sites.

A view from the track of Abel Tasman


A busy little beach in Abel Tasman (Appletree Bay)


More beautiful scenery this time seen from the water (well the background anyway)

Now we are on the north island and we have been to see the Waitoma caves. We weren't really expecting this to be high on our list of highlights but walking through the limestone caves composed from Stalactites and Stalagmites was spectactular. The next part was completely different as we took a boat journey, in pitch darkness, through a cave filled with glowworms. No one was allowed to talk throughout the boat trip as we slowly weaved in and out of Stalactites, it reminded us of something you would see on the BBC planet earth series. We have now spent the last two days staying just below Lake Taupo waiting to walk on the Tongariro crossing, which is meant to be New Zealand's best one day walk. Unfortunately the weather has not been good (yes this has meant another night in a rain swept tent! See its not all sunshine out here!) but we are booked on for tomorrow morning. We will be passing a certain mountain where a famous hobbit lost a finger (Mount Doom in Lord of the rings).
Hopefully if we survive the trip and are not attacked by orcs we will post some pictures on our return. Hope all is well with you all and we will be in touch soon.