We arrived on the North Island in Auckland and picked up our lovely VW camper van – home for the next 2 weeks! After a slightly shady first stop in an unofficial campsite with no power, we headed to the Waitomo caves famous for their glow worms!
James in Waitomo caves
( glow worm picture didn’t come out so well, so here’s another picture of our cheesy grins instead! )
James and Ruth in the Waitomo caves
The pictures inside the caves didn’t come out too well, so we improvised…
Ruth and friends....
After surviving the caves, we put wooden clips on our noses and headed to smelly Rotorua and it’s novel theme park – except with no rides for thrills, just thermal activity for fun.
Lady Knox's Geyser - she blows when washing powder is placed down her hole!
More thermal fun and spills ….
Painters palate
errr. steaming pool maybe??
On the way to Taupo we couldn't resist yet more thermal related excitement by stopping at a hydroelectric plant - woo hoo!
After Taupo, we stopped at Tongariro national park – home to mount doom from lord of the rings!!
Frodo's friend Rutho on the way to drop her ring in mount doom
After mount doom we headed West to the coast on Surfers highway before getting to Mount Egmont…
Mnt Egmont in background, NZ's answer to Japan's Mt Fuji. We've also sneaked a totem pole into the pic for extra value!
On our way South we passed through a town called Bulls. There was a bit of a running theme to all the signs in the town…
Recycling in Bull - RESPONS-I-BULL
2 dollar shop - AFFORD-A-BULLS
The police - CONST-A-BULL
We could go on….
We ended our time on the North island with a stop to see James’ cousin Nicola and kids Joseph and Samantha. We had our first and only NZ BBQ and a fab time! The girls proved they were the best at Taboo, but the boys thrashed them at pool to make up for it!
Thanks for having us stay guys 
) We had a great time seeing you, hope to catch up in the UK.
We then caught the ferry from Wellington to the South island, 3 hours with fantastic views coming into Picton on the S Island.
Ruth on the ferry
We then headed up to Abel Tasman park for some quality walking time! on the way we found our favourite NZ winery – had to stop for a pic of course.
Stoneleigh - these guys had a special offer on while we were there so we bought out their stocks in the supermarket.. sorry Henry ...
We did a 4 hour walk in 2 to try and catch an earlier water taxi… missed it regardless and ended up hitching a lift in another boat back! We saw seals and penguins … classic coast line action!
The split apple at Abel Tasman
On way South from Abel Tasman, we headed down the West coast and stopped to have a butchers at the world famous pancakes and blow holes at Punakhiki. Disappointingly, the blow hole was more of a spit hole while we were there and the pancakes were a bit crusty -
Ruth's lunch
We were shocked to find out that there were actual glaciers on the West coast that nearly meet the sea, so figured we’d have to check that out! As promised, the Franz Joseph glacier was dead impressive although we were sad when we found out that the quad biking wasn’t done over the top of it ( maybe not so much Ruth judging by the look of fear on her face riding on the back of the quad ).
Sunshine, grass, glacier, cheese, grin - can you tell the difference??
The good times on the quad bike....
...and the not so good times!
Next we headed to Wanaka and based on some local advice stopped at the so called ‘Blue Pools’ on the way …
Ruth after we decided the blue pools would better be called the 'non-descript greyish pools'
After an hour of walking, a passer by was kind enough to tell us that the blue pools were 45 mins back in the direction we had came from (
This could have been any night in the van.. We liked how they sell wine in milk cartons in NZ - very forward thinking, if only the milk man would deliver them also..
Wanaka was next and was amazing! Great seafood, great views, great jet boating – oh and there was a novelty maze too!
Jet boating on the river… got to get me one of these!
In puzzling world we did the big maze …
We did a lot of this!
but only did this once )
After Wanaka, we drove to Queenstown which everyone assured us was like Wanaka but a victim of its own success. Curious as to how a town can be a victim we stayed for a couple of nights and loved it! Not as nice as Wanaka, but there was an Irish pub so hey ho we’ll let it off. Oh, and the sunset was the best we had ever seen, honest check it out ..
Sunset in Queenstown
After a slight miscalculation on driving times, we realised that we’d have to fly to Milford Sounds to fit it in. When we saw the views from the plane, we were glad we did it though. Difficult to put it into words .. here’s my attempt.. “a bit fjordy but with seals, penguins, dolphins and waterfalls for extra value”. 2 of the dolphins followed our boat for 10 mins!
view from boat
waterfall and a bit of snow at the back
Milford sounds penguins
Dolphin!
our plane
Us on plane
On our last drive in NZ, we headed to Christchurch to drop the van off. It was a bit of a long drive, as you can tell by how excited we got at these road signs..
Twizel on the left
Geraldine, home of the world's largest jersey weighing a remarkable 5.5KG. Also home to a copy of the Bayeux tapestry made entirely from broken knitting machine parts. Random! )
We dropped off our van in Christchurch, and after Ruth had a little cry to say goodbye to it, headed to the airport for Hawaii.