I bet that you look good on the dancefloor

They call wellington Windy Welly, and its not hard to see why, the weather has been blowing a gale for the three days that we've been here. Its only upside is that its given us a chance to road test the tent in some more testing conditions. We are both feeling happier knowing that it can take a good 70kph blast without getting blown away (and I supect it'll take a fair bit more if we are in it weighing it down)

We've done some of the touristy stuff in Wellington, we visited parliment, which was quality as there were some proper arguments going and everyone throwing their toys out of the pram. We took a trip in the cable car, which takes you to the top of the botanic gardens. I'm sure the gardens look quite impressive in the summer, but on a blustery overcast day we weren't that impressed. We also visited the Te Papa museum, which was pretty amazing and had loads of cool interactive exhibitions. We ended up spending a couple of hours there just playing on earthquakes simulators, hitting various random buttons and exploring the Maori huts!

We also went out for dinner, which isn't as fancy as it sounds. We were going to have another pizza, but ended up in the food court of the nearby cinema and got a big plate of chinese food. As we were eating and comtemplating going back to the hostel for the night (which was not very appealing as it has to be the dirtiest we've stayed in so far) a woman approached and asked if we'd like tickets to go and see an advanced screening of Basic Instinct 2. Now initially I thought this was maybe a coded reference to 'are you looking for some action' but it turns out it was legit, the woman was from a radio station that had been giving away the tickets as prizes, and had some left over. So instead of going back to the hostel, we went to the cinema. Basic Instinct 2 is pretty rubbish, although Stan Collymore is in it for the first 30 seconds before we gets killed. If you want to see Sharon's baps (again! (not that I've seen the first one-remember my parents are reading this)) its worth a look, but apart from that it's plain rubbish!

After the cinema, we went for a drink at molly malones 'the best irish pub in wellington' and i tell you, if thats the best they can do, they're in trouble (not a glass of guiness in sight!). They had some random cacophony of a band on, and some drunkards doing some very strange dancing, which had us both baffled-time to go we thought!

Wellington has also given us a chance to do washing, chill out for a little while, and add numerous entries to our blog, and I hope you appreciate them.

We're off to get the ferry tonight to the south island, and have been warned it'll be a bumpy ride. We'll let you know.


xxxxxxxxxx

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Happy mothers day to Jan and Tina from the other side of the world. Lots of love, your gorgeous children!

At the drive in

After our walk we both felt knackered, so we had a fairly easy day, we drove to palmerston north, which is mid way to Wellington, our next big city. When we arrived we were told from the information center that there was a drive in movie on that night, and cost only $5 to get in (Great idea for pearl and dean!). As we could squeeze this into our daily budget we decided to treat ourselves and go to the movies. We also got pizza, this however does not fit into our daily budget, but it was bloody nice to have a big meal.

The film, was Crash, starring the guy who was being interviewed on the talkshow we went to see in LA. (If you don't know about the talk show you've obviously joined in half way through, so you should start reading from the beginning). We both really enjoyed the film, but its the first time we've ever had to use windscreen-wipers at the cinema.

My evening, and possibly my year was made by the fact that you can buy a pack of M&Ms that contain BOTH the peanut and chocolate ones, something I've been looking for all my life!

Tongariro Crossing

The tongariro crossing is billed as being the best one day walk, and by best, we assume they mean exhausting. Its basically a walk for 7+ hours that goes up one side of a mountain-mount doom from lord of the rings-and then down the other side. After about an hour of walk up a steady, but not too step incline you come to the devils staircase. I don't think we need to comment more on what this was like. 45 minutes later when your at the top, you get a rest for about half an hour while you walk through a big yellow crater. It feels quite eerie, kind of like being on another planet, especially as the clouds come in and obscure your view.

After another climb up yet another crater, the weather really closes in on you. The wind blows, and the clouds shift about like rain, when its really bad you have to do this bit on your hands and knees, The good bit is that once you get to the top of the crater, its down hill all the way, the bad news is that going downhill, is equally as bad as going uphill. You then walk down to the emerald lake, which is a green lake, suprise suprise, and then through some mars like landscapes, with loads of red rocks surrounding you, its pretty cool. There are also meant to be some blue lakes, but unfortunately for us the weather was so bad that we must have walked right by them without even being able to see them.

After you get down out of the clouds, the views are spectacular, you can stop for lunch and then look forward to a four hour walk back to the car park. Over all the walk is about 17km. Good luck.

Along with some pictures from our walk, we also managed to get a shot of Adam doing his best Brokeback Mountain impression!

We've spent the last few days heading south and stayed a few days in the very smelly city of Rotorua. This place really stinks. The town is built on a big thermal area around an old volcano, and there are loads of hot springs and geysers pumping out steam and sulpher into the air. It makes the town smell like rotten eggs, every now and again you get a really bad wiff of it, and it nearly knocks you over. The upside of all this is the great landscapes, we visited a thermal village, which has lots of Maori heritage, and also an active geyser-which was really impressive to see shooting up into the air.

We also went to a traditional Maori evening where we experienced a formal welcome from the tribesmens, as the would have done years ago. Basically a half naked guy comes running at you doing a war dance brandishing one of there traditional weapons and establishes whether you are a friend, or an enemy. Its something that you have to take really seriously, any laughter is really frowned upon as your insluting there whole way of life-a few months ago a guy got headbutted by one of the maori men for not showing enough respect! Its awesome to watch, and you really get an idea of what the early settlers must of gone through everytime they approached a village.

In the evening we went to a Maori feast-or Hangi for a good meal. It was a great opportunity to fill our boots after only eating noodles or pasta for the last week. Adam managed to have two full dinners, or to be more precise, two full plates of meat! There was lamb, chicken, pork, beef, and seafood, so we really made the most of it.

After Rotorua, we headed to Waitomo, which is an area full of about 300 caves, all of which are full of glow worms. They're about the size of a maggot, but there bums glow in the dark, so inside the cave you get this amazing experience of all the worms lit up. It looks abit like staring at the nights sky and seeing luminous green stars-really impressive! We payed to go on a guided tour which ivolved absailing down 85 ft into a gorge, and then floating along in the caves on a rubber ring, followed by a rock climb out. Alexia did really well, after overcoming her fear of absailing, and was soon looking like a natural!

After Waitomo we headed out to the west coast, which has amazing black sand beaches. We only stayed for one night but had a great night out on the town-which had only one shop, one chip shop, and a pub/motel. We were the only three people in the pub (along with a guy we bumped into who came caving with us earlier that day) but had a nice eving watching not much happening. It turns out that the woman who owned the pub used to live in Chislehurst near to Ravensbourne-small world. She was very nice, and even gave us some girl scout cookies to keep us going! yum!

We are now in Taupo, which is a town on a lake right in the middle of the north island, today we've been to see some waterfalls, and a place called the craters of the moon, which is a really baron looking area full of thermal activity, its abit like walking across a field and it looks like everything is smoking. Tomorrow we've booked to go on a walk-which is meant to be the best one day walk in NZ. Its about a seven hour hike, but it looks pretty impressive, they used the area as Mordor in the Lord of the rings films-we'll stick up some pics soon.

Apart from that, we've been enjoying all the driving, haven't manage to see a live possom on the road to kill yet, but we think we might have knocked off a rabbit a few days ago. We did our best to brake, but figured better the rabbit than us! The scenery is stunning, which make the long drive more bearable, and we think we've both lost weight due to our reduced diet-or not having a constant flow of biscuits to nibble on.

The backpacker diet, which we are considering writing a book on when we get back basically consists of:

Breakfast: 3 wheat biscuits (basically budget weetabix)
Lunch: 1 ham and cheese sandwhich, crisps and an apple
Dinner: A choice from either, boil in the pack noodles, complete with freeze dried bits. A can of soup between two, or for the more adventurous evenings, pasta with a tin of tomatos!

Also losses to date: One pair of sunglasses (adams) One Maori necklace (alexia-only owned for about 8 hours) One sleeping bag (adams, when the loser drove off and left it at the side of the road-what a nuff nuff!)

From Lex: Congratulations to Jackie, Steve and all the family, Dad told me the good news via email a few days ago!
Thank you everyone for your brilliant posts, please keep them coming!
Hannah: Hope Iv's last day wasn't too painful and messy! Hope all the SB lot are well!

From adam: hope everyones keeping well, and enjoying the weather. sorry no paolo look alikes yet!

Loads of love xxxx

Road kill-NZ style

Dead possum count today=17

Well we're off camping now after a short stay in Auckland. We stayed for three days and had a quick look round, which is all it needed really, we walked around most of the city in one after noon. Without realising we walked straight into a st paddy's day parade, which came free with a terry wogan lookalike!

We visited the city casino in the skytower (the tallest buildingin the southern hemisphere) and blew a wacking $2 on some kind of fruit machine that we couldn't work out how to play... We caught a ferry across the harbour to climb up an extinct volcano cone which gave a great view of the city skyline.

After the hot temperatures of raratonga, we're struggling to cope with the cold temperatures-it's only 24 degrees.

After Auckland we hired a car and set off north. We both sat in the car park of the hire place discussing whether or not to take out the extra insurance to reduce the excess from 2500 to 250 dollars... we wimped out and decided to pay the extra, but on the upside we can now try and jump the car over rivers, for a very small financial risk!

The scenery is stunning, with jungle like forests mixed in with palm trees, the land scapes seem to go on forever and they almost make you feel dizzy as you drive towards them. There are great beaches which we've been able to camp by on most nights watching the sun set.

On our second day out of Auckland we drove to the cape at the most northern point of NZ, which feels pretty strange to look out over the sea with nothing in front of you as far as the eye can see. After visiting the cape we swung by the biggest sand dunes you've ever seen. It was like something out of Star wars, and it looked like R2D2 and C3PO should appear at any second.

Anyway, we hired a couple of sand boards, and climbed to the top, it felt like we were both going to have heart attacks as the dune was so steep, but it was worth the climb, to slide back down.

We then headed south to a forest with some of NZs biggest trees, we saw one that they think is over 2000 years old, and it looked massive!

We're now planning to travel through the centre of the north island, seeing a few glow worms and hot springs on the way. We head across to the south island on the 30th march.

Tinternet access has been a little sparse, but we'll keep updating as and where we can.

After a week without meat, we're both looking forward to some chicken with our pasta tonight, cooked on our own little campmaster stove!

For Chloe & Tom

Hi Chloe and Tom

Your mummy told me that you are enjoying our trip photos and stories, so I thought you may like to see a few pictures of where your food comes from. Next time you're in the supermarket, so you can picture how your food grows!

pic 1: Paw Paws pic2: Bananas pic 3: Chillis pic 4: Coconuts

Kia Orana

WARNING-SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND THIS DISTRESSING!!!












The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, this place is gorgeous.

We're staying in a really nice beach hut overlooking the beach with a great view of the reef and sunset. Had a lovely BBQ last night with some great fish. Going to try and go snorkelling tomorrow on the other side of the island.

Hope your all enjoying the snow back in england (its pushing 30 degrees over here!)

Mum, Dad, Andy, Claire Bear and Sue & Barry...thank you for all your messages- missing you all lots and hope to write soon. AJ

I'm not missing anyone, this is far to nice, wish you were all here-well some of you anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AM...typical Adam!

Loads of sunny hugs!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bye Bye LA

LA was cool, we went for a walk down the hollywood walk of fame (found the star for 'the hoff') and got to hold an oscar! walked for what felt like miles to get a good pic of the hollywood sign before heading down to sunset blvd, which was a bit of a dissapointment, as there's not much going on, although we were keeping a lookout for hugh grants legs hanging out of a car window!

That took most of the day, and it felt like we walked about 10 miles... our feet were sore!

On our last morning we went for a big US style breakfast with eggs over easy and crispy bacon, during which alexia managed to tip my drink all over me... but I guess its about time she got revenge for the aftershock I threw down her at our first meeting!

Free BBQ in the evening was nice, and the flight to Rarotonga, although long, was a good opportunity to sleep...