Mar 2007

Relaxed and rejuvenated after our stopover in Samoa, we boarded the plane for the last bit of our trip - ten days driving up the coast of California, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. It was a long, boring overnight flight from Samoa - interrupted only by something I would rather have missed out on. I had been snoozing and woke up to feel something tickling my face. I thought it was the edge of the blanket - but no, it was something big and black and beetley - a big, black beetle - and it was crawling over my nose. Aaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh! I tried to control myself since there were people fast asleep all around me (including Gareth) but it would probably go in my Top 5 nasty moments of this trip. Luckily Gareth got hold of it and squashed it. No more high-flying for that little critter...

Arriving in LA we easily got through immigration and customs and over to Avis to pick up our car - a Red Chevrolet Cobalt (yes, it went much better than the Nissan Sunny). Our next challenge was negotiating our way out of the city - quite stressful with the lack of sleep, being on the wrong side of the road and armed with such a hopeless map. We managed to get lost a few streets out of the Avis car park but got back on our way, heading for Santa Barbara, our first stop.

California dreaming

I believe that in foreign countries you should do as the locals do so we stopped along the way at 'Jack in the Box' for the biggest, greasiest cheeseburger I've ever had. It was disgusting but at the same time, absolutely delicious and just what we needed to keep us going until we reached our home for the night - the Sandpiper Lodge. We'd booked this motel in a panic over the dodgy internet connnection in Samoa - realising that without a place to stay when we arrived in LA immigration would probably deport us right away - and we weren't sure what to expect - but what a lush room - a bathroom with mini bottles of shampoo and shower gel, a massive TV and a bed the size of Croatia. Bliss.....

How's about that for a campervan and a half?

Next day we discovered that Santa Barbara was a beautiful little place and we didn't have enough time there to explore it properly. The Spanish-style buildings are stunning and the weather was great - the town seemed to be bathed in an orange glow.

High noon at the OK Corale

There were loads of great shops, streetside cafes and everyone walks around with their dogs (we've realised now that California is a state of dog lovers - they go EVERYWHERE with their owners).

While we were there we visited El Presidio, an old Spanish fort from the time when California was part of what is now Mexico. The fort crosses over several streets and is slowly being restored. We also visited the County Courthouse - still in use and decorated with a very Moorish style and great views over Santa Barbara and its surrounds.

Well, only when I'm burning

Still, we had to move on to San Simeon where we were due to stay the night. We were late leaving and it was further than we thought - along the way we got hungry - story of our lives! Gareth spotted a bright red neon sign for 'Margie's Diner' so we pulled in for some food. Well, like I already said, best to live like a local when you're abroad. It was exactly what you'd expect from an American roadside diner, benchseats in booths, old movie pictures on the wall and loads of food. Gareth ordered a strawberry milkshake which was served in a giant glass plus there was a metal can that held the rest of the milkshake (we were still drinking this from a takeaway cup in the car for the rest of the journey). I ordered a half salad (thank goodness) while Gareth went for the Philly Beef and Cheese sandwich. I think pictures are the best way to describe this 'sandwich'.

'Eat while you can' as we always say

Next morning we were up early to visit Hearst Castle, one of California's State Parks and the former residence of William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of his day - his day being the 1920s onwards. Hearst inherited the land from his parents and decided to build the mansion home of his dreams from scratch - filling it with treasures he had collected during his life - meaning that the place is like a museum with ancient tapestries, silver pieces, greek pillars and furniture - plus so much more. Pretty impressive. Hearst Castle is also famous for the stunning Neptune Pool in the grounds, ripped up and rebuilt three times during its construction because Hearst had decided it wasn't 'quite right'. There are zillions of photographs of this gorgeous black and white pool with bright blue water - and as our tour guide guide said - we were the lucky ones to get a rare photo of the pool without any water as they undertook repairs!

Lounging by the pool

From Hearst Castle, it was back on the road for the drive to Monterey, our next stop. We'd done a bit of driving on our trip, a lot of it in Australia and one thing you could usually rely on in Oz was that when you got out of your car, there would be a pretty spectacular beach waiting for you ... of course there would usually be something waiting to kill you too. At least we didn't have to worry about that on Californian beaches - right?

All we need now is a rattlesnake to join the party

We managed to dodge the beach hazards and reach Monterey Bay safely - our home for the next few days. I don't need to tell you that we arrived with no accommodation booked - in fact nothing planned at all - but once we'd found ourselves a motel for the next couple of nights we headed off to the pier to explore.

It didn't take too long before we'd booked ourselves into a whale-watching tour the next morning - something we'd thought about doing in New Zealand but had ditched in favour of the fantastic dolphin swimming. Not only was it much, much cheaper in California but I'd also just found out that I'd had a tax rebate - bargain - and now it was burning a hole in the pocket of my (well-worn) action trousers.

Of course this meant a dreaded early start for me but it had been days since the last one, (back in New Zealand I think). They warned us that it might be cold on the boat, so we wrapped up in all the clothes we had - and a good job too because it was colder than the Minus 5 bar in Auckland.

We're not smiling, it's just our faces are frozen

The boat chugg-chugged out of the harbour and on the way we were all hanging over the edge, eager to catch a glimpse of sea otters, seals and sealions (yes, they are different, I think the only thing they have in common is that they all attract SHARKS).

'They're waving!'

The plan was to spot some grey whales - they are among the biggest whales on the planet so we had a good chance, but as our over-excitable marine biologist guide pointed out distant smudges in the water I began to realise why whale-watching in New Zealand was so much more expensive - it is so much better. It was all pretty disappointing and then we had a treat - a lone killer whale close to the boat. Pretty cool and made it all worthwhile.

After our early start we were both ready for a lazy afternoon so we headed off to Pebble Beach. This is a posh gated community (we had to pay to get in) with some top notch golf courses, hideously expensive properties and exclusive shops. Hmmm, not ideal when you're on your last few pennies - but there were some great sea views along the way. Seeing as I had not driven since we collected the campervan in NZ, I thought Pebble Beach would be a suitable place to get back in the saddle so-to-speak and try my hand at driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the world. I must have driven about 200 yards before I pulled over and decided to leave driving until I got behind the wheels of my beloved Mini at home. The stress was bad enough for me but I felt sure that Gareth's brain would explode with tension if I carried on much further and it would be a shame to have to start divorce proceedings so close to going home.

The Lone Cypress - it's famous....apparently

Over to Mr Rees for the rest of our Californian odyssey...

The following morning we had decided that we had to go to Carmel, which is a small town just south of Pebble Beach. Carmel may be famous for many things in America, but in Britain it is famous only for being the town where Clint Eastwood was once Mayor.

Carmel is very posh, everything there looks just perfect, people walk their dogs around and then carry the smaller ones around the shops with them like they are young children. We had a look around a few of the shops, but it soon became clear that we weren't going to be buying anything here on our end of trip budget, so we headed to the beach for a walk.

Sunny Carmel-by-the-sea

After our morning in Carmel we needed to continue heading north towards Santa Cruz, but decided to do a detour to San Juan Bautista on the way. This wasn't as easy as it should have been, as we had a very limited tourist map that only really showed you where hotels were and the signposting was rather limited.

Ah, so this is the way to San Jose but do you know the way to San Juan Bautiste?

Eventually we managed to get there to find a small town that seemingly consisted of only antique (junk) shops and the Mission San Juan Bautista. Oh yes, and the San Andreas Fault.

Jess got there before us

The mission San Juan Bautista is built right on the edge of the San Andreas Fault, (the reason for California's earthquake issues!) and apparently they are overdue a another large earthquake. In the mission they actually have an old seismograph, which is great because you can keep an eye on it so that you know when you're going to die.

You have been warned!

Apparently the bell tower here was used in the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo, with James Stewart. Neither Sarah nor I have seen it, so it's another one to add to the list of films we need to see now that we are back.

We ventured out of the mission to go for a walk along El Camino Real, an old road which is now a footpath and cycle track, but it was a short walk, because this actually follows the fault line and we saw no reason to take unnecessary risks.

Earthquake Walk? How crazy can you get?

After the excitement of risking our lives at the mission we decided that we'd carry on up to Santa Cruz, which is apparently the surf city of northern California. Obviously we hadn't booked any accommodation in advance, so we had to find somewhere to stay. With our motel discount book in hand we headed to the cheapest places we could find. Our first stop was in the Riverside Avenue Travelodge, where the proprietor decided to ignore us for the first minute that we were stood in front of him, not a good start. We had a look at a room, which was fine, but decided to have a look elsewhere first. We told him that we would think about it and he assured us that there was nowhere else in Santa Cruz that we would find an available room cheaper, so we went next door and booked in there. Sarah took control of the negotiations, which went along the lines of,'next door is cheaper, but you seem much nicer and we'd like to stay with you, what can you do about the price?', after a few long silences Sarah had saved us $10 a night! I was very proud!

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with Santa Cruz. I had expected a Californian version of the Gold Coast in Australia, but to be honest the seafront was more like a Californian version of Barry Island. It had a funfair on the boardwalk and lots of fast foodstalls and tacky shops. I was quite surprised because there seemed to be hardly any surf shops there and the shops they had reminded me of Fat Willy's Surf Shack in Newquay.

We had a walk along the boardwalk to the pier, where we had a healthy meal of fish and chips - after walking up and down the pier a few times we settled on the busiest looking restaurant that had a takeaway counter. They were pretty good too, but not up to the standards of Albany, Western Australia. As some of you may know, Sarah loves the seaside and there's nothing that she likes more than going rockpooling, so having read in the Lonely Planet guidebook that there were fantastic tidepools up the road we headed there for a look around. After fifteen minutes of searching the beach we discovered that there were no tidepools here at all, even though it was at the dead of low tide, perfect rockpooling time. Sarah was rather annoyed, so I took her to find something to eat to cheer her up.

Crufts-by-the-sea

It was in Santa Cruz that we discovered that you can get great coffee in the petrol stations at a fraction of the Starbucks prices and Sarah introduced me to Krispy Kreme donuts. It's no wonder they have problems with obesity in the states, those donuts are great!

We had a bit of a late start the next morning and headed into town to find some breakfast. The first place we found was called Zachary's and was absolutely chocka. They had a fifteen minute wait for a table, which must be a good sign, so we put our name down on the queue list. It was worth the wait, the breakfasts we had were fantastic, Sarah had some kind of corned beef hash and I had some massive mixture of eggs, bacon, fried potato hash and heaven knows what else. The service was great too, my coffee cup never went any lower than half full before being topped up. If you're ever in Santa Cruz and hungry, I would recommend it.

With our appetites for the day completely sorted we headed up the road to do a have a look around the shops. After we got bored of that we went back to the beach for a walk and to watch the 300 surfers in the water at Steamer Lane, one of California's premier surf spots. It was crazy out there, the waves were pretty pants and there were loads of surfers going for every wave, it didn't look like much fun, and the water looked very cold. (Particularly after Samoa.)

Gareth shows the locals how it's done (not)

Actually I lied earlier - there is of course something that Sarah loves more than the seaside and rockpooling - funfairs - so we hopped back in the car and went back to the boardwalk. It was a good job that we did too, because we arrived to find that it was closing in ten minutes. Luckily we had just enough time to get a ride on the Big Dipper rollercoaster. This is the same rollercoaster that was used in the film 'Lost Boys', it's pretty good, because it's old and you feel like you could fall out at any moment.

Viva Las Vegas

After another visit to the coffee and Krispy Kreme donut shop (aka petrol station) we retired for the evening.

Next day we had to get to San Francisco by 3pm to return the hire car, but first we had to stop in a music shop in Santa Cruz for me to buy a guitar. After much consideration I went for a Daphne Blue Fender acoustic guitar, which sounds lovely (when someone else is playing it) and looks pretty cool too.

On our way north we stopped at the legendary big wave surf break, Mavericks, at Half Moon Bay, but as usual it wasn't breaking. Not that I would have considered going for a surf there if it had been breaking, I'm not completely mad.

San Francisco was very easy to drive into and we were soon checked in at the Van Ness Motel for the next four nights (with some more wheeler dealing from Sarah). We had to return the hire car to Fisherman's Wharf, which is the real tourist centre in San Francisco and in order to get there we needed to drive down one of the really steep streets that they use in car chases in films like Bullitt - this would have been more exciting if we hadn't been doing an average of 2 mph because the car in front had somebody standing with their head out of the sunroof taking pictures!

Fisherman's Wharf was really rather tacky, just a mass of touristy junk shops and lots of restaurants. As well as a few 'performance artists', such as the guy who was crouching down on the pavement behind a tree branch, then jumped out at Sarah and gave her the fright of her life. Unsurprisingly we didn't give him any money.

There was this one time, at band camp.....

That night we hopped on the bus and went to the Italian neighbourhood, called North Beach, for dinner. We had a lovely meal and then went back to the motel, because we had to be up early next morning for shopping!!

The following day we headed to Union Square, with more shops than you can shake a stick at - Macy's, Saks, Bloomingdale's - you name it they've got it. It really is amazing how much cheaper clothes are in America, we were particularly fortunate as well, because we were getting $2 to the pound. After an exhausting day around the shops, Sarah and I walked back through Chinatown that evening (the largest Chinatown outside China) and had a lovely meal (with some Tsingtao beers), which again was huge, but we were able to take what was left back with us in boxes to have the next night, bargain!

Union Square

The next day we were going to Alcatraz first thing in the morning to try to avoid the crowds. The trip was great, the crossing was smooth and we were deposited on the quayside to start our tour of the island and the prison (penitentiary). They have an audio tour that you follow around the prison and it tells you the story as you go along, it's narrated by former inmates and guards from the prison and it's very good.

When you've been through the prison you come out on the other side of the island, where you get fantastic views of the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge. It must look fantastic at night. You can also do the tour of Alcatraz at night, which must be very spooky.

There are many stories of inmates who tried to escape by swimming from Alcatraz, but none that are proven to be true. It seems very unlikely that anyone would survive the swim from the island, particularly as the area between Santa Cruz, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Farallon Islands is known as the 'Bloody Triangle', because it is the shark attack capital of California! After hearing this Sarah was very pleased that I hadn't been surfing in California.

It was definitely worth making the trip over to Alcatraz though.

I wouldn't fancy swimming it

After catching the ferry back we went to the Boudin sourdough bakery on Fisherman's Wharf, where they do a great meal which is a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with either chilli or clam chowder. Neither of us fancied the clam chowder and the chilli was great. The weather was quite cool, so the chilli warmed us up nicely.

Eating again

Somehow we managed to fit in an ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli's that afternoon as well, although I'm not sure how, because they were huge.

and again....

We had big plans to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge the following day, but in the end we decided that it was too cold, too windy and we didn't have the energy (or warm enough clothes) - and with only one day of our trip left to go we were flagging. We ended up chilling out for the day with a look around the shops, a few coffees and some more food at Lori's Diner. Lori's Diner was on the first floor above some shops and as you went up the steps you thought it would be quite small, but it was actually huge. I had a Hot Dog with Chilli and Cheese and Sarah had a Cheeseburger, both washed down with Cherry Coke. Fab!

and again.

Lori's Diner

The day of our return home dawned and we were up early, we checked out of our motel and headed down to Fisherman's Wharf, so Sarah could pick up a few last souvenirs. She left me in a cafe trying to get breakfast, I ordered it and after 25 minutes there was still no sign of it, so I gave up and went to find Sarah. I ended up getting a platter of cheese and fruit from Starbucks, which was a bit disappointing, as I was hoping to have a big American breakfast on my last morning there, but it wasn't to be.

All along our trip, we'd often wondered what were the best things we'd brought with us. This tended to change depending on where we were but when you're living out of a rucksack you start to love the things that bring you a bit of comfort. For me, it was my trusty trainers (even though they smelt - really bad) and for Sarah, it was her stripey Smartwool socks. She thought they were fab - a six-month substitute for slippers and they could be worn for days and they didn't stink (well, that's what she said and I suppose they didn't stink as much as mine but my feet, socks and shoes are somewhat legendary in the stinky department.) I had even been persuaded to ditch my original socks and invest in some new wool ones like Sarah's.

We'd had brilliant time away, with the freedom to take nearly every day as it came and see so many new things, our worries were only ever along the lines of 'Where are we going to sleep tonight?', 'What will the in-flight movie be?' and 'Is this Nissan Sunny EVER going to make it over this hill?'.

It's hard to wave goodbye to all that freedom and go back to what you know, but we believe in watching out for omens and taking notice of them. As we waited in the motel to be picked up by the shuttle bus and begin the long journey back to Wales ... wondering whether it really was time to go home, we caught sight of an omen. I don't think there can be a better sign than this:

Signing off as Globetrotters, Gaz and Saz.
THE END

Please make sure that you've read the last installment of our blog from New Zealand before you read this, we published them both at the same time!

There aren't many places where you can take off in the early hours of the morning and arrive in time for breakfast the day before - and there wouldn't be many times when we could pop to Samoa for a long weekend - but from New Zealand we could, so we did!

Our place took off from Auckland at 1am on 23 March and after crossing the international date line and only three hours of flying we landed in Faleolo International Airport at 5.55am on the 22nd of March. We were greeted by a Samoan band playing some classic Samoan pop on an assortment of stringed instruments and then it was through the doors where we were met and given some rather tired looking leis before hopping aboard the minibus for the forty five minute ride to Sinalei Reef Resort, on the south of the island of Upolu.

Having spent the better part of our trip staying in rather basic accommodation we had decided to spoil ourselves for the four nights that we would be in Samoa and had booked into the best resort on the island (that's not saying much mind you, there aren't many resorts and most of them are just huts).

We came here for the glorious weather

After breakfast and a sleep to recover from our travelling we spent the afternoon exploring the resort and discovered that there was a surf camp next door (very basic) that provided a lift to the surf breaks in their boat, for a small fee (all the breaks are on the outer reefs, about a kilometre offshore). This was very good news because I hadn't expected to be able to surf in Samoa as we were there for such a short time, so I booked for the next morning.

It was shortly after this that we discovered that some pesky baggage handler had been a bit brutal with my board. The tail had taken quite a whack and had split open, but with the help of some surf wax and some sticky tape, just like Blue Peter, it was fixed.

The next morning we were up early for breakfast, then I was straight over to the surf camp. I went out in a boat with a local guide and six US Coastguards, whose boat was in Apia being repaired. They had come over to kill some time - they were all based in Hawaii and were very good surfers. I didn't know what to expect, and going by my luck on this trip I wasn't too hopeful, but as we pulled up to the break and dropped the anchor I could see that it was absolutely perfect. There was not a breath of wind, it was like glass, there were six foot lefthand waves peeling down the reef and there were only seven of us out there.

I've been waiting six months for this!

The perfect day

It also helped that the water was twenty eight degrees celsius and the sun was blazing, it was beautiful. It was without a doubt the best surf I've ever had in my life. There was one drawback though......

The tide was dropping and the water was getting shallower over the coral reef, after about two hours of non-stop fun I caught a lovely wave, but I stayed on it too long. I noticed that the water was getting shallower and shallower beneath me (one of the things with surfing tropical reefs is that you can see EVERYTHING that is under you as you surf along), then I got knocked off my board by the wave and landed head first on the reef. I was very lucky, because I managed to get away with just a bruised and very bloody nose. After a sit down in the boat until the bleeding stopped (to make sure the sharks didn't smell the blood) I got back out there for another two hours! I think when I got back, Sarah thought that I'd been beaten up!

War wounds

The following day was rugby day in the local village, so we decided we should go along and have a look. There were matches going on all day, but when we got there the Under 21 local village team, Laumoosoi, were playing. We weren't sure where we were supposed to go in to watch it and walked up and down the road outside a few times before another of the guests from Sinalei spotted us and came to fetch us. We were treated like honoured guests by the locals, given chairs to sit on, everybody else was sitting on the floor, and the announcer on the tannoy welcomed 'our visitors from overseas'! The rugby was not very good, they kept dropping the ball and some of the refereeing decisions were a bit suspect, but it was fun to watch.

Knees, squeeze, NOW!

They are certainly passionate about the game and the players really gave it their all. The biggest problem there was the heat, although we had had torrential rain for an hour before the match, by the time we had got there the sun had come out again and it was scorching. We were sitting there watching the game while quickly roasting! By the time we had got to half time of the second match we gave up, it was just too hot. We retired to the pool and happy hour in the bar alongside.

Sunday dawned sunny and hot again, so I decided that I had better get out onto the golf course before the roasting afternoon heat. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but by the seventh hole (of nine) I was absolutely cooked. It was hard going anyway, because the fairways looked like they hadn't been cut for about six weeks and the ball didn't run at all, but it was fun.

Our little piece of paradise - a garden fale

Next morning we were booked in for another little luxury - a massage each in Sinalei's spa. I had a normal relaxing massage while Sarah went for the hot stone massage. My massage was lovely, but Sarah seemed even more pleased with hers, she actually had two girls doing her massage. I could hardly speak or walk by the time we had finished, and Sarah was dribbling out of the side of her mouth, she was that relaxed.

We had been invited, along with our new friends Michael, Amanda, Brooke and Ben, for lunch that day at Edwin the barman's house in the village. He picked us up in his ageing people-carrier (with a massive crack right across the windscreen) and took us to meet his family. The house was pretty basic and seemed to consist of mostly empty large rooms and there were lots of children appearing from different places all the time. Edwin didn't actually eat with us, he just kept bringing all the food and drink out to us, saying that it was part of the culture that the host doesn't necessarily eat with his guests, but I wasn't convinced. The food was quite interesting, Taro root, which they eat as a staple instead of potato, with a coconut cream parcel to start, followed by rice soup with chicken and fish (oh and more taro). The main problem was that taro is so filling that having had it as a starter, no one really had any room for the main course.

Yes, we explained to Edwin that's not a friendly gesture!

We spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool, killing time and trying to avoid Neville*, someone that we met on our second day. I had stupidly asked about his diving trip that morning. What a mistake, we were then subjected to a twenty minute monologue where we couldn't get a word in edgeways. I made Sarah promise there and then that if I ever became that obsessed with diving and unable to talk about anything else, that she would put me out of her misery.

• not his real name

Sunset over the Pacific

So that was Samoa, a very nice long weekend. It would be nice to go again and have more time for surfing. Next stop California....

By the way, Sarah is still travelling with me, there just aren't any pictures of her in the blog!

After a short and thankfully uneventful flight from Auckland we arrived in Christchurch ready to start the next section of our trip, the South Island. Having spent the last three weeks being sensible and trying to book our accommodation we had fallen into our natural way of doing things, arriving somewhere and seeing where you can get in for that night. Anyway, it was only 11.30am when we arrived, so still very early. We called a few places, but there were no spaces, so we called the Jailhouse, there were spaces available, so we went directly to jail, did not pass 'Go' and did not collect 200 pounds, although by this stage of our trip our budget could have done with it.

If you see this man, do not approach him, he is extremely dangerous

The Jailhouse is not actually a jail anymore, it's a backpackers hostel and a very good one as well. We had a fairly small cell with bunk beds, but the shared bathrooms and kitchen were clean and it was very friendly. Unfortunately they only had a room available for one night, so we had to make a quick decision on our plans for the next couple of weeks, so that we would have somewhere to go.

A key factor in our decision-making was when we would be able to see some rugby. I felt that if I was going to spend five weeks in a country that loves rugby as much as we do in Wales then I had to get to a match. Luckily Christchurch is the home of the Canterbury Crusaders, one of the most successful Super 14 clubs of all time, and they had a match against the Bulls in a week and a half's time, decision made! We decided to head straight down to Queenstown the following day, so that we could do a circuit of South Island and be back in Christchurch for the match.

We had to be up early the next morning to catch the Atomic Shuttle down to Queenstown. We were picked up outside jail at 6.50am by a very friendly lady who said that she would drive the bus out of Christchurch then swap with another driver who would carry on to Queenstown.

Our new driver was a bloke called Jim, who was, to be frank, a right grumpy git. He was only the second unpleasant person we had met in a country where the people are so unbelievably friendly and helpful, and where you don't have to explain to everyone where Wales is! On the journey we passed Lake Tekapo, a beautiful lake with stunning blue water. It's this colour due to the sediment that was left in the lake by a glacier moving down the valley which gouged out the lake's basin. However it happened, it looks amazing.

Lake Tekapo

We continued to drive through some stunning scenery and it was pretty comfortable until we got to the last section of the trip, about an hour from Queenstown. Something happened to Grumpy Jim and he turned into Colin Macrae, he seemed to think he was doing the rally of New Zealand.

Queenstown is the adventure sports capital of New Zealand, some would say of the world, and when you go there you are supposed to do something exciting, but to be honest Sarah and I just wanted to relax. We thought it might be fun to go whitewater rafting, but unfortunately they have had so little rain there this summer that the Shotover river, which is the exciting one, didn't have enough water in it to go rafting. Our other option was to go rafting on the Kawarau river, but apparently this is about as exciting as going whitewater rafting on a canal, so we gave it a miss.

Gareth makes himself at home

We did however decide to take the gondola ride to the top of the hill above Queenstown, so we could admire the view and take a few photos. It's quite a good gondola ride, it seems very steep, but apparently it's only at an angle of 35 degrees, it certainly felt a lot steeper when you looked down!

The Remarkables. Remarkable.

We discovered that Queenstown's Irish bar, Pog Mahoney's, was showing re-runs of all the Six Nations matches and that they were doing pints of Guinness for $4.50 during the games (that's cheap for here), so we decided that we should watch the Italy vs Wales match there. It was actually pretty quiet in there, four Welshmen, a Welshwoman (that's Sarah, in case you were wondering) a few assorted Irish, Scots and English and two guys sitting in front of us who never declared their support, so we guessed they were probably Italian. Every now and then an American or Japanese tourist would come in through the door, hear the shouting and barracking, then run back out again looking scared. It wasn't a happy result, but it made for an enjoyable afternoon.

That's BATHROOM for everyone else

We were up early again on Monday morning for the bus ride to Franz Josef. We had a much friendlier driver this time, who took us up over the Crown Pass, the highest road in New Zealand. It was slow going, but the views were magnificent over Lake Wakatipa and Queenstown.

Our driver did a bit of a commentary as we went along, most of it was informative, but some of it was just amusing. For example:

'Up there on top of that mountain there is what we call Indian Snow, do you know why? It's because there's apache here, apache there......'

This one was clearly his favourite, during a commentary on the trees of the area:

'In New Zealand we have four types of Beech; the Mountain Beech, the Silver Beech, the Red Beech and the much rarer, Son of a Beech.'

It was a long journey, but eventually we arrived in Franz Josef, where it was raining. We had been very lucky with the weather in New Zealand so far, but it seemed to be turning against us. We checked into our hostel just in time to avoid the heavy rain that then continued all afternoon and all night.

We'd booked ourselves onto a three-quarter day hike up on the Franz Josef Glacier the following day, so we were up early again to get kitted out and head up there. Thankfully the rain had eased a little, so we didn't get too wet on our walk up to the start of the glacier. There was a huge cave at the bottom of the glacier with a river running out of it, every so often bit of the cave would collapse into the river. When I say 'bit' I really mean a massive chunk of ice, which would make an almighty noise, like thunder. It was very impressive. The huge amount of rainfall the previous afternoon had actually caused the cave to get much bigger and our guide explained that it would eventually collapse in on itself. There are bright yellow signs all around telling you how dangerous it is there, that you should only go onto the glacier with an experienced guide and that you should not go past certain points. Three weeks ago two men had decided to ignore the warning signs and walked right up inside the cave, which is a really stupid thing to do. Unfortunately for them, part of the cave collapsed and they were very badly hurt, apparently one guy's leg came clean off at the knee, nasty!

It should be self explanatory

We put our crampons onto our boots and started up the glacier. Each morning a group of workers from the guiding company come out and cut a staircase out of the glacier with pickaxes, then they put a rope handrail into the sides with ice screws, to hold on to where it's steep. Its a little bit weird walking on a glacier - usually I would avoid ice wherever possible, but here you just stamp your foot down hard with each step and hope that the crampon grips. Sarah has got a bit of a history on ice having broken her arm after falling over trying to thaw her car's windows some years back, and I think walking on the glacier probably rated as highly on her 'Top 3 things you would rather not do' in the same way as having a Burmese Python draped around my neck did for me.

That is a full grown man up there!

In most places using the crampons was fine, but there were a few parts that were a little scary. The steps would be almost non-existent at times and I did wonder how you would be able to stop yourself if you fell on a slope. Would you just slide all the way back down to the bottom of the glacier?! By far the most worrying parts of the glacier were the merlons. These are holes in the glacier where rain and melt water find their way down through a weak point in the ice. The merlons grow slowly over time and get deeper and deeper. As our guide put it, 'If you fall down there, that's it, we'll see you come out of the front of the glacier in six or seven years'!

Don't look down

As you travel further up the glacier you start to see blue ice. It's blue because the ice is under such high pressure that when it refracts light, certain colours in the spectrum stand out much more than others, particularly blue. It was quite cool to look at.

'There was an Englishman, a Welshman and .......'

We managed to survive the rest of the hike without falling down any merlons and without losing our lunch to any of the cheeky Keas, birds that are obviously well-used to the hikers and the lunches they bring with them. We were back to our hostel by about 3pm and promptly fell asleep!

The next day we woke to find that it had snowed in the mountains around us overnight, so much for the traveller's endless summer! We were booked on the Atomic Shuttle again, to Greymouth, but it wasn't leaving until 3pm, so we had a bit of time to waste. Not that easy when it's raining torrentially. After spending some time in a red bus that had been converted into an internet cafe, we had a cup of tea, then decided to go for a walk, seeing as the rain had stopped at last!

We headed up a little track near our hostel, which was signposted for Matutu tunnels. The sign said that it was a one hour and forty minute return journey and we only had an hour and a half before we had to get the bus, so we thought we'd just have a wander. It was definitely a good idea, because after walking for about ten minutes, we saw what looked like a deer standing on the track ahead watching us.

'Does my bum look big in this?

It stood there for a little while, then wandered around in front of us, it obviously didn't think we were a threat. Sarah managed to get a few good photos and we realised that it wasn't actually a deer, it was a chamois. Yes, that is the same thing that people use to wipe the water off their car, they actually live wild in the mountains in New Zealand. Many years ago an Austrian named Haast explored New Zealand, naming the Franz Josef Glacier after the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a reward for his work he was made 'von Haast' and awarded five Chamois, which he released in the foothills of Mt Cook and they have since thrived in the area. Sarah used to occassionally buy a chamois leather for her grandfather as a birthday or Christmas gift, but after seeing that they are so cute in the flesh (or fur), sorry Grampa, but I don't think that's going to happen again!

We arrived in Greymouth at about six o'clock and checked into the Global Village Hostel. This hostel comes highly recommended in the backpackers guides to New Zealand and for very good reason. Our room was really nice, with little tribal trinkets and things on the walls, a very comfy bed and it was lovely and warm. They had an excellent kitchen and there were free bikes and kayaks for the guests' use. Not that we bothered to use them of course.

Spot the deliberate mistake

We dropped our stuff off in the room and went for a walk along the floodwall down to the harbour entrance to have a look at the breakwater. It was pretty wild there, the hostel owner had told us that Greymouth is the most dangerous harbour in New Zealand and I can see why. The harbour entrance is where the fast flowing Grey River runs into the Tasman sea and when there is any kind of storm swell it must be pretty hairy trying to get in and out of the harbour entrance. There was quite a big swell running and some very big waves were crashing into the side of the breakwater, sensibly, all the fishing boats were safely moored in the harbour! I had read that the coast around Greymouth is unusual for surfers because you usually have to wait for the swell to drop to be able to go surfing!

The aptly named Grey River

Sadly, this is about as exciting as Greymouth gets and the following day we had a great deal of difficulty entertaining ourselves until we were due to go on our brewery tour in the evening. Greymouth is the home of Monteith's Brewery and they do a tour that is open to the public, which includes a tasting session at the end. Needless to say, Sarah was very keen on the second part of that sentence so we had booked ourselves onto it.

Shandy drinker

The tour was very good and the guide clearly knew her stuff. Monteith's is a small, batch brewery - they make about two million litres of beers every year. This might sound like a lot, but one of my customers in my last job made 64,000 litres every hour at full production. There are only ten staff there, so everybody does a bit of everything. The tasting was obviously the best bit, everybody was given a half pint glass and then given a quarter of a pint of each of their seven beers to try. Some of them were quite nice, particularly the Original Ale, the Pilsner and the Dark beer, but they had made one really strange beer. It was supposed to be similar to a German shandy, but rather than adding lemonade they had added a lemon and lime flavouring. It was probably the worst thing I've tried in a long time!

The reason why 90% of tourists are in Greymouth is because it is at one end of the TranzAlpine Railway, known for being one of the ten great railway journeys in the world. As we needed to get back to Christchurch, which is at the other end, we'd booked ourselves onto it too. It didn't get off to a great start, scheduled departure time was 1.45 pm, but at 1.46pm there was no sign of it. Sarah has dragged me onto enough different forms of public transport for me to be able to tell you that this is unusual outside of the UK. Thankfully a few minutes later it appeared and we prepared to board. Unfortunately when Greymouth station was built, nobody thought to check the length of the TranzAlpine train. Our seats were in carriage M, but carriage M was about twenty five yards beyond the end of the platform, so we all had to walk along the edge of the track and then climb up to the carriage (literally). The train itself is pretty good, there was plenty of leg room and an open viewing deck.

Arthur's Pass

We saw some great scenery (the train passes through the Southern Alps. Arthur's Pass and the Canterbury Plains) and got a few good photos, but to be honest it wasn't as amazing as I had expected it to be. Maybe I have particularly high expectations, but we saw views that were just as good when we were in Queenstown.

It was a very long train

On arrival in Christchurch we reported back to jail for another stretch, this time three nights, hopefully with a day release to go and watch some rugby!

Porridge

Saturday was very warm in Christchurch and a marked contrast to the West Coast, where it had rained nearly all the time. We wasted a bit of time walking around the city and I managed to get a much needed haircut in the smallest hairdressers that I have ever seen. My hair had been starting to get a bit out of control, and I had the beginnings of a mullet at the back, so it was nice to look a bit tidier again. I was particularly pleased that the weather was so good, because when we booked the rugby tickets we opted for the cheapest tickets we could (obviously) which were in an uncovered area. I really didn't want it to rain.

When we got to the Jade stadium to see the Canterbury Crusaders vs the Bulls, they were making a real show of it. There were cheerleaders, a giant sword in the middle of the pitch, a mock-up of a castle in the corner of the stadium and a team of men dressed as crusaders on horseback circling the pitch before the kick-off. All the razzmatazz couldn't take away from the fact that it was a pretty poor match - the Bulls seemed to be there in body, but not in spirit and never looked like threatening the Crusaders. There were lots of people there, but not much atmosphere, most people seemed more interested in the Mexican wave. Give me Stradey Park any day!

Wave your hands in the air like you just don't care!

Sunday dawned warm and sunny, but it didn't stay that way for very long, it soon changed to thunder and heavy rain. The thunder was deafening, it was just like being back in Sri Lanka! After about an hour it cleared, so we headed into town to see if we could find somewhere showing the rugby from the day before. We found 'The Holy Grail Bar', a sports bar near Cathedral Square and watched Wales beat England! Unfortunately the miserable git of a barman wouldn't put the match on the main screen because it wasn't live. They had the rugby league on instead so there was no sound for the Wales match, which made it lack a bit of atmosphere (I think he was English and just a little bitter that they had lost!). I still managed to enjoy it though!

That evening Sarah and I went to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz - it was hilarious. It was also completely stupid, but that didn't stop us enjoying it. It was quite a late showing, which meant that we didn't get much sleep that night, because we had to be up early and ready for the bus to Kaikoura at 6.50am!

The drive to Kaikoura was apparently like the second leg of the New Zealand rally, but I couldn't confirm that because I was asleep. Sarah wasn't too impressed though. We arrived safely in Kaikoura, a sleepy little town that seems to exist only so that people can do one of three things:

1) Swim with dolphins
2) Swim with seals
3) Go whale watching

Obviously we couldn't avoid all of these things, so we had signed up to go swimming with dolphins.

The reason that Kaikoura is such a great place to do all these things is because of the Kaikoura Canyon - a trench that drops 1200 metres deep. Cold and warm waters meet here and mix, causing the upwelling of deep-ocean nutrients that support marine life. Sarah had read this ranged from plankton and krill, to dolphins and whales. Sarah was thinking that somewhere in between there would be sharks too...

There were three start times for our trip, 5.30am, 9.30am and 2.30pm - so we'd obviously gone for the ridiculously early one. The girl who sold it to Sarah said that the advantage was that the early trip was at sunrise, which is beautiful on a clear day. Sadly, we can't show you any pictures of the sunrise because we were watching a safety video inside at the time!

We all hopped on the boat and before we knew it they had spotted a pod of dolphins - fantastic - they sounded the horn and everyone dived in. Nevermind the dolphins, could somebody help me with my breathing?! It was freezing and although a few dolphins came our way they didn't stick around long, so it was back in the boat to chase them down again.

'Nefoedd I'm cold!'

The second time was much better. There was a pod of around a hundred dolphins and they kept swimming past us and all around us, jumping out of the water right next to us - it was great. This lasted about ten minutes before they got bored and left us again, so we did another bit of chasing before a final swim with another pod of about a hundred. It was unbelievable - they were everywhere. Sarah started swimming around in circles (I think she had lost one flipper) and they seemed to really like this. One dolphin in particular was looking right into her eyes (look into her eyes, not around her eyes, but into her eyes.....3,2,1, you're back in the boat) and following her round and round.

Sarah: I can't tell you how amazing this was!

Big white finger-fish on the right of the picture

Much better when you move your finger

Lots more dolphin pics and videos above the water:

We celebrated that evening with a few drinks in the pub, then the following day took a walk over to the seal colony (a very long walk). You are supposed to be able to see hundreds but we saw ... one!

Billy no mates

After Kaikoura it was back to Christchurch and one last night in the Jailhouse before flying to Auckland and onto Samoa at some stupid hour of the morning. Bring on the sunshine...

March 1 marked St David's Day (with the Welsh Dragon proudly flying over Auckland Harbour Bridge as we crossed it) and also our departure from Auckland - this time not in the sad little Nissan Sunny but a Britz campervan. The campervan wasn't exactly sad but it was a bit basic and well worn - still, it would be our home for our last week together in North Island and we were all looking forward to it. We'd gone for a six-berth model to give us a bit of extra space and thank goodness we did, because even with the three of us travelling light there wasn't much room to move.

After a quick stop at the supermarket to fill the 'bijou' fridge and pack our belongings into the titchy overhead cupboards we took our positions for the drive up north. There were two seats in the front and then four seatbelts right at the back of the van. Mammy started off in the back - the best seat to see the wonderful scenery but the worst for comfort since everytime we went over a bump (and believe me, there are lots of bumps in the road in New Zealand, many of them dead possums ... I wonder if I will ever see a live possum here?), it sent a shockwave right up through the back of the van and into the person sitting in the back. Not comfy at all.

"Cabin crew - seats for take-off"

After all the racing around over the previous fortnight, we were all ready for a bit of a slow down so we'd decided to drive into Northland and spend some time around the Bay of Islands. Our first destination was Paihia (say 'Pie Here') and the Beachside Holiday Park - a bit of artistic licence used here since there was a beach, but one so small you wouldn't be able to spread a towel out to lie on - but the site did have a very cute and friendly family of ducks - who would follow you back from the shower block in the morning in the hope of being invited in for a bit of breakfast.

Mammy, can I bring some friends over for food?

While we were in the Bay of Islands, Gareth wanted to dive the Rainbow Warrior. This is the Greenpeace ship that was bombed by the French secret service in 1985 in Auckland Harbour. The Rainbow Warrior was preparing to set sail for Moruroa in the Pacific to protest against French nuclear testing when French agents blew it up, killing one man, Fernando Pereira. After the ship was refloated it was moved to the Cavalli Islands in the Bay of Islands to serve as a dive wreck and marine sanctuary.

While Gareth was off doing his dive Mammy and I decided to walk into Paihia town for a look around - so we asked at reception about the path that led away from the holiday park. 'Yep' they said ' the path will take about 45 minutes and it's easy, well-marked all the way into town - you can walk all the way around on the beach if you want to. Off we set...

It was quite a steep start, but nothing after the Tongariro Crossing, and we had beautiful views out over the bay. It all looked good, but twenty minutes later as we were trying to wade through rock pools and approaching a river that would stop us going any further we decided we must have missed the track - so we retraced our steps and went back around to the beach for a look around. Behind a shed on a path that really looked like it was taking you onto private land was an overgrown path - no wonder we'd missed it. New Zealanders really do have a very different idea of what the words 'well-marked' and 'easy' mean.

Still no sign of the track

Paihia was a busy little place, with plenty of shops and places to get a flat white. After lunch at a restaurant set right over the waterfront we settled down for a bit of sunbathing on the beach before meeting up with Gareth after his dive. He had dived twice - first at the Rainbow Warrior and then at a nearby reef. Being a bit 'trigger happy' with the underwater camera he'd used up all his film by the end of the first dive and had none left to snap the massive stingray and eagle ray he (says he) saw on the second dive. I think this will be a bit like the Maori Wrasse we saw in the Whitsundays - it gets bigger and bigger every time the story is told and no one can prove him wrong...

Next morning we packed up the camper again and set off to Matauri Bay, about an hour and half north of Paihia. This was where Gareth's dive boat had launched from the day before and the owner of the dive shop promised me this was a top spot for a bit of snorkelling.

We had a perfect spot - right on the white sand beach - and spent most of the next two days in the water. The bay around the corner was supposedly good for snorkelling but the current was so strong that even the fish were being whipped around by it - so we stuck to swimming - and in the absence of any surfable waves, Gareth tried to teach us to bodysurf. He failed.

Gareth teaches Sarah how to drown gracefully

'You said the water was warm!'

Up on the hill above Matauri Bay there is a memorial to the Rainbow Warrior, with the propellor from the boat and a stone map that shows you exactly where the ship now rests.

Matauri Bay was beautiful but our time in North Island together was running out and with only two nights left we had to think about making our way back to Auckland. We were still hoping for a bit of snorkelling as it had been so disappointing in Matauri Bay so we drove back down the coast to Goat Island. This is actually one of the Hauraki Gulf Islands and a marine sanctuary. It's so close to the mainland that you can swim over to it fairly easily.

We spent the day at the beach, which was very busy with busloads of children on school field trips or having kayaking lessons. We'd heard about the snapper at Goat Island - some more than sixty years old! Being a marine sanctuary, no one is allowed to fish there so I guess a lot of the fishes just die of old age (must be a bit chewy). There are so many there - when you stood on the rocks and looked over into the water you could see fishes of all colours swimming underneath you - silver, orange and bright blue. (I did have a leaflet with the proper names of these fishes but I seem to have misplaced it so colour descriptions will have to do, I don't know any marine biologists so I think I should get away with it). We got in for a snorkel but it was pretty choppy so we were being bashed against the rocks and the visibility was awful - it was more fun just to watch from above - and relax on the black sand beach of course!

There was nothing much else to amuse us around Goat Island - one of the fish and chips shops was closed and the other one was expecting a party of 60 children so it was only serving burgers and nothing fried (!) -so we headed to Waiwera for our last night before our flights out. By now we'd completely run out of food (but not vinegar!) so we stopped in a small town called Orewa before we settled into Waiwera Holiday Park. There was something we hadn't yet introduced Mammy to - meat pies. In Australia, the only thing I would say that comes close to being a national dish (apart from a BBQ) is the great Aussie pie. These pies are delicious - and they're not bad in NZ either - so we had a supper of pie and chips (with vinegar) - yum.

Next day when we woke up it was raining and grey - a sure sign that it was time to move on - so we drove back via Orewa - for another one of those lovely pies and three flat whites - then back to Auckland to get ready for the flight.

After three weeks in NZ Mammy's one bag had turned into two (with a little help from both of us, who'd managed to load her up with anything we didn't want to keep carrying around with us). After Mammy was checked-in we all went for one last flat white together - yes, they came to tin fity exactly! We waved her back through the doors towards home after a fab three weeks together ... then it was a few hours sleep for us before our flight to Christchurch, in the South island.

We arrived in the Tongariro National Park after a drive from Napier along the Thermal Explorer Highway, with only a short stop to stretch our legs at a 'scenic viewpoint'. These scenic viewpoints are not usually anything special, but this one was a nice surprise. What you couldn't see from the road was that the car park had a nice view of a lovely waterfall.

We upgraded the hire car

While we were there a British couple in a campervan pulled up and we got talking to them. When we mentioned that we were planning on walking the Tongariro Crossing the following day, they told us they'd started it, but had found it very hard going and had turned back. This was definitely not what we wanted the Mother Superior to hear, so Sarah and I bundled her back into the Rolls Canardley (because it rolls downhill, but can hardly get back up them) and got on our way to the Discovery Lodge. This was the place that we'd booked into for our two nights in Tongariro. We'd chosen them because they do a drop-off and collection service for walking the Tongariro Track. The room itself was a bit basic, and the kichen contained a tea towel that could have done with a good boil wash, but it would suffice, plus from the deck we had fantastic views of the sun going down on the three volcanoes, Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngaruhoe. Try saying that after a few drinks.

Next morning we were up at 5am to get ready for the walk, the bus was leaving at 5.45! It was interesting to see how all the different walkers were dressed and prepared for the track - some were dressed like ourselves with plenty of warm layers, long trousers and walking shoes, while others turned up in shorts, T-shirts and trainers, so we really weren't sure what to expect.

The Lonely Planet (and just about every other guidebook) says that the Tongariro Crossing - one-day walk from Mangetepopo Hut to Ketetahi Springs - is a fairly easy walk that can be attempted by most people. I would beg to differ. The first section of the walk from the car park to Mangetepopo Hut was pretty easy going. We actually started when it was still dark, but the track was very well formed with boardwalks in some sections. This led us to the last toilet for a (very) long time, so it gets used by almost everyone and to say it is a bit smelly would be an understatement. This was nothing for the Mother Superior though, who said that during her nursing career she'd smelt and seen a lot worse!

The next section was a real killer and I'm not surprised that the couple we met the day before turned back here - the track suddenly became very steep for the long haul up to South Crater. What had been a fairly wide, well made up track became more like a goat track that was so steep that in parts it was more like climbing than walking and you had to rely on using your hands to pull yourself up.

It was a long haul, but eventually we made it to the top of the section - and it was worth the effort because the landscape changed to something that I have never seen before. I can only describe it as being lunar - the South Crater was huge and the ground was a very hard baked earth. The sun had come out as we got to the rim of the crater and it really looked spectacular. We crossed South Crater and headed up the next section which was again hard going, this time not so much because of the steepness, but because of the amount of small volcanic scree that made up the path. It meant you slipped backwards a little bit every few steps which was very energy-sapping on your legs. Yet again the effort was worth it though as the ridge that you climbed up to gave a fantastic view over a landscape that could have been Mordor from Lord of the Rings - and as they filmed it around there, it probably was Mordor!

Behind those glasses, they're crying

We didn't have time to stand admiring the view because we had to keep going towards the highpoint of the track at Red Crater. This was another long slog, with a very long steep drop over one side, followed by an interesting descent down a long scree path that you could only really slide down. We all took a tumble a few times on the way down, but thankfully we managed to make it down unscathed.

All downhill from here

After a very quick lunch stop we continued on our way. It was pretty much all downhill from here and you would think that would be easy - but in fact it became just as hard going. The steps that were cut into the path in some places had a tendency to be the perfect size for somebody who is eight foot tall - in total there were 5kms of downhill steps and they really took their toll on your knees.

The sign was the only thing holding them up!

We eventually made it to the end at about 2.30pm, completely shattered but very pleased to have completed it. If any of us had been unable to finish the walk the only way off the mountain would have been on a big red helicopter!

We all slept very well that night and headed off to Lake Taupo the following day where we arranged to go on a Maori experience evening. We were picked up by bus to be taken to Wairakei Terraces - here they have recreated a Maori village and even recreated the terraced hot springs that existed a few kilometres away until they were destroyed to pipe the hot water out to a power station! On our way the bus driver gave us a bit of a spiel about how the evening would go, how we would be welcomed and so forth. Unfortunately he had a tendency to put the word 'there' (pronounced theer) into the sentence at random intervals. At first this was amusing and a little endearing, but unfortunately his spiel lasted about fifteen minutes and as he went along, the number of 'theers' in a sentence kept growing. By minute eight he was saying something like:

'When the chief theer welcomes you theer, to the village theer, he'll theer offer a gift theer and the person theer who is elected theer as your chief theer will accept the gift theer, without taking theer his theer eyes theer off the village chief theer'.

I'm not exaggerating, it was that bad and it made it almost impossible to work out what he was saying. If we had relied on his information alone we could have been killed by the village chief before we'd even sat down for dinner!

After a tour of the terraces and the Maori village (with a bit of history thrown in), there was a traditionally cooked Hangi meal, followed by Maori singing and dancing. As part of this, they decided to take a few volunteers out of the audience to teach them the Haka. Guess what, they chose Sarah! Well she made a good effort, and you can see it below (a bit fuzzy but Sarah is in the pink top on the right).

The next day we had more excitement planned for the Mother Superior - we were going jet-boating! The Mother Superior is not renowned for her love of boats, so it took a bit of guts to do the jet-boating - and we kept reassuring her that it would be OK - something along the lines of 'Don't worry, you won't have time to be sick'! Well we needn't have worried, because the Mother Superior thoroughly enjoyed - screaming 'I love it!' in our ears as our very entertaining driver whipped us up and down to Huka Falls. He had a special signal to let us know when he was going to spin the boat, however, he had a tendency to forget to signal sometimes and would signal afterwards, very amusing.

Scream if you wanna go faster

After the excitement of the jet-boat we made for Rotorua, the Hot Mineral Pool capital of New Zealand. Along the way there were a couple of quick stops - first at Aratiatia Rapids. These rapids are not very rapid these days apart from at 10, 12 and 2 o'clock everyday when they release the water from a dam above to show tourists what they looked like before the hydroelectric power station was built and they dried up. New Zealand uses a lot of hydroelectric power generation so there are these power stations everywhere. It was quite interesting to see a load of rocks on a dried up river bed turn into a raging torrent when they opened up the dam.

Next we also stopped at the Wairakei Thermal Village for lunch and a tour of their thermal pools. To say that they were disappointing would be an understatement, there was certainly an abundance of steam, but the boiling mud pools both seemed to have dried up and it was all a bit of a shambles. Time to move on.....

Steaming

Every motel that we looked at in Rotorua had it's own spa baths and hot pools, so we checked ourselves into the Boulevard Motel. On arrival we decided it was a bit grotty, so we gave their hot pools a miss and headed instead to the Polynesian Spa, in an attempt to soothe our muscles, still aching from the Tongariro Crossing. The Polynesian Spa is probably the best known spa in Rotorua and we made the mistake of arriving at the same time as several busloads of Japanese tourists. A very helpful lady on reception told us it tended to quieten down around 7.30pm, so we went for three flat whites (another tin fifty!) to wait a little while. It was worth waiting - it is very nice there, with one of the pools right on the edge of the lake - it was very relaxing.

Hiding in Government Gardens

The problem with Rotorua is that because it is a hive of hot pool activity there is a lot of sulphur in the air and it really stinks, so next day after lunch and a walk in the Government Gardens we decided to head to Waitomo. It was quite a drive and fast, comfortable journeys were not one of the Rolls' strong points.

Wishing Rock (Wishing we could find Rainbow Falls)

It was quite a pretty journey, with a few detours. Sarah was determined to find Rainbow Falls, which were on our roadmap, although the exact location was rather vague. After half an hour of searching around a lake and a dam we had to give up - we thought they'd be easy to find but all we found was yet another hydroelectric power station! All the way along the journey I kept thinking that the landscape reminded me of somewhere, but I couldn't work out what it was. There were lots of small green mounds in the fields, not quite hills, just mounds really. Then it occurred to me, we were driving through Teletubbyland. I'm not sure when I have seen Teletubbyland before, as I'm not an avid viewer of the show, but I must have seen it somewhere.

All the whole world loves a rainbow!

We made a stop in Otorohanga a little way before Waitomo, because we were all hungry and fancied fish and chips. We still had a gallon of vinegar to use up after all....

As it turned out, none of us actually had fish, because it didn't look very appealing, but the Mother Superior did have the weirdest hotdog ever. I think she was expecting a frankfurter type sausage in a roll, not a battered sausage on a stick!

Heart attack on a stick

As a special treat for my globetrotting mother-in-law I had secretly arranged some special accommodation for the night - a 1950s Fiat Train Carriage.

All aboard!

It had been turned into a motel, along with a Bristol Freighter Plane, but unfortunately there were no vacancies on the plane. The Mother Superior seemed quite pleased with my choice of accommodation although she did complain that she had been left in the second class carriage while Sarah and I were in First Class at the front of the carriage!

We were up early to get to Waitomo Glowworm Caves - it was a good job because they get up to 2000 visitors a day, whereas we had a small group of only ten people for our tour. We went into the Cathedral Cave first, which apparently has fantastic acoustics and has hosted concerts by Sting, Kiri Te Kanawa, Rod Stewart and the Vienna Boys Choir - up on the ceiling was the occasional glowworm. Then we got into a boat to go through the main caves, which are covered with glowworms - it looks like one of those images of the world taken from space where they show up all the lights from the cities - very impressive.

It was our first day since Raglan with rain and it belted down most of the way to Auckland. This was a bit of a pain because the roofrack straps we were using to carry my surfboard were letting water into the car at quite a rate. Sarah was getting wet in the backseat and was not amused!

On arrival in Auckland we checked into the apartment that Sarah had arranged, very nice it was too, the Oaks Apartments on Hobson Street, just a short walk from the Sky Tower, with air-conditioning, washing machine and dishwasher! That evening we consulted the Lonely Planet and went to the Cafe Midnight Express for dinner. It was a nice little Turkish restaurant and our meals were great but we made the mistake of ordering Turkish coffee after the meal, which spoiled my whole evening! I expected it to be strong, but in fact it was just plain awful, very thick with lots of coffee grounds in it, yuckkk!

It's not that funny!

It was in Auckland that we found a good use for the Mother Superior's gallon bottle of vinegar.....my shoes and socks. Some of you may recall from earlier blogs that Sarah has been complaining rather a lot about the smell emanating from my shoes and socks, well the Mother Superior had a remedy. Apparently putting newspaper soaked in vinegar into shoes kills the bacteria that cause the smell. While my shoes were being seen to, the Mother Superior decided to try pickling my socks too! Well, it seemed to work, because after pickling, then washing, there did seem to be a significant reduction in honkiness. Sarah was pleased.

It was a busy few days in Auckland - we had lunch at Orbit, the revolving restaurant in the Sky Tower, stopping along the way at the viewing deck, where we all had a go at standing on the glass floor panels that hang out over....well, nothing!

Nice shoes

The food in the Sky Tower was very nice - but it was weird because every few minutes somebody would go flying past the window in a downwards direction attached only to a couple of ropes - they have a strange bungee jump type thing from the Sky Tower and the jumping platform was just above the restaurant. We were all full from dinner, so we gave the bungee jump a miss.

Next day we caught the caught the courtesy bus to Kelly Tarltan's - it's difficult to miss because it has a giant shark on the roof! It was quite good fun there, they had a lot of penguins as well as some huge stingrays.

Happy Feet

For our last afternoon in Auckland we headed to Parnell to do a bit of shopping and flat white drinking. Parnell is a posh suburb of Auckland and we had high hopes, but to be honest there wasn't much there. The highlight, or actually lowlight was when we went into a specialist chocolate shop and cafe for a couple of hot chocolates and for the Mother Superior, a flat white. Here we met our first unpleasant New Zealander - the woman in the cafe really didn't want to serve us and seemed to think that she was doing us a favour! What made her stand out so much was the fact that everyone else you meet is so friendly and can't do enough for you, there's always one I suppose....

That evening Sarah and I told the Mother Superior that we would spend our last evening having dinner in a Belgian Bar - this was only half true, because we had something else planned. On the way there we stopped at the 'Minus 5 bar' - this bar is made completely of ice, even the glasses. You have to get dressed up to go in there, they give you a lovely warm Parka jacket with a hood, gloves and booties and then you go in for your drink. Sarah and the Mother Superior were very pleased to find that a cocktail was included in the admission price - so they sipped their drinks while sitting on an ice sofa covered with a deer fur blanket!

Can somebody turn the heating up?

After that we really did take the Mother Superior to 'The Occidental' - a very popular Belgian bar, famed for its mussels. Sarah and I both ordered the mussels, but we were a bit disappointed - they were big green lipped mussels and a bit chewy! We still managed to enjoy a few beers though, Sarah and the Mother Superior rekindled their love for Raspberry Beer, a Belgian speciality apparently. We didn't overdo it though - this was our last night in Auckland and next morning we would have to get up early and collect the campervan......