the story so far....

Well we left Auckland and started our drive down to Lake Taupo on Monday morning, the drive was very scenic and at lunchtime we stopped at a small town called Tirau, where we met up with old forum friends.

We set of again after having an excellent lunch. I had Lasagne and Rob had steak, the pub was owned by an English family from St Helens!

We arrived at Lake Taupo at about 4pm and found the Camilla Motel easily it’s a family run motel, clean and the rooms have everything you need, even sky TV. Not bad for $165 for 3 nights….that works out at about £55.

The volcanic heart of the Nth Island, its amazing landscapes have been crafted over millions of years by water and geothermal activity.

The Town has everything…even MacDonald’s…..bet you wouldn’t see that in Grimsby now would you.

On Rob’s birthday we went to Huka Falls,

which is free, there are pay toilets and a donation box and a small kiosk which sells drinks snacks and gifts,

we

were going to go on the Huka Jet too,

although when we went there, it was $79 each for 30 mins!

So we went walking through the woods surrounding the falls and the Waikato River (see we’re getting fit already, the sun starts to go down at 5pm, and you wouldn’t want to be out in the woods in the dark.

Rob found a tree almost as old as he is......;-)

so we went back to the Motel and later we went for a drink and then to the pictures to see X

Men 3, but when we came out the town was shut for the night….it was 10.45pm, must be winter closing times!

Wednesday, we went to the Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, where there are geysers and mineral terraces and tracks through the surrounding woodland. It cost $25 each but you could spend as much time as you liked there, and the place was spotless – I have yet to see a grotty

bathroom since arriving in New Zealand! The food was excellent and a large Capo was exactly that – I couldn’t drink it all. The gift shop was reasonably priced too.

After visiting there we stopped off to look at the Mud Pools on our way to Rotorua, we had a quick look around there but preferred Taupo, so we hea

ded back. though the swans were pretty cool

We had a great steak meal at a surf cafe in Taupo, and then we set off to Ashurst the next day, which is near Palmerston North, to see Diny, who we met at the NW meet in May, she had

offered to put us up for the night, and it will be nice to see her again and see a real NZ town, rather than Tourist sights.

And Diny's house was wonderful, shame she'd already sold it as I'd have loved to pick it up and throw it over to Christchurch!

this pic is of her kitchen/diner, and the Hallway, the ceilings were all high and It was WARM........in fact I had to take my flannel PJs off half way thru the night!!!

well we have arrived in Christchurch now, we didn't take to Wellington (sorry folks from Welly but we're country folks at heart and don't take to the stress of driving in big citys...although Christchurch has been ok so far)

and that's another update...so thats all folks for now.

Kat