October 5 - 7 Raro - Papeetee (Tahiti) - LA - London - Home

SUN yet again!!

We get up pack our bags (cos we are going home) and run out to take pictures. Sit about lazing in the sun before snorkelling one last time and then lounging on the beach. It's really hot , the sun very intense. I get burnt.





A few of us are leaving together - the 2 Scottish girls, Frances and Tamara and Nick the London bloke (guy with the cowboy hat). Have decided to get drunk courtesy of Air New Zealand. We slip into the First class lounge at the airport. We last about 2 minutes before we are promptly booted out - a whole minute more than I thought we would last (Success!).

We are on our way to LA via Tahiti.......Many hours later we arrive into LA. We are supposed to stay one night in LA before boarding the plane next day. Net and I have decided why stop now? -rather than spend another night we might as well carry on with the journey home. We quickly run to the ticket desks to see if we can change our tickets a day earlier. Luckily there is a flight in a few hours time and seats available for both of us. Like at the beginning we are getting on different flights for our LA - London leg. We check in and say our goodbyes and get on our respective flights.

.........many more hours later I finally arrive into London. Thank god! I am exhausted having travelled more than 30 hours (I lost count/ track with the different time zones crossed)

The end

October 4 Raro

SUN!!!
We are out of money so Juha, our Finnish friend offers to take me into town on his scooter.

Note to future self:
a) Do not get on a scooter with no helmet on
b) Do not get on a scooter in which the speedometer does not work
c) Do not get on a scooter where there are pot holes littering the road
d) Do not get on a scooter with a crazy Finnish man (who happens to looks like Silas from the Da Vinci Code movie).

After getting back alive, Net and I go to 'our' Island and do the Glamour shoot. NOW before you start thinking soft lighting and weird porno poses, Glamour happens to be a magazine. They have a competition every issue whereby you take a picture in some exotic location with Glamour magazine. After much arguments about who would pose for the picture, I drew the short straw and posed with the magazine. Shame the sky was overcast, but never the less I better win!

After that we go snorkelling. There are tonnes of fish to see. It's really good snorkelling ground.

We go back to shore and find some of our fellow hostellers and spend most of the afternoon looking for coconuts and cracking them open. It's not easy work and takes Phillipe, our Swiss friend about half an hour to open one. Well done mate!

Go to one of the hotel resorts and take advantage of happy hour cocktails!

This world is so small. Net and I are sat at some cafe and we see some man we reckonise. It's our guide from Franz Josef glacier. We say hi to him even though he doesn't remember us.

The Crazy Dog
There is a crazy dog who keeps following us. Throw things at it, it doesn't go and fetch. Kick water at it and it goes mental. Just jumps. Looks like he can keep doing that all day - just jumping after water.
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October 3 Raro

RAIN!!

Do extremely little.

Luckily one of our fellow Brits, Jo has a car so she takes us on a drive around the island. Now remember this island is only 32km so it doesn't take long to go around it. There isn't much to do either so we end up going round the island and visiting the 'hot spots' in under 2 hours. We visit a waterfall that is pictured on all the postcards, however reality does not mirror the picture perfect postcrad image. It's is really small and rats are running around the falls. Hmm, we quickly leave and continue our drive. We drive to some scenic lookout point, which is really nice.

October 2 Raro

Bloody cold showers. This is island living! Brrr

This hostel is so loud. Our cheap-o dorm room in particular has walls that are paper thin and we can hear everything.

Net and I do very little for the day cos the weather is still overcast. There is a little island that we can wade to as the water is shallow and at its deepest it only reaches waist height (to short-arse me that is). We wander out to the island and find hermit crabs and little lizards.

In the evening we make a pasta dish, which is the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. It's sweet sauce! Raro imports everything from NZ so I know this sauce comes from NZ. I don't understand why NZ makes pasta sauce sweet??!! Can Steve tell me??

We go out with the rest of the Brits fro the hostel to some bar in town. 20 people piled into a 12 seater taxi. It's cosy. It's a messy drink fueled night. The funniest thing I remember is the DJ (see below). What's up with the tash amigo??!!

On way back everyone is pissed out of their minds. 20 Brits in a 12 seater taxi - imagine! We all end up drunkenly "singing" Bohiemian Rhapsody (Wayne's World style) along with other songs, probably giving a really bad image of Brits to the taxi driver.

Go to the beach where our Finnish mate loses his flip flop to the sea. We find it extremely funny (esp cos we're all pissed).
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">Night Out in Raro

"> 12 Drunk Brits in a Taxi - typical!!

October 1 Rarotonga (Cook Islands)

4 hours later we arrive into Rarotonga (Raro) on the 1st October. Yeah, we get an extra day back!

The Island is small - 32km round trip. We get to our hostel to find we are sharing with a room with 3 other people - 2 Scottish lasses and a very vain British bloke. Actually we soon realise the hostel is full of UK people (Wales, Scotland and England) peppered with Swedes and Finnish. It's like an episode of Brits Abroad!

We are right on the beach, but the weather is really overcast. According to everyone it has been overcast almost all week.

October 2 Christchurch

Okay, so we make it to the airport about 9pm and get our sleeping bags out and find a 'nice comfy' spot to sleep.

Wake up aching all over the place and check our bags in. Next stop Auckland then onto Rarotonga (Cook Islands).

October 1 Christchurch

Clocks went forward last night. It is really strange cos NZ is going into summer, whereas next month our clocks will go back. So we have lost an hours sleep.

We are basically in Christchurch killing time. We have a flight to the Cook Islands tomorrow (Oct 2nd) at 5:50am so have decided not to stay in accommodation so we will kill the day doing mindless stuff (like writing my blog). We will sleep at the airport. I am writing my blog in Christchurch at the moment killing time and I have to say this place is the dullest place I have ever been to!! Net and I are so bored it's terrible. We have gone into every shop at least 3 times each. This place is small. We even attended a choir service at the cathederal.
BORED IN CHRISTCHURCH


Here is something very strange: We fly from Christchurch to Auckland at 5:50am. We catch a four flight from Auckland to the CookIslands at 8:45am BUT arrive into the Cook Islands on October 1st at 1:45pm. We get an entire day back! That date line is a very funny thing! Cook Islands is 23 Hours BEHIND NZ!

How to kill time in Christchurch
Here is something to do when you are trying to kill time. Find really ugly clothes and try them on in the changing room. Pose and take pictures.

September 30 Franz Josef - Christchurch

Set off on the the 5hr drive (this country is really spread out) and drive to Christchurch via Arthurs Pass, a twisty road through the mountains (even I feel ill driving on the roads, bleurgh).

We try to book ourselves into a few hostels, but all seem to be booked out. We finally find one that is free a little bit out of the city centre.

Drop our car off at the airport (bye bye Betsy (car's name)) and catch the bus into town. We look at a map and it doesn't look far to walk. 20mins with a 20kg (maybe even heavier) pack on your back is a very long time. Feel ill walking to the hostel. We are not happy and I complain the entire way - even contemplating hailing a taxi.

When we finally arrive we quickly dump our bags and head off to buy pizza!!

Go back to the hostel and meet a few of the guests, all of whom seem to be from the UK.

There is one British man called Alan. I'll tell you about him cos his story is one of my favourite. He is 74 years old and 47 years ago he and his wife were due to immigrate to Nelson. They had never been to NZ. Just heard good things about it and wanted to immigrate. At the last minute his wife got cold feet so they never went. It has been his dream to go ever since, so for the last 2 years he has been saving his pension money so he could finally go to Nelson. He is now travelling for 3 months on his own.

Net and I get asked out to the pub by 2 British ladies. We go to a bar called the Holy Grail. It is a crap night. You would never guess it was Saturday. We have a quick one and go back to the hostel. Talk and then bed.

September 29 Franz Josef

We have booked ourselves onto a Franz Josef Glacier hike.FJ glacier is supposedly the world's steepest and fastest flowing commercially guided glacier and in the past years has often been regarded as 'inaccessible'.It's is a really cool (literally) experience. How often do you get the chance to hike a galcier? It's is pretty hard work and our guide spends most of the time hacking away at the ice with a gigantic ice pik to make it more accessible for us.

September 28 Franz Josef (Hokitika)

Decide to take a drive out to Hokitika. We think it's a close drive but it takes us nearly 2 hours each way to get there! It's actually 130 km away.

We go to Hokitika for a spot of bone carving. We saw some Japanese girl with a necklace that she carved herself and we wanted to try carving too.

We find a bone carvers and it takes us 4 hours to design and carve a small pendant. It is really hard work!!

The owner of the place is a guy called Steve from the Solomon Islands. He's really nice and we have a great time with him.

Do very little for the rest of the day.

September 27 Queenstown - Franz Josef

Wake up. We are leaving Queenstown. On the way out we get 'stuck' in traffic. There has been a landslide up ahead so crew are clearing the roads and causing a bit of a queue. It's okay cos they are handing out sweets to help kill the time - all 10 mins of it. What a great country!!We are off to Franz Josef. It' is a 7.5 hour journey. I am actually sick and feeling really unwell with a cold. On the way stop off at Fox Glacier. Take the tourist photo and continue to FJ which is only the next town away.


STUCK IN TRAFFIC - NZ STYLE


The only reason to go to FJ is to see the glacier. What is a glacier? It is a big whopping huge chunk of ice. We plan to hike the big block of ice.

Get to our hostel and they inform us that there is a free glowworm tour. When it get dark we get taken into the woods, by some crazy Kiwi and he shows us the glowworms. We have some really dumb tourists on this tour who think they can photograph the glowworms with their flash on. DUH!!! The glowworms are cool though.

Get taken to the pub afterwards for free shots, but I am feeling unwell so head back to the hostel to 'die'.

WHAT IS A GLOWWORM?

NZ glowworms (titiwae) are actually the larvae of small flies called fungus gnats that go through a four part life cycle: egg, larvae, pupae and adult fly. The larvae produces a brilliant internal glow through chemical luciferin in its digestive system (it's arse). Insects are attracted to it and get caught up in the silky silk threads that hang from the glowworm nests. The 'fishing lines' are then hauled in and the captured insects devoured.

September 26 Queenstown

Wake up with a terrible hangover. It's is so bad and we have to do the Shotover CanyonSwing. (see site: www.canyonswing.co.nz) Oh dear god!!

Get the mini-bus to the Canyon. It is really bumpy and feel really rough. Get to the Canyon. Oh man, really really rough. The Canyon is huge and deep!!

There are 6 of us. Net goes first. I go last. My turn and it takes me ages to jump. Think I'm going to feighnt. Jump. Not very elegantly, but at least I did it. It's (forgive my language) F*cking brilliant!

However, still feel ill and hung over.

The previous night I drunkenly told the german girls I would take them to some nearby town. I keep my word even though all I want to do is lie down and die. I take them to Arrowtown, a former goldmining town, but now just a tourist trap. It's very nice. This is were the first NZ Chinese settlers settled.

Go back to hostel, watch Lord of the Rings (I had to at some point) and go to bed.

September 25 Milford Sound - Te Anau - Queenstown

After a bit of a sleepless night - the dude in the next cabin snoring all night and me thinking he was having a long shower throughout the night (It was a rain storm) - wake up at 6:30am.

We continue our cruise to the end of Milford Sound till the open ocean before we head back. It's raining heavily and the wind is blowing at 25 knots (60kph). So it's pretty rough. The tour is great non the less. We see a waterfall that is suspended in mid-air. The wind is so strong it is falling and instead being forced upwards. It's cool. See another Fiordland crested penguin.

We get dropped off the an underwater observatory and get to see what is in the Sound.

Get taken back to shore and drive to Te Anau to pick up our bags, which we were not allowed to take onto the cruise.

Drive on to Queenstown. Takes about 7 hrs. We are really tired.

Queenstown being probably the world's adventure capital, we book ourselves to do the Shotover CanyonSwing http://www.canyonswing.co.nz for the next day. If you have seen Jack Osbourne Adrenaline Junkie 2 you will know what it is. It's a swing, but you have to jump off a 109m platform. Very scary.

Take a ride up the gondola, which gives sweet views of the city.

Meet our roommates - 2 German girls and an American girl and their friend, an Aussie. They ask us if we want to go out. We say yes, but only for one.....after a session of mad dancing, drunken karaoke, drunken hedge diving, arrive back at 4am. Very pissed!!!

What is Drunken Hedge Diving?

Exactly what it says - jumping into a hedge. The Aussie guy runs and jumps head first into a hedge. The American girl follows. Net and I look at each other and join in. It's funny at the time. Net gets so into it she has bruises all over her and I whack my head on a bumper of a car. (like being a student again)

September 24 Te Anau - Milford Sound

Have a total Canadian moment, when Net says to me, "Um, what side of the road are you driving on". Quickly move over to the correct side of the road. Good thing this country has non existent traffic!

We are heading off to Milford Sound for an over night cruise.

Milford Sound is a fiordland, that was carved out by glacial ice. It is about 119km away from Te Anau and is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. In fact is is the most beautiful. The drive itself is on one of the most scenic roads, with sheer mountains and exotic temperate rainforests. There are waterfalls falling off the mountains. It's just stunning.

We were told that 4 days previously the roads in the area had been closed cos of bad weather. It is still considered winter time in NZand you need to have chains in your car from May - Nov. Luckily the weather has been great for us so we had no problems.

There is also the Homer Tunnel. It's a tunnel that goes through a mountain. It is 1219m long and unlined. It slopes down toward Milford side with a gradient of 1 in 10. It's really scary, when traffic is coming in the other direction. A few screaming moments from us girls!

We get on on our cruise and take a speed boat tour. We see Fiordland crested penguins, a large pod of bottlenose dolphin and a fur seal.

End the night star gazing and talking to one of the ship staff, Keiran.

Speed Boat

Fjordland Crested PENGUIN

September 23 Dunedin - Te Anau

we leave Kate in Dunedin and set off for Te Anau.

Get into Te Anau.

Not much happening in Te Anau. It's really small. So we take a drive to nearby Manapouri, a town about 20km away. Not very much happening here either, but here are a few facts about the place:

a) Lake Manapouri is known to Maoris as Moturau - the lake of many islands - there are 34 in all.

b) It contains both brown & rainbow trout and is surrounded by beech and podocarp forest with prolific birdlife.

Get back to Te Anau and it rains really hard. We are booked to go to see the Te Anau glowworm caves, but cos of the weather it is cancelled. We end up in the pub instead, where I officially order my first pint of Speights. I don't actually get a pint, I get a handle of Speights.

September 22 Dunedin

Suffering from a bad hangover.

Do very little in the morning.The Dunedin Fringe festival is starting today so the city is buzzing. Eventually muster some energy to go see the opening ceremony. It's really good, with lots of performers.

Go on a Twighlight Wildlife Conservation Experience tour. We get taken on a very scenic drive around the Otogo Penninsula. We get taken to a Albatross Colony, but unfortunately they are not around. Instead I see nessting Spotted Shags, a sea bird, which is cool.After get taken to a Yellow-eyed penguin colony. See Blue Penguins and some amazing Yellow-penguins. Get so close to a yellow penguin. There are trenches all around the place so you can see the penguins. I get so close to 2 penguins (about 1/2 foot away). Cos I am in a trench I am staring up at them. My head is around where their arse is. I'm so close that I nearly get shat on. All I hear is 'watch out' and then the penguin turns his butt toward my face and it just misses my face by centimeters. It is very funny.

September 21 Oamaru - Dunedin

Early start and head off to Dunedin. On the way we stop to see some small ancient boulders known as the Moeraki Boulders. Scientists believe the boulders were not washed up onto the beach but were eroded from the mudstone cliffs behind. Subsequent erosiion has exposed a facinating internal network of veins.

Dunedin is the South Island's second city (after Christchurch) and home of NZ's first university. 'Dunedin' is Celtic for 'Edinburgh' as it was founded by Scots.

Get to our hostel, Central Backpackers. It's really nice. Head off for a drive to a scenic viewpoint that overlooks Dunedin. It's a beautiful day. After head off to Baldwin Street, which is listed in the Guiness Book of Records as the world's steepest street. Net and I walk up it. Are bloody knackered!!
BALDWIN STREET

After drive to St. Kilda's Beach, which has great sandy beaches. Just watch the waves.

Go out for a meal in the evening before going to the Speights Brewery tour. Speight's is a NZ beer. The tour is really good and we get to sample quite a lot of beer at the end!

After Net and I go to a pub called the Robby and get very very pissed! There is the oldest jazz band playing. What doa i mean by that? The men must have been in their 70's. They keep smiling and winking and us. It's really funny. We pulled!!

Don't really remember much such as getting home. Was that drunk!!

September 20 Hamner Springs - Oamaru

We were supposed to stop overnight in Akaroa (about 2 hrs from HS) but were informed that the town was completely booked out till Friday, so we dicided to dive 6 hours to Oamaru, another seaside town fanous for Blue penguins and the world's rarest yellow-eyed penguin.

Check into our hostel, Red Kettle YHA. Take a drive to a yellow-eyed penguin lookout, but see very little.

Do very little for the rest of the evening.

The case of the missing food

In HS we realised we had lost a bag of food. We have no idea where it went. Arrived into Oamaru and we dicover we have lost yet another bag. Where is our food going??

September 19 Kaikoura - Hamner Springs

Drive to Hamner Springs. Along the way we forget to put petrol into the car. We decided to take the scenic route so there are no petrol stations. The warning light comes on and we all begin to panick. Bloody mountains!! Finally find an inhabited farm and find some farmer. We explain we are stupid tourists who stupidly forgot to fill our car up. We ask where the nearest petrol station is. It's a 10 mins drive away. Phew. Panick over. Get to the petrol station and it's a tiny little town, but the guy who works there is hot!! Us girls find it amusing to find a hot guy in a dinky little town.

Continue to HS. HS is the main thermal resort on the South Island. Right in the mountains it has hot pools and lots of outdoor activities such as forest walks, horse treks, fishing, bungee, etc.We check into our hostel, Kakapo Lodge. Net and I go to the thermal pools. Local lengend has it that the thermal springs are a piece of the fires of Tamatea that dropped from the sky after an eruption of Mt Ngauruhoe on the North Island. Maoris call the Srings Waitapu (Sacred Waters).

Water is great and Water temps vary. We find a pool that is 40 degrees. It is very very hot and very very smelly.

After we finish is rains, but it eventually stops and we go for a really nice walk.

Net and I go back to the pools in the evening for a spot of night swimming.

DAYLIGHT SWIMMING

NIGHT SWIMMING

September 18 Kaikoura

Wake up early for our seal kayake tour. Only Net and I are on the tour with our guide. We get a 2 man kayake. Net and I are pretty horrible kayakers so are incredibly slow. Eventually we get to some rocky point where there is a large colony of male seals. We sit and watch them laze about in the sun before heading back.

NET AND JENNY KAYAKING

Inside The MAORI LEAP CAVES



In the afternoon we go to some tour of caves called Maori Leap Caves. The tour just has Net, Kate and me on it. It's great being in NZ out of tourist season!! The tour is really cool and educational. The cave is 88 million years old and has some great visual examples of stalagmites and stalagtites. The tour guide is really fun and makes the tour really fun to be on.

September 17 Nelson - Kaikoura

Decide we don't want to stay in Nelson and would rather spend 2 nights in Kaikoura so we set off again. The roads are really twisty. I'm sat in the back and I have to stop the car cos feel like I'm going to hurl. Calm down and continue on the drive.
On way we find a seal colony look out point. It's pretty cool to see seals so close up.

Find our hostel, which is right on the beach. Immediately after we arrive, get taken to the beach where we can see 3 Southern Right whales. They are really close to shore (about 20meters from shore). It is great to see. We sit and watch them for a while.
SOUTHERN RIGHT WHALES JUMPING
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SOUTHERN RIGHT WHALES PLAYING



Kaikoura is a stunning town with a superb setting on a bay backed by the steeplyrising foothills of the seaward Kaikouras. It is a mecca for wildlife enthusiasts, who come for whale watching (sperm whale), the endemic Hectors dolphin (the smallest and rarest dolphins), the dusky dolphin (found only in the southern hemisphere) the NZ fur seal and bottlenose dolphin.

Net and I go to the tourist info place and decide to do a cave tour and seal kayake trip tomorrow.

The hostel has free bikes so Net and I go for a bike ride around the town.

Head back to the hostel and end up sitting on the beach watching the stars.

September 16 Wellington - Picton - Nelson

"Get the 10am ferry from Wellington - Picton. Very windy, but beautiful crossing which takes us 3.5 hours. The scenery is breathtaking! The water is so blue and the mountains are just wow!

WELLINTON - PICTON FERRY CROSSING

Drive from Picton to Nelson along Queen Charlotte Road. It is an extremely windy road that twists and turns up and down a mountain. Kind of sickening. Definitly not for someone who gets motion sick!

Get to Nelson and get lost trying to get to our hostel cos of the one-way streets. Get there in the end.

Do very little. Net and I go to the local pub called the Prince Albert. We get asked for ID again!!! WTF!!! It's beginning to annoy me a little. We have to walk 10mins back to the hostel to get our passports. Good thing the beer is good!!

September 15 Wellington

Do very little. Visit Netty's new university and we meet her new PhD supervisor. Go to the Te Pa Pa Maori museum, which is nice. Walk around the harbour, have a few beers. That's it.

September 14 Taupo - Napier - Wellington

Go to the petrol station to fill up tank. Can't open the gas cap. Net and I look everywhere. People come over to help us. In the end it takes 5 people to work out how to open the gas cap. Very embarrassing.

Drive to Napier, which takes 2 hours. Napier is famous for it's art deco architechture. The Lonely Planet guide book says it rivals Miami in terms of art deco architechure. I think it's close, but Miami is way more kitch. Don't do very much. Stay for an hour and decide to head off to Wellington.

It's a long drive from Napier to Wellington. Takes us about 6 hours in total. By the time we get to Wellington we are utterly exhausted. Really hungry so find a Chinese restaurant and order noodles. We are staying at one of Netty's PhD aquaintences, Kate. She comes to meet us and then we go back to her little flat. Kate will be joining us on our journey for 1 week.

September 13 Rotorua - Taupo

Another early start - 5:30am!

Drive to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. Another tourist attraction involving lots of bubbling mud. Cool geo-thermal pools that have been created by the action of subterranean thermal activity over many hundreds of years forming delicate silica deposits. I stole that from a post card. In short, it's bubbling mud that stinks of rotten eggs.

After continue to Taupo. Taupo lies in the northeastern corner of Lake Taupo and has scenic views across the lakes to the volcanic peaks of Tongariro National Park. Lake Taupo is also the source of NZ's largest river, the Waikato.

Get to the hostel at 12 noon. Get told if we want to sky dive to do it now cos the weather is turning. At 1pm get picked up by a limo and taken to the airfield. Up in a plane and plummet 12,000ft. All over by 2pm. Absolutely awesome!! Want to do it again!!

The lady who told us the weather is turning is correct. It's pissing it down in the afternoon. Net and I end up in the hostel kitchen chatting to an Aberdeen couple who are really nice. We end up talking non-stop about our sky dive.

September 12 Tauranga - Rotorua

Still jet lagged. Wake up at 5:30am. Early start and head over to Mount Maunganui, just a 15 min drive from the city centre. It's a big hill type thing 232m high. Hike up it, which is pretty impressive so early in the morning. Lots of sheep (of course) and see a very strange thing - shells embedded in the ground several meters above sea level. Not sure why this is. At one point this Mount must have been on the sea floor, but over time it must have been pushed upwards to form the mount? I'm sure my Oxford Brooks professor/doctor friend will be able to tell me the scientific reason.

After our epic walk (yeah right) we go to an outdoor saltwater thermal swimming baths. It is awesome!! The water is 38 degrees and bloody wonderful. It is also, very cheap at $5 (around 2 quid).

After we checked out of our hostel and drive to Rotorua, where we find lots of bubbling mud. It is very cool, however, it also really stinks of rotten eggs. Pong. Rotorua is nicknames 'Sulphur City', it has the most energetic thermal activity in the country, with bubbling mud pools, gurgling hot springs, gushing geysers and evil eggy smells hovering around. Rotorua also has a large Maori population.

Check into our hostel, which is so-so. The showers are located outdoors and it's not exactly warm at night or early in the mornings. Almost like an endurance test. There is also a mad Japanese woman who works or lives here. I accidentially spilt some oil on the kitchen floor. We said we would clean it, but she went mental and told us to leave the room and started a cleaning frenzy. It was very odd behaviour.

Something really cool we manage to do/see - we see Kiwi's!! We visit a Kiwi project that releases Kiwi's into the wild. They are quite a rare bird and there are only around 70,000 in the wild. They are amazingly big birds, about the size of a large chicken. They are also pretty aggressive, which is good since they are rare.

End up going to the pub in the evening and what happens? We get asked for ID!! Net and I are very bemused since the drinking age is 18 and we are nearly a decade older. Feel really embarrassed. Go back to the hostel to get our passports, only because the only reason we went to this pub in the first place is cos we got a free beer voucher from the hostel when we checked in to the hotel. After our free beer we quickly leave.

Another early night. Bed at 9pm.

September 9 - 11 Los Angeles - Nadi - Auckland - Tauranga

Body clock so messed up, up at 5:00am. Walk around Hollywood Blvd, taking the usual tourist pictures around Mann's Chinese Theatre. End up for coffee in some diner (again) called Shelly's. Supposedly they filmed part of Million Dollar Baby there. Great coffee!!!End up walking around Hollywood and up into the hills to nosey at rich people's mansions. After shop lots and then go to the airport for the next leg of our journey.















Leave LA on the 9th and arrive in Auckland (via Nadi, Fiji) on the 11th. Have lost a full day. Body clock very messed up now. Get our bags and hire a car. Then drive to Tauranga. Absolutley exhausted and keep thinking to myself maybe I shouldn't be driving. Luckily the scenery is beautiful and the country is not soo different from the UK. In fact all I can think is how much this part of the country is like the UK countryside! Also, the roads are almost empty and the drivers are so laid back. Most seem to drive extremely slow as well, which is fine by me.

Take our time and visit Wahei beach. Get to Tauranga.Get into town and get beeped a few times. Wonder why and then realise why. It's NZ road rules. Very strange. They have this crazy trun right rule. Here are two example of this silly rule;











Check into our hostel and take a walk around the town. It's a very nice seaside town, but too tired to appreciate anything. End up in bed at 8pm.