Lie in late and then drive down in a leisurely fashion to Rotorua - about 2 hours away. Check in to the Silver Fern motel - www.silverfernmotorinn.co.nz. Rotorua is famous for its hot springs and is slighty wiffy. Decide to take it easy and both have massages (plus a facial for me) at the motel [...]
We’ve had an AWESOME day! Took the trip out to White Island – which is NZ most active volcano. The boat trip is an hour and a half – the water is rough and both John & I get sick. The guide soothingly assures me that lots of people get nervous and sick before arriving [...]
Up earlier than usual but still get caught by our B&B host. They are fantastic people – but very talkative! Pack and get picked up at 10am by our car rental company. Make our way out first to Peter & Ursula’s shop & home to borrow their sat nav. Ursula’s Asian food importers is larger [...]
No specific plans today so stroll down to the ferry terminal and catch a ferry over to Devonport. Although Devonport appears to be an island it's actually part of the Northland mainland - about 10 minutes away by ferry. Devonport is gorgeous - a sort of beach version of Holt - full of pastel clapperboard [...]
We've seen it's snowing back home (he he he), but I'm afraid we only have one complaint about today and that is that the weather is just a little bit too hot!! I meant to say earlier that the first day we arrived and went to the beach I had tan marks after 2 hours [...]
Had a lovely breakfast at our B&B and then battled with the laptop, the internet and the blog update for a bit. Eventually got fed up (which is why there are no pictures on here yet) and went out to explore the city. Walked over to Auckland Museum first. It's a pretty good museum - [...]
I wake up at 12am and then at 3.30am. I’m pretty wide awake at 3.30am but tell myself I’m not getting out of bed until it’s light. Snooze and get up at 7am. Ursula and Peter politely tell us that some buzzing insect has woken us up, but then spoil this by making comments all [...]
All of a sudden we are here! At last! Finally landing after 33 hours travelling! We complete complicated bio-hazard security forms and have to declare that we are both wearing hiking boots with (shock horror) soil attached. We are scrutinised by an impassive maori officer. Eventually we make it out of the airport and into [...]
We arrive in Japan in early morning and the rain. We’re not supposed to exit immigration but the door to connecting flights is closed. We, and numerous confused caucasian passengers, stare at the notices. It’s John who comes to rescue by tracking down a minute Japanese police officer who directs us downstairs and round the [...]
It only takes an hour and a half to get to the airport. We check into premium. A Virgin sales rep tries hard to get us to upgrade to upper class. It’s massively discounted and in a moment of madness we consider it but fortunately common sense eventually prevails. We check through the airport and [...]