Hi guys! Hope you're all well! It's been a while since we updated the travelog, but we have been on the move a lot lately.

We did the Tongariro crossing after all, it was a long, exhausting walk, which took us approximately 8 hours to complete, 17 kms over volcanic terrain mostly and some reaally steep parts. And because I am as fit as a fiddle I had to stop every 5 minutes or so to rest :D. Plus I had Vassilis reminding me constantly how resilient he is despite the fact that he is a smoker :). BTW, he is trying to give up smoking now or rather reduce it and he is doing very well :D. It was a nice walk I am glad we did it, we reached an altitude of almost 2000m. This place was also the setting for "Mordor" in the "Lord of the rings" and you could really see why.

Although we couldn't move the next day we decided to go to Napier, a nice little town full of art deco style buildings. From there to Wellington, New Zealand's capital where we spent 2 days (a bit to much for a small city like this though). Wellington is nicknamed "windy Wellington" and this is so true, it was extremely windy everywhere. We took the ferry from there and crossed the Cook strait to the South Island.

There we went straight to the Abel Tasman N.P. where we met our dear Italian friends, Stefano and Elisa. It was so great to see our friends after such a long time! We did sea kayaking in the Abel Tasman together, which was great. They are useless, could not keep up with the mighty Greeks and were slowing us down all the time. Anyway, what can you do they are our friends after all :). We only stayed together for 2 days which was very little, there was so much to talk about! The guys also introduced us to free camping which is great not only because it's free, but also because you get to camp in some amazing spots near lakes and rivers. We are really thankful to them for this! It was really sad to part, we really enjoyed the company. We moved on to the south of the South Island and the guys went north where they would do a 3 day walk (they are mad) and then on to the North Island again.

So we drove along South Island's west coast, where we saw so many amazing natural wonders. Mount Aspiring, the Milford Sound, you name it. We were a bit unlucky with the famous lake Matheson and the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers as we happened to drive by in the worst possible weather.

New Zealand is an overwhelmingly beautiful country, you have to see it to believe it. You want to keep taking pictures constantly, so you end up driving 100kms in 5 hours instead of just 2 or so (BTW the N.Zealand highways resemble a lot the Irish ones and when I am driving, distances seem almost infinite :)). We camped in some really nice spots with our campervan, we had breakfast, lunch, dinner by lakes, rivers and beaches, it was amazing! We ended up staying for a total of 25 days in N.Z. instead of the originally planned 14 days, and I could easily have spent one more month here. I would love to have done a bit more walking or "tramping" as they call it here, but with such limited time we were rushing from one place to the other trying to see as much as we could, so we ended up spending a lot of time driving. But still, N.Z. is a great place, it's almost a must-see-at-least-once-in -your-our-lifetime :).

Our final stop was in Christchurch, South Island's biggest city and a very English-looking one too. We dropped the campervan there and boarded the plane to Sydney where we are at the moment. Sydney is an amazing city but more on that in our next entry :D.

Take care!

Pinelopi 

NOTE: we are NOT responsible for the bush fires in N. Zealand, as somebody suggested. We were NOT responsible for the tsunami either.

The true story.

Singapore was OK. We spent 2 nights there and changed 3 rooms because the bloody air conditioning was making a terrible boiling noise that kept us up all night. And the girls there all look exactly like the psychotic Japanese girl with the ball and chain in "Kill Bill 1" - scary stuff.
We landed in N. Zealand and the first impression was that it looks a lot like Ireland, only the people here have noticed that it rains and most walkways are covered. Quite handy too cause the weather was crap.
We had several options of transport and of course we went for the most expensive one. We hired a camper van and we got the filthiest and oldest ever (never use Ezy Cars guys, they didn't deliver according to the agreement), but we didn't have a choice. The seat covers were shining with a kind of oily dirt. We washed them of course, but the laundry wouldn't do a hot wash so they weren't clean the first time. Then we washed them again but I forgot to push the button on the dryer and then they didn't have time to dry and these seat covers are our bed covers basically, so you can imagine our night. Plus the van feels like driving a lorry. It took me 300 km to switch to fourth gear, no kidding. I thought I was bad until Penelope took the wheel. The day time stood still. The kilometers became light years, the hours became aeons (in fairness, she drove through a very demanding bit, with killer bents and the sun in her eyes and me in the passenger seat and she did very well).

And then you have the holiday parks. The first one we went to looked quite OK. My first job was to check the toilets. There were 30 toilets, another 30 showers and the place was empty, so you could see the smile on my face. I thought all of them must be like this and then we arrived at the second one which had 2 toilets, 2 showers and the place was packed. For some funny reason whenever you check out the toilet, it's free but when you really need it, it's occupi ed. My work-around is to use the facilities at around 2 a.m. 

And then there is also the sadistic devices they have in the holiday parks. Like the shower that operates with coins, 20 c for 5 minutes. In my case it was 20 c for 1.5 minutes. Nothing beats the feeling when you turn on the hot water tap and nothing happens.
I also like the shower that operates with a dial sort of thing that only turns in one direction in this order: OFF-Cold-Warm-Hot-OFF. So, if you want warm water, you first get the cold surprise and when you turn it off you lose your skin from the boiling water. Repeat as many times as required.
My favourite though is the one that cuts the toilet paper. This satanic invention limits the paper and at the moment of truth you are left basically with something the size of a post stamp. 
And when we thought we had seen everything we ended up in a holiday park that's still under construction and is just a car park. In the morning we were woken up by the builders operating the bobcat right next to our van. Nice.  

Vassilis

Hi guys! N. Zealand is an extremely beautiful country, we are sooo impressed! Loads of green, varied scenery, so many things to do. The weather has been very good the last few days as well, which is great as it reveals this unbelievably blue sky! We are really really impressed!

We stayed 4 days in Auckland in particularly bad weather (very similar to the Irish "summer"), trying to figure out how to move around N.Z.. We opted for a campervan in the end, we definetely did not get the best deal we could, but everything seems to be booked out, so we had to settle with what we got at the price we got it. We thought it would be a nice experience and it is. It gets a bit of getting used to driving this relatively big vehicle, but Vassilis seems to have gotten the hang of it by now :). I only drove it today for the first time and I am sure everyone driving behind us did not appreciate it at all :).

We started of from the Bay of Islands at the north east side of North Island, a beautiful bay with islands as the name suggests :) where we went for a nice cruise. We then drove to the north-west side and visited the largest and oldest Kauri (gum) trees, they are really-really huge! As the L.P. guide says you have to see it to believe it :). We also did sandboarding on a beach with steep sand dunes. That was fantastic! You basically place your upper body on a boogie board and of you go, it was great fun! It was us and a couple of 10 year olds that where showing us how to do it he he!

We then started our descent to the central part of the north island, to a place called Rotorua. The area there is filled with thermal pools, mud pools and so on. There I had one of the most fantastic experiences of my life so far: white water rafting, and moreover going over a 7 meter high waterfall! It was INCREDIBLE, there are no words to describe the feeling. I was of course scared s**less until such time as we actually went over the waterfall, but it was of course much easier than I thought and sooo much fun! We also watched a Maori concert and had Maori dinner called hangi at the same evening. The Maori concert was fantastic, they also did the war dance called "haka" and it was sooo funny!

Today we drove past a place called Wai-o-Topu where walked among some mud pools & thermal pools and witnessed "Lady Knox" geyser's erruption. We are now in Lake Taupo, a beautiful big lake, the weather is great outside and Vassilis can't wait to go for a swim in it.

Living in the campervan is relatively easy, it's a bit cramped but we are only in it for the night really. It has a fridge and a kitchen, so we can store and cook food. We usually use the kitchen facilities of the holiday parks though. As you would expect and because campervans are so popular here in N.Z., almost everywhere you go there is a holiday park as they call them, with communal kitchen, toilets, showers etc where you can spend the night. A lot of them are also in really nice spots. The one we are staying today for example is right beside the lake.

In general people here think it's cool and wicked that we come from Greece, because apparently they do not see that many Greek tourists. That makes us feel a bit proud :). N.Zealanders are very friendly and they seem to know and love their country. They are eager to tell you which places to visit and there are so many of them! Also, they seem to be a rather suicidal nation and they have invented some of the most masochistic adventure sports ever, for example there's one called "Zorbing" where you enter a huge plastic ball filled with water and then they push you off a hill. Excuse me? :)

Tomorrow we will attempt to hike the Tongariro crossing, we'll see how the weather looks like and if we feel like it in general. It is a 7-8 hours walk after all :).

I will try to upload some photos next time, yahoo photos does not seem to work at the moment :(.

Pine.

Dear all, we would first like to thank you all for your interest in our well-being! Thank you very much it is very moving! We are still aliving and kicking (just as you thought you got rid of us :D). Secondly we would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, make sure you enjoy it as much as you can!

When the earthquake/tsunami hit we were on the island of Penang in Malaysia. We did feel the earthquake but it was mild in that area. We did not realize what had happened until Vicky my lovely friend called to make sure we are OK. In general, due to the lack of TV throughout our stay in Malaysia we were not fully aware of what was really going on. Terrible tragedy. Some of the places in Krabi in Thailand we had just been to, are now gone as we found out, it's crazy :(.

In Malaysia we stayed in a hut in the jungle, we visited Kuala Lumpur with its huge Petronas twin towers, we stayed in a lake retreat called Suka Suka (a small island in a lake) and finally visited the pictursque little town of Melacca (to all our Greek friends this is pronounced "malaka", he he). Malaysia in an amazingly multicultural country where Chinese, Indians and Malaysians of course blend together in a fascinating way. You really don't know where you are at times :).

We are now in Singapore, an extremely clean and "posh" city! Chewing gum is not allowed he he, you get fined! Everything is of course much more expensive than the rest of the SE Asian countries we visited, but still cheaper than Europe. We are slowly getting used to more expensive accommodation and food :).

We are leaving tomorrow for N.Zealand and we'll write more from there!

We uploaded some more pictures at http://photos.yahoo.com/kouleri" title="http://photos.yahoo.com/kouleri" target="_blank"http://photos.yahoo.com/koule....

Pinelopi