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.