Mexico

Well here we are, 7 months and 10 days since we left, staring down the barrel of our last day of travelling, waiting to face the grim reality of the weather back in England. Ha its not all doom and gloom, both of us are really looking forwards to coming home and seeing our family and friends, its just the reality of getting jobs and dealing with the cold that might not be all that much fun! We've been holed up in a hotel in Mexico City for the last day or so, waiting for our flight, which is still a good thirteen hours away. So plenty of time to finish up the final (or maybe second to last, who knows) blog entry - Mexico.

The relatively simple hop down to Cancun from LA turned into yet another airline based nightmare... we'd got to LAX nice and early and found the Mexicana check in desk, only to be told we didn't actually have tickets for the flight. Joy.

After ten minutes talking to the most unhelpful customer services person in the world, it turns out BA never bothered to actually book us onto the flights we'd rearranged all those months ago in Aus/New Zealand. It took almost an hour on the phone to BA to sort it all out, and thank god the seats they'd booked were still there, its just that our ticket wasn't linked to them yet... or some other airline babble we didn't really care about. Needless to say we were both fuming but relieved that we'd made it onto the flight - after all that stress and hassle back in the Autumn is was so annoying to find out they'd messed it up, and then for the people on the phone to imply it was our mistake... gah, airlines really do their up most to ruin trips.

We just about made it to the gate in time, but from there in the journey was painless, and we arrived in Cancun four hours later.



Okay so we did pinch this one from the internet, its not an amazing photo from the plane :p We really didn't know anything about Cancun before we arrived, and we'd skipped the usual ritual of buying the guide book - the theory being we were there to spend a couple of weeks by the beach before heading home. In hindsight we should have done a little more research - it turns out there are two distinct areas in Cancun; downtown, and the hotel zone. The photo is of the fancy hotels in the hotel zone, which sadly were a long way out of our price range. Instead we headed towards the hostels in downtown.

We had managed to book a real duffer online - not only were we paying three times over the odds (thanks to HostelBookers, we've been ripped off by them plenty of times now, so if you can make your own reservations!) but our nice sounding double ensuite room turned out to be a nasty 12 bunk dorm. With a slatted window right onto the busy kitchen. Our day was going from bad to worse...

We managed to scrape out a pretty miserable nights sleep (once everyone else had gone to bed!) and left early in the morning to find somewhere better to stay. This took about 25 seconds, as there were a couple of nice hotels just around the corner charging less than we'd paid for the scummy hostel! After a bit of negotiating to get us out of paying the full pill at the hostel (hostels are really funny about this around holiday times it turns out) we jumped ship and took up residence at Hotel Tulum.



We explored the local area that evening, and it was clear the Mexican's went to town on the seasonal decorations. Apart from that we didn't do much in the run up to New Years Eve, except relax and explore the area. There were plenty of cheap local buses running between downtown and the hotel area, so we explored the whole place and didn't do all that much else... so fast forward to the big night...



It started in quite a civilised fashion, but descended fairly rapidly once we'd sampled a few of the local beverages =)



We'd made our way over to the hotel area on the handy bus and had a wander around, but the majority of places were charging 60 US dollars plus for entry and an open bar - which was a bit rich for our tastes. We found a nice place with no entry and regular drinks and settled in for the night. As midnight approached we celebrated by trying out even more of the local tipples =)



So by midnight we were thoroghly in the new years mood, and the bar handed out hats and balloons (and more tequila slammers...) and everyone had a dance to the crazy music.



All in all a good night out, and despite the looks on our faces we weren't in that much trouble the next day =) We took it easy anyway, and booked up a big trip for the next day. The Yucatán Peninsula is home to many ancient Mayan ruins, with the most famous being one of the new wonders of the ancient world - Chichen Itza.

As Cancun tourist traps go, the Chichen Itza tours are right up there. We signed up to the cheap and cheerful one anyway, and tried prepared ourselves for the usual faff of the conveyor belt tours.

We were up bright and early for the 7am pickup, but then sure enough we had to wait around at a staging area until about 9am whilst they found enough buses to fit everyone on to. Not a good start... it was like it was there first day organising the trip. Once we finally got underway, the first stop was a cenote to have a wander around and for brave souls to have a swim in.



There are so many of these sink holes dotted around you can't really find any tour that doesn't take you to one, so this wasn't the last we'd see of them. It was a nice enough place to have a look at, but the water was so full of sun cream it looked a bit like crude oil in places. Nice.

After that, we were dragged to the usual 'local market', specifically set up to relieve US tourists of their money by selling 'authentic' locally made products. Having been forced to endure this scheme on at least three continents of far it wearing a bit then. Next up was a pretty good lunch buffet, which cheered us up. One of the more genuine local dishes was a delicious lemon soup, which was much more tasty that it probably sounds!

So we'd been on the tour for about 8 hours, and finally it was time to actually visit the main event...



To the tours credit, they did lay on a pretty good walking tour, telling us all about the traditions and history of the place.



This is the view from their footy pitch, which was pretty well proportioned but the home to an entirely different ball game... archaeologists reckon it went on for a few days, and the captain of the winning team was decapitated - apparently a good result in those days.



After the tour we had at least 23 minutes to stroll our by ourselves before the place closed and we were herded out by security. What a wonderfully planned day out... by the time we'd stopped at all 400 hotels on the way home, we'd spent 13 hours on the trip - having only spent two hours at the place we'd actually want to see. Ho hum, it was a pretty amazing site but it'd have been nicer to spend another hour or so there to see everything.

After that slowed the pace down even further - we had a few weeks to kill and not all that much to do on a budget. Our next trip out was to the Isla de Mujeres, a popular island just off the the coast. The main form of transport here was golf buggy, and we couldn't resist hiring one to tear about the place for a few hours:



It turned out that the island took the brunt of the winds coming in of the Caribean Sea, and it was absolultey freezing as we pottered around in the open.



Forunately it was much warmer around the other side so we were able to get some good beach time in before we headed back to the mainland.

Our regular days of pottering around to the beach and having dinner at the locals food market continued for a while longer, before we booked another day trip, this time a bit more adventurous - zip lines.



We went to a place claiming to be Mexico's number one attraction, and it turned out to be a good one. That picture isn't us as yet again they did the 'no cameras' trick and then scammed you for the photos their camera guys took along the way. I guess we should have been used to it by now, but the way they pretend you shouldn't take your camera for other reasons is a bit much.

The zip lines were amazing fun, and there were plenty of them. After the zip lining there was the inevitable trip to another cenote, but we'd booked the special option to get there on all-terrain segways, oh yeah =)



I'd always wanted to try one of these things, and going along the tracks through the jungles was pretty amazing. It wasn't all plain sailing, as one of the ladies in our group couldn't get the hang of it and had some nasty falls (driving them into trees isn't the best way to get around...) but we had a blast - if you get the chance to have a go we thoroughly recommend it =)

That was about it for the trips out, we idled away the final few days and enjoyed some pretty tasty feasts - its going to be hard to go back to home cooking again after this!



And that was that - we had one last trip to the beach to say goodbye. We've spent quite a bit of the last 7 months strolling down some of the most amazing beaches in the world, so it was a sad farewell.



And here we are, up to date once more. From Cancun we flew to Mexico City; we've been a bit reclusive and not seen anything of the city - it felt a bit like tempting fate to risk one of the more dodgy cities we've visited on our last day, so we've been watching TV and counting down the hours until the flight.

I think we may do one more post once we've got home to round things off, and look back at some of our favourite bits so we'll remember things in the future. Already when we look back and read our first few posts it feels like a lifetime ago... so it'll be great to have this record of our amazing journey for the rest of our lives.

If you told us eighteen months ago we were going to have circumnavigated the world, we'd definitely had laughed... but when the situation changes you've got to take good advantage of the opportunities life puts in front of you... but that'll do on the reminiscing until we are back home safely in one piece, there is still plenty of time for BA to screw up again and send us (and our bags) somewhere totally random ;)

See you all soon!

Vegas Baby

We left things last time as we were heading from San Francisco to Vegas, via another night in LA. We were back on the old faithful greyhound buses that we'd spent half our Aussie live's on. Fortunately for us these were only six to seven hour journeys.

The landscapes we travelled through were pretty amazing; quite different to those of New Zealand where everything seems right up close, but the vast expanses of the plains and the mountains in the distance made for some great window gazing.



Despite being impoverished travellers, scraping by on 30 quid a day each for most of the last 5 months, I'd pulled out the big guns and treated us to four nights in a super fancy hotel for Christmas. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions on where we should stay, we ended up going for the Bellagio - one of the fanciest places on the strip.

As soon as we arrived we felt totally out of place wandering through the amazing shops with our backpacks on, everyone there looks so filthy rich, and by the time we made it through to the reception we thought it was only a matter of time before they busted us and pointed us down the street to some grubby hostel. Thankfully, in Vegas anyone's money is good money, even in the swankiest of places =)



The lobby was a crazy combination of flowery glass arty ceilings and fancy Christmas decos, and about a million people all fighting for the check-in queues! It took a fair while but eventually we checked-in and headed for room sixteen-thousand and something... they are mind blowingly big hotels, that's for sure.

We'd arrived in the last evening, so we headed straight out to get our first hit of the Vegas atmosphere and stroll down the strip as everything was lighting up.



No sooner as we'd left the hotel the famous water fountains sprang up and we joined the throng watching the show, with the Paris hotel in the background.



This is the view back towards the Bellagio from the lake, sadly a bit blurry but it gives an idea of the size of the water area at the front of the hotel. Our room was right around the other side, I guess you have to pay the big bucks to get the fancy rooms overlooking the fountains!

It didn't take any time at all before we were swept up in the maelstrom of neon, adverts and noise as we headed up the strip taking in the sights. We got as far as Caesar's Palace before we caved in and headed to get a beer and do some gambling =)



We'd not done all that much research on the way the bars work in Vegas, but it became clear quite quickly that if we played on the video poker/blackjack machines they'd give us all the free booze we wanted. Each different place had slightly different rules on how much we had to put in, and what the minimum stake was, but before long we became pretty good at roughly breaking even whilst enjoying the complimentary booze. Happy days :)

The next day (slightly later in the morning than originally planned..) we set off for a longer trip to check out the sights and the wacky stuff going on inside the various casinos.

We liked the European themed ones quite a bit, maybe something to do with feeling a bit homesick - I liked Paris the most whilst Alex went for the Venetian, complete with its fake-sky indoor St Mark's Square:



Despite it being Christmas Eve, there weren't quite as much Christmasy spirit things going on around the place as we'd expected. Although we did find a good bit in the Bellagio once we'd got back and done some more exploring in our own back yard.



That evening we hit the casinos again - after an hour or so of polishing our blackjack theory online to maximise our drinking scheme returns - and played on the various machines and got merrily drunk again. I really wanted to play some 'proper' blackjack at a table, so we headed away from the Bellagio's 20 dollar tables to a cheaper place up the strip. I merrily lost forty dollars in the space of about six minutes (despite having been practising the theory stuff all day!) thanks to a wicked run of luck from the house. This quickly put an end to my dreams of "making it big in Vegas" and we headed back home relatively early so we'd be in good spirits on Christmas Day.

The big day arrived and we spent the first few hours on Skype calling our families back home. As we were talking to my lot there was a knock on the door which we thought was the room cleaners - so we sent them packing - but the shouts of "let them in" that flew back out of the screen meant we quickly opened the door... the little schemers back home had ordered a nice bottle of bubbly to be delivered to our room, so that set the tone for the day and we had a great day of eating and drinking.

We couldn't resist hitting the room service to get some tasty breakfast to go with the champers :



By the time we'd finished the feast we realised we'd only got another few hours until our lunch booking, so we quickly rescheduled that until later in the day to avoid any the inevitable culinary overload.

We went for a nice stroll to work off breakfast - and its amazing that there was absolutely zero difference between Christmas Day and any other in Vegas. The casinos were still busy, there were still throngs of people everywhere you could see outside, and the traffic was still crazy! Definitely a case of no rest for the wicked.

We'd booked at a table at one of the nice restaurants in the Bellagio for a late lunch, and when we arrived they mistook us for someone else who'd kicked up a big fuss to get a lake-side table outside. We didn't exactly do much to try and clear up their confusion, and before we knew it we'd been whisked through to a great table right on the beautiful lake with the fountains.



Hopefully this didn't leave another couple having an angry confrontation with the maitre d', but you've got to take your chances, especially in Vegas ;)

Sadly we couldn't get any traditional Christmasy food, it was a bit too fancy for that, but we both ended up choosing a really tasty chickeny-orangey thing which made us very happy indeed.



After all that food and drink we were definitely feeling the Christmas spirit, and took a stroll back in the other direction down the strip to walk it off, followed by more (mild!) casino action in the evening. We'd already booked our next days activity so wanted to be in a clear headed state to head off to the Grand Canyon by helicopter on Boxing Day.



It was both of our first times in a helicopter, and I'm not sure if there is a better place on earth to try it than the Grand Canyon.



The tour we'd booked involved a 45 minute flight to and from the canyon, with a flight down into the canyon and then stopping at a crazy cowboy ranch nearby. This last bit sounded a bit ropey on paper, but actually it kind of made the trip.



Our host at the ranch played and sang made up songs whilst we had a tasty bit of lunch, and then there was an opportunity for a horse ride (which we declined, it was extra and it was also freezing cold outside!) and we could stroll around the ranch. They put on a daft western shoot out demo as well, it was all quite cliched but good fun. Then we hopped back into the helicopters for the flight back.



The journey back was more direct than the way out, and the views were just as great. Before landing we took a route across the strip and had a chance to see all of the hotels from above which was amazing.



And that was about it for our frantic four days in Vegas. We didn't get to any shows, mostly because we'd spent so much money on the helicopter ride, but that gives us something to look forwards too next time we visit. Hopefully next time we'll not be backpackers, and have a bit more money to spend - it is possible to have a good time and not spend much, but we both get the feeling it'd be a whole load more fun if you could go crazy for a few days and do and see everything on offer!

It was pretty sad leaving our amazing Bellagio room too, this was definitely the pinacle of luxury so far on the trip, but we had to face the reality that we were heading for some pretty low budget hostels in Mexico for our next stop!

USA

Once again we are gazing back through time to update the blog - we are getting pretty close to the end of the trip now, and have resolved to make sure we don't end up writing the last two months of blogs from London =)

Right now we are in Cancun, Mexico, enjoying pretty nice weather as we wind down before the trip back to freezing cold England. But in terms of our blogging progress, we are just about to leave Auckland, over a month ago...

The flight was almost a repeat of the fiasco that ended up with the longest day ever without sleep in Melbourne, so this time we took the pharmaceutical route and took sleeping tablets after we'd finished our first round of in-flight movies. This turned out to work quite well, we both got enough sleep to get by, and before we knew it we'd arrived at LAX. It was still some crazy hour in the morning in US time, and with the sleeping pill lag to contend with as well we weren't exactly on top form as we staggered off the plane.

Everything was going well until we'd spent the best part of an hour waiting at the baggage reclaim; slowly but surely the torrent of luggage slowed to a trickle, and the other passengers had pretty much all gone... but no sign of either our bags. Things went from bad to worse when we asked the Quantas people in the terminal - the idiot that had checked us in in Auckland hadn't given us our baggage tags so we had nothing that they could check in their system to find out what had happened. (Note to anyone going on a plane with checked in baggage - never leave the check in desk without bag tags!)

Arrrggg... we spent another hour queueing and filling in lost baggage claim forms and were dispatched off to our hostel with the promise Quantas would phone each day with a status update. Neither of us were holding our breath.

We had booked to stay in a hostel right on Venice Beach, and it turned out to be a good little place ("Venice Beach Cotel - its like a hotel, but cheaper!", gah!) situated right on Venice Beach prominade.



Fortunately we only had to wait for a couple of hours before they found a room we could take - thank god their customer service was better than Melbourne or we'd have been waiting until the afternoon again. Its a really nice area to stroll around, even in the early hours of the morning! We crashed out and slept for the rest of the day, not really knowing what was going on.

The next day we woke up and took stock of our situation; neither of us had anything else to wear, no toiletries at all, and only one airline toothbrush between us. After harassing Quantas baggage service by phone - who as expected seemed quite oblivious to our missing bags despite it only being 24 hours on - it became clear we'd need to buy some stuff to get by.

(In hindsight we should have should have done so much more before we left the airport - once we'd got some internet we did loads of research on what kind of compensation they will give you if you kick up a fuss. Its well worth googling for this information if you are embarking on a lot of flights this year - knowing your rights in advance makes things a hell of a lot easier than trying to chase it all down after the event!)

Alex took charge (not just because we needed to shop, she'd been to LA before) and we took a stroll down to Santa Monica. The famous pier was a little bleak and closed down as it was the middle of winter, but the walk was great. From there we headed in land to hit the shops along the 3rd Street Promenade. A hundred or so dollars later we had enough bits to get by with.

The next few days passed by in a bit of a haze as we couldn't really plan anything until we had news about the bags. On the third day we managed to get through to the guy that had helped us at the airport, and thank christ he actually knew what he was doing - we gave him a much more detailed description of the bags and within an hour they'd been able to track them down in some random section of Auckland airport.

Our best guess as to what happened was that the guy who checked us in was a) annoyed with us or b) just plain stupid, and had 'forgotten' to put the baggage routing tags on the bags (and therefore had no bag tag receipts to give us.) So the bags just got left around the check-in area before hitting the on-hand (airport talk for lost property?) bags pile in the airport. Anyway, all interesting stuff to know in hindsight, but the best thing was the bags would be flown overnight and would be back with us the next day.

We did more walking for the rest of that day, and explored the canals that give Venice Beach its name:



There were some amazing little houses around there, it looked like a great place to live. People were starting to put up their Xmas lights and decorations, so we had a great day out.

That next day we planned out the rest of our time in the US, ready to book everything the second the bags arrived - obviously still paranoid that Quantas would some how mess that up too. We'd not really explored LA at all yet, so it was about time jumped on the bus and headed over to Hollywood.

We'd picked a pretty special day for it - within about an hour of leaving the heavens opened and it rained solidly for the rest of the day. Hollywood in the rain, without an umbrella, is not a great place to be. We couldn't even see the sign in the hills it was so grim, so we headed inside and went to see the Christmas Carol 3D film instead.

It was a great film and everything - the amazing 3D scenes of Dickensian London made us feel pretty home-sick - but the real highlight happened before the film started. Just as the adverts finished and the film was about to start, the whole screen shot upwards to reveal a load of perma-grinning singers and dancers, complete with Mickey and Minnie mouse. We'd managed to completely miss the fact we'd booked ourselves into some crazy kids Christmas show - even after being given strange jangly wrist bands on the way into the cinema.

Oh well, a few extremely twee Christmas songs later - and after being covered in fake fairly liquid 'snow' - the film finally started!

So LA was a bit of a write-off really, mostly down to the missing bags, and partly due to how impossible it is to get anywhere without spending four hours a day on buses. The different areas are so spread out its a bit disappointing how hard it is to see everything.

Amazingly the bags did show up on time the next day, so we booked up some greyhound tickets and a hostel, and the headed north to San Fransico the day after.

The guide book told us the city was way smaller than LA, and could be walked around in a day. So we set off from our wonderful hostel in downtown to the Golden Gate Park, thinking we could walk back around the coast in a day...



This is before we realised it was about a 15 mile roundtrip - it turned out our map had a section that wasn't to scale (I mean who does that... mean trick to play on tourists) and after about five hours of walking we were still nowhere near getting back! It was a beautiful city to stroll around though, so we loved it despite being knackered after we got a tram home.

We spent the next few days exploring the cheap things to see, like Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. Alex was keen to try the Clam Chowder :



Not really my cup of tea, but Alex loved it... she is definitely winning the game of how many local dishes you can try going around the world. (I'd just snuck off to the BK around the corner before we took that photo :p)

The weather was a bit grim, but we managed to make it up and down the zigzags of Lombard Street without sliding down. That evening we took in a quintessentially San Fran show called Beach Blanket Babylon - Alex had found this online and it looked like a good laugh. Its a really long running satirical musical revue, which is constantly reinvented to poke fun at whatever is in the news at the time. This was hilarious, despite the fact we didn't get some of the more quirky American jokes - and well worth a visit if you are in San Fran.

On the way back home that night it was my turn to sample some classic American fare - I was a bit peckish on the walk home so we grabbed a Philly Cheese Steak from a diner and holy cow is that the best food ever invented?! I'm sure my heart stopped for a few moments as my internal organs fought the waves of lard sweeping through me, but it was worth it for the cheesy-meaty-bready tastiness of it all. Happy days =)

We'd had a string of relatively cheap days in the US so far, so it was about time we slapped down the greebacks and did some tours - first up was Alcatraz. We'd followed some good advice and booked ahead of time to do the night tour - allegedly the best tour in the San Fran area. We'd fluked a perfect day for it to; it was very clear and sunny, so by late afternoon the city was bathed in an amazing orange glow as we set sail across the bay.



This is the view from the island away from the city:



This was one of our favourite tours of the trip, its just so well organised and the audio tour around the prison itself was great. Because we'd done the night trip there weren't that many people around, and we manage to use our London commuter elbowing skills to get the front of the queue to get into the prison, so it was eerily empty as we explored around it.



When we made it back outside the sun had just about set behind the Golden Gate Bridge, and the views were breathtaking :



It was a great trip out, full marks. We walked home from the pier through Union Square (our hostel was just around the corner) and couldn't resist getting caught up in the Christmas spirit with just a week to go until the big day :



The next day we went to see the long awaited Avatar film - in IMAX 3D no less - in the morning. Its undeniably a brilliant film, we both really enjoyed it. As it was the first day of release we had to go during the morning to get a seat, so it was really disorienting coming outside into the sunshine and walking around afterwards!

We'd shelled out the big bucks for our next trip - a full day tour out into the Yosemite National Park :



We'd got lucky on the weather yet again and enjoyed an amazing day out in the crisp mountain air. The tour was a bit of a rush but they managed to pack in loads of the main sites through the park. We've already forgotten the names of everything but this one might be a big rock called El Capitan seen across the valley.



The waterfalls were all running a bit low on water, you can just about make out one of them in the background past the crazy tree :



We got to do a few hours of exploring after lunch, so we did a bit of scrambling to get up close to one of the bigger falls near the visitors centre :



And another one for good luck...



Another amazing trip - it was quite a long bus journey to get out there, but well worth it. The clear day and all the snow made it unmissable.

As we were getting closer to Christmas - and our 'holiday' in the Bellagio - we started winding down again after the big tours. The next day we thought it'd be nice to talk a stroll over the Golden Gate Bridge, but sadly the amazingly unpredictable weather thought better of it.



With not much else to do in the gloom, we hit the town that night and headed up to the bar in the Marriott Hotel for a cheeky beer or two. The mist had cleared a little and the views from the 39th floor bar were great.



(For some reason I couldn't stop thinking we were in scene from Star Wars, is it like the Death Star in Return of the Jedi?)

We hit a few more bars and had a grand old time, but on the way back we broke the cardinal rule of 'never go shopping after drinking', and ended up going a little bit silly in the corner shop...



Ah well, it was Christmas after all =)

We'd come to the end of a great week in San Fransico, so it was time to head back the way we'd come and head to Las Vegas via a one night stop back in LA. Christmas in Vegas deserves its own post, so we'll leave it here - until next time...

The rest of New Zealand

Our last update was from the Franz Joseph glacier on the south island. We'd decided to split our 20 ish days in NZ evenly between the islands, so we only had a couple more days left in the south before we had to give back the car and head to the north. The final destination on the plan was Nelson, a largish city on the north coast. It was another fairly epic drive to get up there, but things quickly picked up when we found out the hostel we'd booked gave everyone free chocolate cake and ice cream each night! Awesome :)

To be honest it doesn't matter at all if the hostel is a complete dump when they give you free cake, but this place was brilliant - it was run by a couple that had spent ages travelling themselves so really knew how to keep the backpackers happy. We really wanted to do some wine tasting (ie drinking) at some point in New Zealand, and Nelson was the perfect place for it; we signed up for a tour and headed out the following day.



The tour was great, we visited four different vineyards and tried so much wine it got to the point where we actually had to use the spittoon by the afternoon :p The lady that ran it was a really eccentric ex-school teacher, and the whole thing felt like a crazy school trip but with lots of wine involved. All good fun - we definitely learned a bit more about wine, but it did take us quite a few days of beer drinking before either of us could face ordering a wine again ha!

So that was it for the south island, as the next day we were up bright and early to drive to Picton to get the ferry. In classic style we'd not bothered checking times or booking, so it was a total fluke that there was a ferry just about to leave the minute we arrived. A little bit of running around the ferry terminal later and we were on the boat, heading north to NZ's capital city, Wellington.

Our fantastic luck with the unpredictable New Zealand weather finally ran out, and as we pulled into the docks in Wellington the outlook was pretty grey and miserable. It stayed rainy for three days running, so we really didn't see much of Wellington. Possibly the most exciting thing that happened is that we stumbled on the enlightening of the city Christmas tree, complete with Sally Army band and carol singing, to get us into the Xmas mood a bit!



With the rain showing no signs of abating, we rented another car and headed north back out into national park territory.

The first stop on the north island tour was Tongariro National Park, a real life volcano and home of one of the best one-day hikes (they call them 'tramps') in the country. After a lot of persuading from Alex I'd agreed to embark on this 21km long by 1km high mission of a walk as it did sound pretty amazing... even if I did think I had a very high chance of collapsing in a heap at some point along the track.

The hostels in the area were set up for sending people out onto the track via buses that ran from the town to the start in the morning, and then they'd pick you up at the other end 6 gruelling hours later. So we dragged ourselves out of bed to get onto the bus at 7:30 am, completely weighed down with snacks and water as if we were heading out to the north face of Everest. The weather report was a little ropey, but we'd seen the clouds clear up nicely the day before so we were quite optimistic... famous last words...



It was pretty easy going to start with, just a gentle slope up some really nice terrain, and the sun was making the right noises about breaking through the clouds.



The easy going start quickly turned into the start of the uphill slog. It was around this time we overheard some people saying that the volcano area had been used - yep, you guessed it - in Lord of the Rings for some of the Mount Doom bits. So there were quite a few people joking about climbing up Mount Doom, and one group in particular were taking it so seriously ('Listen guys, its now or never to turn back, as once we climb this bit there's no coming back...') we started to feel a bit nervous. We could see on our handout from the hostel that the profile of the walk was pretty much straight up from there, with a really long downhill at the end, so we got our heads down and started up the side of the mountain.

Its time for a quick side note - at this point we'd be remiss if we didn't mention a slightly wacky NZ form of sustainance - Scroggin. We were baffled by this phrase at the start of the NZ journey, we'd seen a couple things mentioning it but had no clue what it meant. But it turned out to be their word for trail mix, or whatever we call that in England. Like a high-carb snack for when you are walking. Anyway, having found out there was a special word for it - and having found huge scroggin dispensers in the nearby supermarket - we were completely loaded with the stuff. By the time we'd hit the hilly bits we were so wired on peanuts, dried fruit and chocolate covered raisins we were zooming passed everyone else. Maybe not such a good idea right at the start of the walk, but hey, it was tasty...!

Anyway, back to the mission in hand - it was all going so well until we were about halfway up - then either we broke through the clouds, or the clouds came down to break us...



.. and it all went a little bit sideways from there :



You could barely see 15 metres, and sadly this walk is all about the views of things that are more than 15 metres away. Aparently there was an active volcano crater, several brightly coloured volcanic lakes, and all sorts of Lord of the Rings-style scenes of barren landscapes out there somewhere.

Right at the top we crossed the freezing level and started to a few scattered snowy/icey bits, and that also transformed the cloudy mist from an annoyance into a face-freezing blizzard. We were not best pleased at this stage =)



And not to be outdone...



From the top there were a few pretty steep bits to slide down, followed by three hours of gradual downhill slog. We were pretty happy to break back through the freezing level, then through the cloud level, and by the end it was pretty warm and dry again. But after 21 cold and wet kilometres both of us were pretty fed up with it - and I was totally knackered - so we were very glad to ge the bus home for a nice hot shower. Looking back on this we are really glad we did it, but its such a shame about the weather as it could have been an amazing trip. (Advice to anyone heading this way - leave a spare day in your plans so that if needs be you can wait to do the crossing... the bus service we had were really cool as if by the time they'd driven you all the way to the start and the weather was still rubbish, they'd take you back and give you tickets for the next day instead.)

The next morning was pretty horrific, both of us (ok well me especially) were crying out in pain with every step. The rest of the people in our hostel were also in varying states of brokenness which made us feel a bit better. But with limited time to cram everything in, it was straight back on the road (thank god for automatic cars!) heading for Waitomo - home of the famous black water rafting.

The drive was fairly straight forwards, and the hostels were all bluring into one by this point... but thats not really why you make the trip over to Waitomo. The whole area is littered with caves, and the main underground river runs for miles. They've made various attractions - caving, walking, more glow worm spotting for the more mild-mannered travellers - but the main event for most people is the black water (underground) rafting. This is a tamer version of white water rafting, but you do it underground in narrow tunnels sat on car inner tubes... sounds great eh? :)

We booked in a combined day of crazy activities - first you abseil down 20 metres or so into the cave, then you go walking up the underground river and do some caving. Then you stop in a huge underground cavern and do some glowworm spotting, followed by the rafting. Once you've gone far enough down river, you grab the tubes and hike back upstream before climbing the wall of the cave you abseiled down to get out again. A pretty average day by New Zealand standards then.

There were some nice easy walks around the place to do to try and stretch our achy legs, and caves were everywhere :



Our crazy mission started at 10am the next day, and started pretty mundanely with a bus ride followed by changing into the gear. We ended up with all sorts of crazy stuff - a full wetsuit as the water is freezing and we'd be getting pretty wet, a crazy pair of cloth trousers (to stop the eels from biting?!), a climbing harness with caving rack for the abseil and climb, a hard hat with a torch so we could see in the cave, and finally a pair of lovely white wellies. There were 6 people in the group, plus the guide, and we all looked like total loons walking around in all the gear.

So first up was the abseil, and thanks to our rock climbing antics in Thailand this was pretty straight forwards. (Unforunately we don't have any photos of us in action as it was the classic rip off of having to pay for a CD of mostly blurred photos the guide had taken afterwards. But that wont stop us from ripping off photos from google though eh...) This is a picture of the cave entrance from the bottom, the abseil happens on the far left, and the climb back up by the ropes on the right.



We hadn't quite realised how cold it was going to be down there, and the water level was pretty high thanks to the recent rain. Our wellies were pretty much continually full as you had to walk in the river for quite a lot of the way. After everyone made it down we grabbed our inner tubes and headed up stream. There were some little bits of caving to do - both Alex and I aren't partically fond of small enclosed spaces, especially after the Cu Chi Tunnels trip in Vietnam - so we chickened out of the harder bits. The trek up stream to see the glowworm cave was well worth it; after lying down on a sandy bank we all turned out our lights. Straight away you could see glow worms all over the roof, but after five minutes of acclimatisation you could see millions of the buggers - absolutely amazing.

But all of that was a bit of a sideshow, as finally we'd trekked far enough up stream to hit the inner tubes. With our lights off we cruised down stream, and then sped up through some really fast bits too. This was really increadible fun - and just a tiny bit scary at the same time - we were so far underground, with all that rock around and the fast flowing river, it was all pretty exciting stuff.

The trek back upstream was a killer however - lugging the tubes back through the faster bits was a real mission. We were all quite relieved to make it back to the starting cave, but then we had to face the 20 metre climb to get out! The wall was very simple compared to the stuff we'd done in Ko Phi Phi, but its still pretty hard work climbing on wet rock in wellington boots. Everyone made it up, and for the second time that week we were knackered and desparately in need of a hot shower.

The relentless pace of drive-sightsee-drive was starting to take its toll by this stage, but we only had one more destination on the north island before we reached Auckland - possibly the worlds smelliest city, Rotorua.

Built around an area of huge geothermal activity, the entire place stinks of eggy sulphur joy, all day and all night. You can't escape the smell, it follows you everywhere and tries to overwhelm you when you least expect it. You wake up in the middle of the night thinking something has gone seriously wrong with your digestive system, but then you remember where you were and go back to sleep against.

Ok enough about the smell... against all odds Rotorua is a major tourist destination, with lots of thermal spa style pampering options, and some quite famous geysers and mud pools to take a look at. After our knackering few days, first stop was clearly going to be the spa :



Now I'll be honest and admit that sitting in a boiling hot pool of stinking water isn't one of my top ten ways to unwind, but Alex really enjoyed it. The views across the (stinking, sulphurous) lake were pretty good though.

The next day we were up early to visit the impressively titled "Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland". It was a bit of strange one as the place was open all day, but everyone going there rushes in at 10:30 on the dot, as this is when they 'induce' their main attraction, the Lady Knox geyser.



Its all very impressive but with quite a bit of smoke and mirrors - the chap pops by and drops 300 grams of soap powder into the top of it to make it go. Otherwise it erupts on its own every couple of days, but by the sound of things they've been rudely awaking it every day now for the last eighty years or so.

After a few minute of watching it go, the assembled masses pile back to the main park to walk around the remarkable assortment of craters, cauldrons and other crazy geothermal sites.



Having been a little baffled by Rotorua's appeal so far, we were really taken aback by amazing sights in Wai-O-Tapu. Its completely unique in terms of things we've seen so far on the trip, the colours (yeah, smells too) and bizarre formations caused by the geothermal activity have to been seen to be believed. They have built a really nice walking path through the different parts, and the whole experience was really great.



It took a few hours to walk around the full site, which left us with a few hours to kill in the afternoon, so we headed up in another gondala (the twin to the one in Queenstown it turns out) to take in the views over the town and the lake.



Being identical in every way to the one in Queenstown, there was also a luge track, so we couldn't resist hurtling down the side of the hill a few times... great fun and great views at the same time, all great fun.

That was it for Rotorua, and pretty much it for New Zealand. The next day we did the final leg of the drive, dropping the car off in Auckland and settling in for a quiet 24-hour flying visit. We took in most of the city but didn't really get up to much, I think we'd been put off doing anything by everyone saying it was a bit rubbish! To be honest we were totally shattered by this point and enjoyed a bit of a rest for a day.

So another country down, and only two more to go - we headed off to Auckland airport the next day a little reluctant to leave New Zealand, but also quite content that we'd packed in so many amazing days as we travelled across the islands. It was a great balance of scenery, chilled out people, great drives and lots of adventure - we can't recommend it enough.

So next stop America... our flight took us from Auckland to Los Angeles direct, and managed to land before it took off, thanks to the wonderful magic of crossing the international date line. It was the start of a strange few days that's for sure, but that story will have to wait for our next update =)