Whales, farmers and tramps

OK, so we had a great time whale watching in kaikora seeing a massive sperm whale and hundreds of dolphins jumping all around the boat. After one more night on the farm with Jim and Mary we headed into Blenhiem and the Malborough wine region.

I drove around allowing the others to taste a few wines, it was quite fun but we all felt a bit out of place in our flip-flops and shorts. We then headed up to Picton and had a little drive around some of the fiords. We then got some dinner and sat in the car for ages waiting for our ferryat 10.30pm!

On the ferry we watched slum dog millionaire which was a really good film, and a good way to spend the 3 hour crossing. Once in wellington we quickly found our hostel.

In the morning we went into town and to the Te Papa museum which is the national museum of new zealand. They had lots of interesting exhibits about volcanoes and earthquakes and stuff.

In the afternoon we headed up north to the Tongoriro national park. There were cool views of the volcano mount Raphaneu. In the morning we woke early for our walk along the tongoriro crossing. It was a bit cloudy as we walked up he slopes, and quite steep but once we reached the saddle between two of the volcanoes it was very wet and windy. We started to try and walk up to mount doom crater but we couldn't see 100m in frnt of s so turned. We then walked across lunar landscaped, rocky mountains, craters, blue volcanic lakes. It was soo windy and by this time we were very wet and cold. We kept going not being able to see any of the nice views until we got into the rain forest. Once we reached the bus pick up point, 6 hours after we started, we were very relieved.

Once back at the hostel relaxed in to secret Narnia cinema and watched loads of films. basically there was a cupboard in the games room, you walk through it past a picture of aslan into this cinema room! amazing!

The next day we headed to Taupo and rotarua, stopping off to see waterfalls and a dam release all its water on the Waikato river.

This morning we looked around the free geothermal park and the boiling mud pools and lakes and then headed to Taurunga. Tom and I went for a walk up hill with amazing views from the top.

Tomorrow we are possibly going to hot water beach and then to Dave dbs aunties house near hamilton.

Hope your all well.


Josh