Around the world in 300 days

We were feeling a little sorry for ourselves and decided we need a little tlc - off to the Chateau it was! This place was niiiice and as it was raining heavily we spent the first day playing snooker on a full sized table before filling ourselves with a 3 course meal!

The following day brought more heavy rain so we decided to head down to an indoor climbing wall. We spent half the time laughing as Nic would end up half way in the air when trying to anchor David. We also took a quick drive further up Mount Ruapehu to find a snow blizzard - ah well, we would have to spend the evening playing more snooker!

We awoke to silence - the rain had stopped........it was now snowing!

This place was 1250m up and at the base of an active volcano!

We left sunny but chilly Wellington after a stroll up Mount Victoria.

View of Wellington from the summit of Mount Victoria

Early morning stroll....

and drove up to New Plymouth, home to Mount Taranaki. We arrived just in time to see the sun set behind the Mountain.

We decided not to go mad taking photos as there would be plenty of oppportunity the following day. Oh! But there wasn't! We had rain for the rest of our time here which meant no walking, no sightseeing and absolutely no more views of the magnificent snow capped volcano!

On our way to Wellington we stoped the night at a farmstay. It was a 600 acre bit of land with rolling hills as a back drop - we could have been in derbyshire. After checking out the sheep shearing shed and a walk down to the 70 acre (!) lake, we cruised down the empty back roads visting the longest place name in the world and eventually made it to just north of Wellington. We stayed at a beautiful hostel overlooking the sea, caught the sunset and a glimpse over cook strait of the south island's northern tip.

Beat that Wales!

Baaa..

The next day we were greated in Wellington by John and Laura. They made us feel very welcome and in our new home away from home we enjoyed a long weekend of food, drink and laughter. Let the pictures speak for themselves...

Getting into the swing!

Maybe a few too many!?

Laura playing the flute

John and his love for women's fashion accessories!!

The beehive down-town.

We wondered back up to the north coast with the intention to getting over to White Island, NZ's most active volcano, but unfortunatley the weather was yet agan against us and no boats were venturing out to sea. We decided to hop, skip and jump through the mountains to Gisbourne before heading down the east coast admiring the black sandy beaches and the pounding waves of the Pacific ocean. We eventually arrived in Napier which had been devastated by an earthquake in the 1930s. The town was rebuit reflecting the era - Art Deco style. Despite not having the best weather it was still a great town to wander around and admire the architecture.

A climb up one of the hills in the town

We also wanted to try some paragliding, but again, winter is setting in and the warm drafts needed were simply not there. Still, we wanted a climb so headed to the spot where we would have done it (Te Mata) and admired the views across one of the main wine growing regions of NZ.

Te Mata

We stayed here for a couple of days in the hope of doing a sky dive - it wasn't to be this time round but we'll hopefully still get one in, weather permitting! So, in the drizzling rain we went off exploring. We visited Taupo's rapids and experienced the volcano centre which was a little dated. The highlight's had to be the prawn farm. We can now officially claim to have eaten at the worlds only Geothermically heated freshwater prawn farm. The prawns were delicious and we quickly forgot we were meant to be jumping out of a plane.

Yum yum yummy

We also took a drive and caught a glimpse of Mount Ruapehu but we'll be visiting this place again very soon...

Well be seeing this volcano again - hopefully a lot closer