Kiwi Land

We’ve now been in New Zealand’s North Island for one week and we are loving it.

New Zealand is treating us very well, we seem to be going at a slower pace and with much nicer roads we are seeing more when we are driving rather than the highroads in Oz. The only downers are the number of flies and they don’t get ‘Gluten Free’ the same way as Oz did so I won’t be eating as exotically over the next few weeks.

We had a fabulous day in Auckland shopping in the day time and then had a big night out in the evening, exploring Ponsenby’s nightlife offerings-fyi, very very good! I sampled a multitude of NZ wines and got Ed on the case soon after. Ooh and some very yummy tapas.
With sore heads the following day we grabbed brekkie on the harbour and went off to pick up camper number two. A short drive took us to Waipu Cove for the first night. It was fun to have a night out on the town and live the city life again but it was lovely to be back in our little bubble again, cooking whatever we wanted and moving whenever we wanted.

The next couple of days we drove up around the very north of North Island, stopping in at the house where the treaty was signed in 1840 between the Maoris and the British before doing some AMAZING sandboarding courtesy of Jess and Ben Slater and Wedding Gift number 9!
Somewhat coincidently (?) we ended up in a town on a Saturday night that had a local Rugby team playing so we caught the Chiefs play against the Melbourne Rebels and win a very decent 33-10. It was a good laugh and I was chuffed to see the Haka but it rained the entire time and so it was a very very wet evening!

Currently we are camping in the best campsite we’ve stayed on at the top of a hill overlooking a beautiful beach, there are cows right outside the back of the camper and those without vans get to stay in renovated train carriages, very cool indeed. Hopefully we’ll get up in time tomorrow for some surfing before heading down the road to check out the local cave full of glow worms......

We are finally in New Zealand

Sandboarding, awesome videos to come.....

A rather rainy rugby game

Waves were too choppy for a surf so we just messed about instead!

'Tropical' Queensland

Queensland passed by in a week or so of rain and exotic daytrips. We squeezed in some surfing and beach spotting along the way too.

Fraser Island (Wedding gift no. 6) was great fun, Ed enjoyed racing around on the sand and the interior of the island in a huge 4 wheel drive. Next up was the gorgeous Whitsundays trip which unfortunately most of the images from that trip are on cameras we cant hook up to the computer. But suffice to say the sand was brilliant white and the sea beautiful shades of blue. Massive thanks to brother Nick and Godfather Ian Morrison for the very generous wedding gift (No.7)

We then headed up to Cairns for Wedding Gift No. 8, thanks to Lindsay and David, Toby, Ginia and the boys, Rowie and the Bridesmaids, - Barrier Reef trip. The journey to Cairns (7+hours drive) was mostly a wet one, with nearly constant rain and this pretty much was our weather for the following 5 days.
We saw some of the affects of the Cyclone, mostly trees and forests flattened but there was one village we passed where houses had been particularly wrecked by Yasi it was pretty heart breaking but amazing that no one got hurt from it.

Rainy season in Northern Tropical Queensland is really bloody wet! We took ourselves off to the cinema one day just to escape the noise of the rain on the camper roof!
We nearly didn’t do the reef what with the weather being so awful and for fear of bad ferry trips but we are so glad we did, it was the most amazing snorkelling we have both seen from the gazillion fish we saw to the amazing corals-absolutely fantastic and one of the best things I have ever done.

Next stop is New Zealand, starting with Auckland before heading up to the Bay of Islands...
We are excited to visit a new country.

Probably Ed's highight- a visit to the Bundaberg Rum Factory, needless to say I drove for the rest of the afternoon!

Fraser Island


Yey, some awesome fishes!