The Happy Campers

Our beach holiday continued in fine form. We went for a walk along some great coast, popping down to different bays. At one, called Stingray Bay, an Irish woman and her bloke lent us their snorkelling gear... yes, there were stingrays in the sea. In shallow water. Note for the worriers amongst you (you know who you are) our wild life policy is very much observe and leave alone, not "Let's see what it does when it's angry". This is why there was never any danger of us doing an Irwin.

From there, we headed to Hot Water Beach. Guess what was there? The Kiwis have a very simple approach to naming places. it's the Maori name or the bloody obvious.

So, we got to Hot Water Beach, cadged a spade off an English couple (it may sound like we are pikeying our way round this country - that's cos we are), and dug our own pit on the beach. When the tide is out, you can dig down to the hot springs that come up, and make your own pool of hot water. In some cases, boiling hot water. Too hot to sit in. Anyway, we joined up with the other couple and through a combination of brute strength and engineering expertise made the finest hot pool on the beach... and sat in it for 2 hours, going pruny, 'til the tide came in and bathed us in cold water and destroyed our pool.

Martin then leapt into the sea and... almost trod on another stingray!!

From there, we thought we'd save our pennies (NZ is proving pricey for us and really screwing our budget up) and camp in a free campsite. Water from a stream, compost toilet provided.

Martin decided to make his own entertainment and go for a run along one of the trekking trails. Think undergrowth, muddy pools, sheer drops, steep hills... fantastic! He arrived back sweaty, muddy, scratched and quite happy.

The next day we did a more sedate walk through a gorge to some old gold mines. It was cool as there were old tunnels (all safe) to walk through and explore. Luckily we'd bought a torch. Whose battery was dying. Hmmm. it turns out that taking a tall blonde man into a tunnel and making him walk first is a great way of 1) finding all obstacles in advance and 2) blocking any possible light that might be up ahead.

Apparently Martin would prefer to have Kit with him in a survival situation as Kara's instinct in a tricky spot is to push him ahead of her. Kara thinks this shows an impeccable survivial instinct on her behalf.

we then decided to do the NZ classic one day trek, across the Tongariro Crossing. Think Mount Doom (LOTR reference for geeks). This goes past not one but two active volcanoes. The trek is busy with tourists and has some tough spots. At one point, Kara slipped while walking along an edge covered in ice, with a 20 foot drop below her. Luckily the sulphuric fumes from the volcano covered the ensuing "smell of fear".

It is a great trek (19.3km) and you see some awesome views. The volcanoes were covered in snow too, which was stunning. We got up to 1900 metres, which is pretty high!

We're now ambling our way down to Wellington quite slowly, stopping at view points and little towns like this, Feilding. Yes, it is spelt wrong. Although there is a sign in the tourist info that explains this is all fine and down to some illiterate general that the place is named after and they are very proud of it. So that's all good.