Things we have done and discovered

Stuff we have done

• stayed at a sucession of campsites with awesome locations.
• got up every day and swum in the sea
• sometimes ended the day by swimming in the sea
• enjoying the sun and the views and walks along great beaches
• Met a group of people in 5 wheelers. These are great big trailers that are the size of a small flat. We met 2 couples who are retired and spending it travelling NZ in these. We got invited in to one and had a cup of tea and biscuit and a chat. Very pleasant.
• doing a sea cliff trek in the blazing sun. Yow! That sun burn hurts!
• Reached the northern most point of New Zealand, by walking there from our campsite.
• Spent a long time in the Salmonavan (named by Simon), especially today...
• ... yes, there is a god and in return for us gloating about the nice weather we ended up spending 2 hours in the Auckland equivalent of Kingston Upon Thames / Croydon/ the hood driving round in that blazing sun, totally and utterly lost...
• ... fortunately team work is strong with Team Stanford and we finally reached the Coromandel Peninsula... lush green hills, sandy beaches... we swam the stress off with an evening dip in the sea followed by beer and a BBQ.

Boring stuff we have done

• Visited Pac n Save supermarket, twice. It's like ASDA but with nice fish.
• Driven. A lot.
• Laundry. Hand wash.
• Used toliets where you can put the paper down the loo. This is still a novelty after 3 months of not being able to do that in South America.
• Hot showers today that aren't from our little solar shower. This is a bag we fill with water each morning and put on the roof of our van while we go swimming. If we are lucky, the sun heats it up. We then hang it from a tree to get a shower.
• We're camped in a holiday park now so hot showers galore. But this costs money so soon we'll be back to DOC (Dept of Conservation) sites. Cheap. Self composting loos. Maybe drinking water. Maybe not. Great locations though.
• We had our first mince pies today. Weird. In 26 degree heat. WRONG!!

Stuff we have discovered

• Internet is blinkin expensive!! Sorry we've not replied to your emails but when we get somewhere cheaper we will. And we currently can't upload photos.
• Sleeping in the Salmonavan is surprisingly comfortable. Seriously, we're averaging 10 hours sleep a night and we think we might be inching towards 12. How did we ever go to work on a mere 7 hours a night, we wonder.
• NZ is truly beautiful. Volcanic hills covered in tropical forest, ferns, grass... black sandy beaches, white sandy beaches, clear blue water, lakes, sea... it has it all...
• ...but the road network around Auckland is like some Dante version of hell and makes the M25 look pleasant. At least we signpost things in the UK!
• ...Kara really does hate Auckland.
• Salmonavan can either overtake or have air conditioning, but not both. We are in the crawler lane. A lot. Lorries laden with goods overtake us.
• Kiwis (the people) are a pretty chilled out and friendly lot. They live in shorts. Even the roadworkers, office workers... everyone. In shorts.
• NZ is in for a long hot summer. Yay!!
• We are not getting used to Christmas in the sun.
• But they still have images of robins and snow out here. Odd!
• Apparently Xmas is divided into 2 schools out here - traditionalists who have a roast and the rest who have a BBQ.

Well, tomorrow we're going to get up and walk the 5 mins to the golden sandy beach and go for a swim before deciding whether we go for a coastal walk, do sea kayaking, snorkel or dive. To make you feel better, we are on a really tight budget out here so we will probably do the walk.