Life Is Sweet

Hi all. We are now in a place called Lower Hutt which is about 20k outside of Wellington, the Capital City. We have worked our way down through Rotorua, Taupo Lake, Napier, Upper Hutt. The drives have been spectacular with some stunning scenery. The weather has also been quite kind, although it did pi$$ down all day yesterday. We get the ferry to the South Island on Monday morning at 8.30.

On Thursday while you were all sleeping we took a wine tour in the Hawkes Bay region, which is famous for all it's wineries. We were picked up by a Kiwi called Vince (aka Vunce!) who was a bit of a character, he then taxied us to 5 different wineries while we got pleasantly intoxicated. Not bad for an afternoons work. The tour was really interesting, especially if you like fine wines. They explain the different varieties of grape, the growing conditions that are required, and what wines are suited to particular dishes. I say the tour was interesting, it was until the 3rd winery, at which point I was so drunk I couldn't take in half of what they were telling us. It was a really fun day though and we came back with 4 cracking bottles to enjoy on our travels!!

We are just about to head off into Wellington, it is only a small place for a Capital City, and Auckland is reported to be a much bigger place.

New Zealand is so laid back and sparsely populated it is difficult to get stressed about anything. There is no rush hour traffic to speak of, and the towns and cities are deserted in comparison to back home (and Sth America) Every day is like a Sunday. There appear to be far too many shops and restaurants for the amount of people that live here. The South Island is even more sparsely populated, with about a million of the whole 4 million NZ population living there.

We have just booked our Camper for Oz, we have had to downsize from the luxury we are enjoying at the moment, for two reasons really. One is that it is high season when we get there in Oct (26th) whereas here in NZ at the moment it is low season so we got more for our money, and also due to the amount of mileage we will be covering in Oz, we needed something smaller and more economical on the roads. We have got a 3 berth Backpacker Camper, with it's own kitchen and microwave etc, only thing were missing is a toilet and lots of space. The beauty of being in Oz though is that the weather will be hot most of the time. It will be easier for Matt too as the camper we have at the moment is like driving a small house. To be honest I bet there are some City dwellers in London that don't have as much room as we have in this camper!! I'm going to arrange to have my drivers licence posted out too so that I will be able to share some of the driving, I can't imagine that being much fun though as Matt doesn't make a very good passenger!

Every time we hit the road, we have to go through a check off list before we set off. It's called Cabin Crew prepare for take off!! We have to check all the overhead lockers are closed and that all bags are firmly positioned under your seats and that were all wearing seat belts!! Good thing is though unlike flying we don't get any turbulence ;-)

Have a nice weekend all!