Leaving New Zealand

Almost left New Zealand without eating a Kiwi!

Almost.

On way back from the caves decided to back track and camp in a forest in the middle of no were, someone actually said "How the hell did you find this place", well driving down gravel road for an hour and a half in the middle of the night will bring you many strange places.

the full story will remain sealed like the Lost Ark until we are back in Ireland but sufficed to say we drove down a gravel road for an hour and a half trying to find a government camp site only to find it full of hunters......with guns......"go find out if they are friendly Rob"............"Don't want to"...."Do it you ASSHOLE, we need to find out where the water is!"...........crunch...crunch....crunch..."Hello mister hunter sir....", "my what big guns you have"....."do you know where stream for drinking water is?".................... queue gravelly voice "Yeah I'll bring you get on the back of my quad"....."Oh no that's fine, just point me in the right direction and I'll find it, I'm good at finding things"..."NO, get on my quad, I'll BRING YOU!"..."OoooooK"...(shouted)"I'M GOING TO THE RIVER WITH THIS HUNTER!"..(wispered)"I will always love you..."
So jumped on this plaid shirt wearin, animal hunting, gun wielding maniac's quad and head off into the dark...
Turns out he is a stand up chap, helpful as anything, infact he gave us a bag of firewood just cause he was nice, but strangely I came back from the trip with pants that were soaking wet, some say I pissed myself good and proper from fear, some say I was so nervous filling our water bottles from the stream that I soaked myself...you will never know the truth.
Moral of the story......hunters aren't all rapists and serial killers.

Cailín made good use the firewood toasting her first marshmallow on a really fire.


Way back was littered with New Zealand traffic.

Waitomo Caves

Went to see Glow worms in a cave. you float through on a rubber ring. Its lovely but they don't let you bring a camera so here are some photo's of us in wetsuits.

Laugh away.

Tongariro

Went to the beautiful Tongariro National Park

We Camped the first night as we got there late.
I ate the food supplies while Cailín was off at the toilet.
Again she was off with a shee wee (Lady piss funnel) "Its literally revolutionised my life."


The main attraction of Tongariro National Park......

Mount Fucking Doom!!!!!!!

Makes me pee a little just looking at it.


In other Lord of the Rings related news all of New Zealand looks like the fecking "Shire"
I haven't even done anything with colour filters, its all natural baby.

Went to see a lovely waterfall kind of by accident.



I promptly conquered it with my manliness.


On a side note on the way to the waterfall we hit a really big fly, its guts exploded out of its ass which stuck it to the windscreen with snot like adhesion.
Cailín helpfully documented its progression up our windscreen in a series of photos, only some of which can be shown here.

Stayed in some place on the way back up the north island all I remember is that the owner of the campsite had an article about how it was the cheapest place to live on the north island,if this place is anything to go by there is a very good reason for this.


when we checked in at 10:00pm the owner came out in his pyjamas and proceeded to give me a 20 minute lecture on this nameless place during which he recommended a tour where you follow the postman on his rounds and invite me to make breakfast in his house even though he wouldn't be in "sure just follow the crowd everyone one else will be coming in" everyone else we found out the next day were the homeless community of the cheapest place in New Zealand. In his "helpful" homemade tourist pamphlet he recommended having the hospital canteen! as a great place to eat, "Roasts are just $4.50!".

Also when checking in Pyjama man gave me the keys to my caravan, now having a campervan I was confused, "Oh thats just for you, you can do whatever you want in there, sleep, watch t.v., make food.", ok that settled it I was no way going near that place, it obviously had hidden cameras and he was going to come in and smell my hair when I was asleep.
Cailín on the other hand has no fear so snook in and took photos.



those black dots on the wall are ants and that toaster is a hidden camera (I'm sure), God knows what was in those cupboards, probably human heads or a hair collection.




Where the magic happens, the magazines on the bed are from the 80's

Look how HAPPY this place made us!


He gave us a map of the place on which was marked "Honeymoon suite".
This merited investigation, we drove by this place three times saying "it can't be THAT"
BEHOLD!!


Ah yeah!! who wouldn't spend their honeymoon here, your week holiday, the most romantic week of your life, your matrimonial bed covered in magazines from the 80's.........


Cailín putting on a very very brave face.

This one isn't going in the modelling portfolio.

Back to North Island

Went back to North island on the Ferry, Went to the Wellington museum again so I could drool on cars. Cailín shopped....would you expect anything else.

Went wine tasting in Marlbourgh.
Went to one of Cailín's favourite wine places, Cloudy Bay.

It costs about a million euro's for a bottle/bag of wine.

Went to lots of other vineyards but you don't want to hear about that do you.


They brought us to a chocolate place too where they gave us a free sample which was lovely, so lovely Cailín decided to convinced the oddball of the tour group (she had to have a seat just for her coat) to ask for more freebies, there was an embarrassing refusal and another 100hours counciling for Missus Weirdo.


New Zealand campsites are expensive, so when we saw this sign in a carpark in the centre of town we immediately began to camp.
it was very quiet and literally in the middle of main street so very central , all in all one of the best campsites we had been to.


Gratuitous modelling shot.