Confessions of a Wimp

I like New Zealand for all the wrong reasons. The climate is temperate, everyone speaks English, it's clean, you can get breakfast all day - they even drive on the left. In short, it's civilised. Oh, and no mosquitos. But after luxuriating in the comfort for a few days you start to notice that the scenery isn't quite up to scratch - it's only good, not stunning - I guess we've been spoilt.

We've been driving round the north island for nearly two weeks now and have accumulated the expected vast number of photos here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

In the last few days our luck with the weather has (temporarily) run out. Here's what we saw instead of Mt Taranaki...

A Murren moment

What we were hoping for...

On the good side, the fact that it was pissing down with rain didn't spoil the glowworm cave trip one little bit!

Ok, that was cheating - they did look like that - but the best my camera did was...

And if it's not the weather it's the bloody volcanoes... Tongariro crossing was partially closed because of an uppity volcano. The backup plan - involving a chair lift up Mt Ruapehu - was scuppered by high winds closing said chair lift! Oh well, I suppose I could write a blog post...

Tahiti

I have to report that paradise is hot, wet and very expensive. Also the mosquitos are disgracefully malnourished. Monic and I have been doing what we can but we're running out of blood.

Sunsets are generally low on the fistral scale, but a couple weren't bad...

Photos are here and here. Fewer than normal, as a lot of the best views are underwater. Also viewers are warned that there are some disturbing images (Si without beard, Si in singlet, Si semi-naked) which may offend the more sensitive among you.