Matiatia Bay Waiheke Island

Man, this is the day I fell in love with New Zealand... After waking up to the sun at Bruce's place, he and I hung out a bit over some toast and chatted about life in NZ, Zimbabwe, and the States before he went off to work. It was his one-year anniversary with his girlfriend, and he was also telling me about their afternoon and evening plans. Af...

Arriving in New Zealand was a little bit of a shock to the system. Going from the beautiful clear blue 32 degrees sky of Hawaii to an early spring wet/windy 12 degrees with no proper shoes or coat. This was going to be a cold few weeks.



We spent the first few days in Auckland finding our feet. I managed to embarrass Steve as ...

Word up,

OK, so Cairns was an interesting place. We stayed at a place called Angie's Guesthouse, on Gemma and Tom's recommendation (cheers guys!). She is a Brummie expat and a bit eccentric, we saw her on our way out one morning to go down the market where she's a fortune teller! In fact she was very reminiscent of Marsha from Spaced. T...

We loved our 36 hours in Auckland. Stepping off the plane everything felt very familiar after the Cook Islands, very English. Our B&B was fabulous, we had a Queen size bed and virtually had to text each other when lying at opposite ends!

We did a walking tour of the city and discovered its many delights. We loved the Auckland Museum...

I finished up my stay in Auckland. My last Kiwi bus dropped us off at the base hostel. I've been sharing a room with Lou, Jen, Lucy, Paddy and Ben for the last few days. Paddy and Ben left after the first night here to go to Fiji. So there have been 4 of us left in Auckland. Without a car, there's not so much to do in Auckland. It's a sprawling ...

My last blog from NZ!!! I'm currently staying with a friend of Bob's just south of Auckland on the north island. I had a great time getting here and had mostly beautiful weather on the trip up the west coast. Upon leaving Wanaka we were able to stay at a friend of a friend's bach (small cabin) near the glaciers for 2 nights and enjoy the area ar...

We got up uncharacteristically early dis morning in order to get a full days worth of fun in on Waiheke island. We found it difficult to string sentences together at the start but after about an hour of mumblin and bumblin down da street we made it to the harbour viaduct. We caught da ferry across which took 35 mins or so, we managed not ta spew...

A bus, a ferry and, due to the friendly organising of the company who run both the ferries and the Waiheke buses, we were able to get straight off the ferry and onto a local bus. Mike, our Couch Surfing host, had told us to ask the bus driver for a particular stop, and, given the lack of obvious landmarks for us to look out for, to ask the drive...

As spring was springing, we decided on another yacht chartering adventure round the islands. Fourth Dimension was our vessel again, and Keith, Sara, Simon and Nick were crewing along with me, with Rick as skipper. We set off on Friday night and moored at Islington Bay, nestled between Rangitoto and Motahe. The evening was grey and the night fair...

Ik ben er nu echt. De andere kant van de wereld. En ik geloof het nog steeds niet. Iedereen is een internetcomputer ver weg. Of een Kia Orana telefoonkaart. Of een NZ Vodafone Simkaart. Ik kon haast niet wachten om SF achter me te laten en verder te gaan. Gisteravond wenste ik echt dat ik er gebleven was. De vlucht was goed, zeker voor eentje va...