Abaco On Jervois Auckland

... with the needle initially indicates 100% and then after a while shows a true reading. So I was in 2 minds whether or not and try save a few dollars and just guestimate but I didn't and filled the beast up. Drove to the garage where we picked it up and we were meet with 2 blokes who gave it the lamest look over and said yeah no problems. We were a bit worried that someone had put an extra dent in the drivers door but it was kind of hidden by the rest. He said ...

... the airport bus into town and then managed to get the link bus to Ponsonby and found Anna and Paul's.

We went up the sky tower and ate at the restaurant called Orbit which had amazing views and the best steak i think ive ever had!! Yum! Although cheaper than UK - so much more expensive than Asia!

Connie's (one of my students/friends) friends and family over here are lovely and being really ...

... LA so now there would be new lot of people who would be staring down the barrel of missing their connecting flights in LA.

Dinner was a delicious venison pie. Could have had two. The captain let us know that the weather in Raro wasn’t that flash and he was right. Luckily we were in the converted shipping container that was the entry to the arrivals hall when the heavens opened again.

I forgot to ...

... with Maureen, Emily and Issy with Maureen's friends in Titirangi, which was fantastic, as it gave us a chance to start getting things sorted.

We headed for the bank to sort out accounts, to buy a mobile phone as our UK ones will cease to work from next week and to sort out basic paperwork for Jeff's job. We also ended up doing the mundane jobs like emptying rucksacks and ...

I'm here! I’m really here at my friends Andrea and Bret’s house. It is SO good to see them. 18 months ago I said I’d come and visit them when they were settled in New Zealand and I have kept my word.

We had a load of rain last night but I finally worked out if I stuffed a tea towel up under the window catch things on the back door I don’t get dripped on in the night. It’s only taken me 4 nights to figure this out! I got ...

... that they wouldn't actually kill each other for the last discount eyeliner or use a gun to secure a particular shade of lip gloss, at least not quite.

I wise young women (not all wise people are old, wisdom isn't as easy to obtain as simply being a matter of time). Anyway there once was a wise young women who you said

"The minute you change, even briefly, they win, you want to be one up, be exactly the same if they call you stupid or say they like your earrings ...

Yes -this is it -the final entry of our amazing trip. I actually feel quite sad that we have come to the end, but I set myself a goal, and that was to have my photos sorted, named and dated -and the Travel Blog finished before Marion arrives tomorrow, and that has happened. I want to make Marion and myself a disk with the photos from my camera, so needed to have `order'- I am also going to make myself a scrapbook/journal - we kept a diary every day, so I have lots of ...

Sorry I have taken so long to write the next section- we've been quite busy! We are nearly at the end of the first term (10 weeks long!) and a quarter of the way through the trip which is quite scary. School is going very well. The teaching is quite different- no where near as many subjects to cram into a timetable and much more freedom to explore topics in a way you want. There is greater emphasis put on reading over here and less on writing and both reading and maths are taught in ...

... today, self-golden showers were expected for the unwary. I staggered into Seddon, got some supplies from the shop, and headed to the campground. There was Jackson just rolling into town about 20mins behind me. He'd left 1.5 - 2 hrs after me this morning so had closed the gap. He's definatley a speedster this guy, shaming my somewhat 'amature' speeds. He got a text from his mum stating that there were gale-force wind warnings for Marlborough & the Cook Straight today. That ...

... seventeen hobbit hole facades. We decided, however, not to take a tour of the place because the guidebook states that "the set retains little of the pastoral English feel created for the film". In Whitianga we treated ourselves to a campsite with all the mod-cons. The following day we walked for 40 mins along a hilly coastal track to Cathedral Cove - a long and sheltered sandy beach. We ...