"It's this whole other country" -- Forrest Gump When JRR Tolkien wrote the words "White shores, and beyond... A far green country, under a swift sunrise", he was referring to the Grey Havens, the place the elves were heading to when they sacked off Middle Earth. But isn't it also possible he was referring to New Zealand? No. No it isn't. He was ...

Waking up in Pukekohe wasn´t as bad the 2nd time but the traffic coming into Auckland is horrendous and scuppers our plans of dropping the car off on time arriving one hour late. They´re not bothered, in fact they look like they weren´t even expecting us. We have some time to kill so i have a coffee to stop the shakes i´ve got from the previous ...

We leave San Francisco International at 10pm on Friday, March 21st.  We fly all day Saturday, cross the international date line and lose a whole day.  We land Easter Sunday in Sydney Australia for a 3 hour layover, then on to Auckland.

Hi All Well its Tuesday morning now and I have enjoying this laid back city, my first impressions are how clean it is - especially compared to our wonderful London!  There's not much traffic around either. The weather is glorious - 25 degrees and just a few clouds - plenty of suntan lotion has to be worn, as the burn time here is just 10 mi...

Just stayed the night in Auckland at Base Backpackers where I was able to do my washing and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow it's off to see Dave Glynn and family for four days in Rotorua. 

Pre-Christmas Christmas Eve was a Sunday, so I started out doing my usual Sunday thing of not much at all. The previous night me and Sandra had been to Boogie Wonderland, an awesome 70's club with a real seventies light up dance floor. I've always wanted to dance on one of those dance floors, so it was a dream come true! And in Auckland, of...

I was dreading today, I feel like it's the end of our holiday now we've got to drive back to Auckland and sort the car out. Boo hiss! We basically had time to get up, have breakfast and get packed before getting on the road back to Auckland. It was a gorgeous morning so we decided to get breakfast at the Beach House and treat ourselves. As much ...

Well I've finally gone and done it, jumped out of a plane at 13000 feet to be exact. So those amongst you who thought I was hiding behind weak excuses last time can now eat humble pie. Auckland had been miserable for the first two days we had been here and the cowardly side of me was quite happy with that, no sun equalled no jump. On the other h...

Tuesday morning I woke up early to a lovely clear day and made my noodles for breakfast. I had no plans, so first stop was to check out of the hostel and ask them what to do. Well, out of the tourist book, which included the requisite bungy jumping, sky diving and abseiling, the most exciting for me was sailing on the Barbary to see Maori carvin...

I was only in Auckland for a few hours, just long enough to catch my plane to Fiji. I didn't really set aside any time to sightsee around here. I was aleady here four years ago and didn't wasn't really all that interested in wandering around. Otherwise, it's off to Fiji I go!!