Raceway Motel Auckland

... then headed back to the van? Located a camp site to stay overnight, but when we got there it was smack in the middle of a residential area, so we decided to try another. This took us onto the motorway at rush hour – What chaos!! The city might be nice but the road system is ****!!! Eventually got to our location after the sat nav took us around the houses, but again this was located in a really busy area!! Found another one which was situated in North Auckland, which took us ...

... night, most of which seemed to be spent flying over Australia. Wendy managed to sleep through at least half of it, which makes me very jealous indeed. I'm a bit disappointed 'cos we crossed the equator (a first for me) whilst all the lights were out and the aircraft 'asleep' and the only way I knew was by following the aircraft's track on the TV monitor. I Eventually we landed at Auckland and first impressions were how small it was compared to not just Hong Kong, but even puny ...

... no. And while I'm on the subject of things to say no to I might quickly mention an infestation we had in our group. Maybe not infestation... epidemic possibly. Maybe plague. I'll cut to the chase. Whilst not a physical invasion our group was audibly grabbed by Johnny Cash. And not in a good way. We were madly addicted to the song Ring Of Fire and played it full volume in the car at pretty much any opportunity. Johannis loved to do the trumpet part with an 'air trumpet' for ...

We landed in NZ at around 5AM (about 10AM the previous day for those of you at home!) The flight was much better than expected; between passing on eating the airplane dinner, choosing from almost any movie I could want to watch and getting about 6 hours of sleep on and off, we were landing in Auckland at a grand total of about 10,000km away from San Francisco. I'm currently at some internet ...

... tell us all about the area
where we are staying and what to do in New Zealand in general. He is
quite the historian and gives us a DVD to watch: the New Zealand Wars
and a book about driving around NZ. After long hot showers we head
off to a neighborhood pub where we share a pot of NZ mussels,
butternut soup, and beer while listening to 2
pianists play the hits as the patrons sang along.

... be coming back to New Zealand for a week at the end of my travels to spend more time with the family. I have enjoyed this experience thus far. Key word for the next trip to New Zealand (which I plan to go back to, Campervan). Yes, Campervan for like 5 weeks or so. That's the way to go, as I feel one can see more and get into more unique places that way. Overall, with a bus pass and hitching, I covered a lot of ground, and had a great time.

Auckland, North Island, New Zealand tstiles

... boat had found the dolphins so we were all looking out to sea trying to spot some to swim with. After about 20mins we saw some white splashing and headed in that direction. The sight when we arrived was truly awe inspiring... not 10s, not 100s but literally thousands of dusky dolphins and jumping and playing in the sea. We spent the next 2 hours or so jumping in and swimming with them. They would literally come right up to you and if you were quick enough you got eye ...

... know the type of thing, remember to swim if you fall in and karate kick your way out if the goes over etc, it was into the sea for 2 and half hours kayaking back to the start. A nice casual paddle we thought, mmm...turned out we were way off on that point. It all started well enough, Suzanna and I getting in time and cruising along listening to our guide and having our picture taken etc, but as we went along the wind continually got stronger and stronger, and into our faces, which was ...

... by Sweden standards :) After our swim, we took some photos of each other in the Cathedral Arch and then walked through the arch to the adjoining cove to check out a waterfall and some interesting rock formations there. When we returned, our guide had the coffee ready. We had coffee and biscuits (cookies). A word about Cathedral Cove. If these photos look familiar to you, it is not an accident. This beach has been the site of scenes from ...

... a l'OIT per agafar un xic d'informació. Sorprenentment la majoria de llocs estan oberts 24h, els llocs de canvi de moneda, l'OIT, algunes botigues i snacks-bars... així anem passant el temps fins que seran les 8am quan agafarem el transfer que ens durà a Exploremore.com.nz oficina que està prop de l'aeroport. Des d'allà agafarem la nostra "Queenie"- nom que rep la nostra mini-caravana i començarem el nostre viatge en aquest nou país ...