Touchwood Motor Lodge Pukekohe

Wow, I don't know where the time has gone! We have been in our house for over 5 weeks now. We were lucky to find a place near Clarks Beach, about 50 mins SW from Auckland. It has a really good feel and the beach is good for fishing and swimming. You can even go and find scallops apparently, but we have never got the tide times right!

Mark has been working on and off and was in Melbourne all of last week, which was a bit ...

Me and the parents arrived at Auckland airport very late Wednesday night/Thursday morning. We were here to visit my Aunt & Uncle for a few days. Having not seen them for 5 years it was quite an emotional reunion for my mam and her eldest brother. I only had 6 days to spend in the North Island before leaving the parents and moving off on my own for a while so that time was spent catching up with my relatives (cousins and their kids) and seeing the Franklin ...

So Ayal and I have just spent the last two weeks in New Zealand, experiencing the North Island. Everyone told us we were missing out by not going to the South Island, but in reality, we can't go everywhere. And we don't like to rush. The best part is, it gives me more to look forward to on my next trip here!

So. New Zealand is gorgeous. Like stunning. Like, creation of the world beautiful - with the continents drifting apart and ...

So here we are, in New Zealand - we meant to finish our blogs up from Turkey "when we got home" but obviously that never happened.

We landed yesterday after a short flight to LAX and a LONG layover in LA. The flight wasn't so bad, but skipping Tuesday entirely was a little confusing.

Our couchsurfing host had to work all day, so his (South African ex pat) dad hung out with us while we got some plans together for the ...

... time to get used to. It's pretty robust. Day 2 Very busy day. In the morning I was looking for about an hour for free parking in the city, which wasn't successful, so I parked a bit further and took a bus. Cities is not my priority here, so devoted to Auckland only one day. I looked at the marina, went to Auckland Domain encompassing Museum, which is quite interesting, especially the volcano ...

... is very high praise! Last on the itinerary was our main priority for the day - Hot Water Beach. Here at low tide there are patches where underground thermal activity heats the water below the surface to a really nice temperature -though in some patches it's totally cold, and in others it's actually boiling! The trick is to come along an hour either side of low tide, find a patch of sand that's warm (but not boiling) on your feet - then you hire a spade and dig out your ...

... the coach the other day. As we left the ship we were as usual accosted by all and sundry outside wanting to know what was happening and it was then we were informed that the ship was really big news now having been dubbed on national TV as the "Prison Ship". I'm not sure what you'd call the day but when you're on a run you keep on going, well that's what Linda said ...

... Hobbiton, i went into Bilbo Baggins little house After this we have been to the Bay of Plenty where we did a day cruise. We explored the beautiful islands and during the cruise had common dolphins coming up to the boat. We then went off to Tutukaka and the Goat Islands, where i did some scuba and snrokelling. It was awesome some some beautiful marine life in these marine reserves ...

... ive met on my travels, its me another english girl and 4 americans. The americans come up with a team name of the youngbloodz, theyve used it before, i dont argue. Bizarrely we end up winning the quiz with a score of 39/55. Helen(the english girl) and I work out that the americans managed 2 correct answers with the english contingent correctly answering the rest. Nevertheless the $NZ100 bar tab prize is shared between the 6 of us.

It took us no time at all to get back to Auckland. When we arrived we went straight to Chanelle's. Once we arrived and had chatted for a bit, the two of us took turns taking showers (we really needed it). Following getting ready we cleaned Madonna out and returned her to the rental company. By this time it was fairly late in the day and so it was pretty much time to go out for dinner. Kailey and I had decided to ...