Boulcott Suites Wellington

... It begins on the eve of Sunday, November 8, the day we arrived in Auckland from Fiji, excited and optimistic about the beginning of the second leg of our epic adventure. We had just booked the Kiwi Experience tour bus, ran into some friends we met in Fiji and joyously embarked on the twenty second walk from the hostel to the ATM machine next door. I think you can see where this is going - I lost my debit card. In the ATM machine. The ATM machine ate my ...

... eh? But we found it with only one slight missed turn when in true Kiwi fashion they decided to place a single signpost at the last possible minute on a four-lane road junction.

The hotel is stacked up on one of the hills overlooking the harbour. To reach our room we have to ride the lift to the 7th floor, then cross the restaurant lobby and take a different lift up another two floors. The car, luckily, is valet parked behind the hotel somewhere on the 7th. I'll let them fetch ...

... city?? Hikesd up mt victoria and got a decent grey view of windy welly. Looked for a LOTR set, but dont know if I found it. Talked with some younger kiwiw kids before watching sweeny todd. Had some McD's before watching "once were warriors" a very violent movie about poor moari's in auckland.

More than three weeks already since my last update, where does the time go? Well am I glad I left those shells and bits of coral back in Fiji. The bio hazard controls at Auckland airport are unbelievably rigorous; some folks even had their shoes taken away to have soil samples tested. I picked up the campervan just in time to hit the Auckland rush hour and in pouring rain so that was a bit stressful and the fact that the rain battered down all night did not get things off to ...

... It is out of control. Then that same bar / restaurant had a live band that was pretty good and we danced for a long time. I talked to this one boy from Wellington who  told us about some good local spots to go. But it was time to go home at like 2.             Today we woke up really early to have breakfast and orientation stuff. Then it was just killing time until our flight to Auckland. Finally we arrived in Auckland around 430 or so. So by only looking ...

... the following day. Must add, one of the reasons The Villa was so nice, was at 8pm the staff came round calling everybody into the lounge as there was free homemade apple crumble and icecream, which we thought was and excellent idea;-} So, up very early Tuesday, got picked up by Greg to commence the main physical activity we had planned here in NZ, The Queen Charlotte Track; a 71km long walk over 4 days. Mored on that and our very sore legs in next blog.... XX L&M

... now that I think about it but I wasn't thinking at the time. So we had to go back to the house and get appropriate gear but we did eventually make it kayaking.  The wind was still blowing today but apparently not enough to keep us off the water.  It was a great work out.  There was only one incident that we decided to blame on Helen.  She suggested that we go along the beach.  Well we got caught in ...

... on the beach to entertain us. After watching these penguins for awhile, we walked back up to the cliffs and decided to walk along the fence line for a bit. The fence was there to prevent humans from going onto the penguins land. But it did not prevent the many rabbits and the feral cat we saw that unfortunately was probably eating the young and weak birds. Along the fence line we soon saw 4 penguins, 2 young ones and 2 older ones. There ...

... more nights because I'm gonna visit a friend that I don't know yet - just by Facebook, because it's a friend of a friend in Munich. Let's see if she's worth it that I stay several nights there and that I have this fix date which I couldn't change because she took some days off just because I'm coming... I don't know... I don't have a good feeling... (And I really hated the situation some days ago when I wanted to stay longer at Queenstown for example, but were not able to...)

Got to visit Mike for almost 2 weeks. It was absolutely amazing.
Went to Te Papa
Mike met me at the airport with a jade necklace and a paper describing a special bottle of wine he got for us. Also, a really cute card. We were very happy to see each other.
Rented a car and drove on the wrong side of the road, until we got to the beach area with all the sea lions.
Stayed at La Dee Dah Bed and Breakfast- gorgeous! Were ...