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Hi all,
This blog should be coming from Fiji, but mother nature sent them a tropical cyclone to deal with and with flights being cancelled and floods destroying villages we decided they had bigger things to do than look after tourists! So we had an extra 10 days in New Zealand, not a bad place to be stuck in if you ask me.
We booked accomodation for a week in Auckland, origianally supposed to be 2 days, so we now had plenty of time to see the city. Auckland is one of the most urban part of New Zealand, a completly different world to the south island. Quite a modern city on a harbour, with some beautiful parks thoughout. We did a coast to coast walk to get our bearings in the city, which took us through the parks from one side of the city to the other. We got some great views from "One tree hill" of the city, including the Sky tower which looks like a giant surgical needle pointing to the sky. As we are a on bit of a budget, we were looking for things to do and came across a comedy club which had a new comedians night. Should be good we thought, its started out well, the host was pretty funny with a very down to earth, dry New Zealand wit. But when the acts came on, jeez, its was mixture of crazy mauris who were either gay or plain crazy, a musical trio who were awful and a woman getting to much pleasure talking about cigerettes. We laughed, a bit, but mainly at them.
As we now had more time in Auckland we met up with some extended family, Bex´s brother-in-laws, brother Phil, his wife Lyndsey and their 2 year old daughter Esme. We had a trip to zoo with Lyndsey and Esme, which was great fun. Much better zoo than Singapore, bigger enclosures and better maintained. I think we had as much fun as Esme, even though we struggled to keep up with her in the Meerkat tunnels! Not made for adults. The next day Phil and Lyndsey took us north of Auckland to a popular farmers market. very popular but it was easter weekend. We continued to be impressed with New Zealands pies and coffee! After lunch and a trip to a Honey cafe we were treated to a home cooked meal, which was very welcome and set us up for the next part of our adventure where we returned to campervaning for 4 days. As much as we enjoyed Auckland we wanted to take the opportunity of the extra time we had and explore the Northland. Luckerly for us Wildnerness campervans offered us the same type of campervan for much less than we paid before so we took it. We hd our fingers crossed it would be Nessie again but we had seen her on the road the day before it wasn´t to be, so instead we had Wilf. Same same but different.
Our first stop was about an hour north of Auckland on the east coast. Wenderholm was one of the best campsites we have been to, plenty of space, trees and right next to a glorious beach. Even more special at night, the sky was clear and the moon seemed to be closer than ever, I know, hopeless romantic. DOC campsites where less frequent so we had abit of a drive the next day, but did stop off for the best blueberry muffin ever! We had pretty much spent our budget on the campervan so we were slightly limited as to doing any activities. We just enjoyed the freedom of having the van again. We were lucky again with another fabulous campsite, on a beach again, in Otamure. It would have been good to have spent abit more time exploring the Northland, especially in the Bay of islands.
On our final night we went to an ethnic restaurant to celebrate having such a good time in New Zealand. Nomad, was a small restaurant wih only 8 tables and the food was fantastic. We started with some ground beef cigars in filo pastry which we could of ate all night! Not that we were disapointed with the mains, my chicken kebabs where the best ive had while Bex had a lamb tagine to match her own.
New Zealand has been one of the greatest months of my life, even though I turned 30. From the most stunning scenery to the clearest waters I've ever seen to swimming with dolphins and jumping out of aeoplanes, its been a great adventure. South America next, Santiago in Chile. So far we have been lucky with speaking english, now things get tougher!
Chris
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