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Greetings friends and family!
We have now landed safe and sound in Auckland, New Zealand! We got here on Tuesday at 4.00am, quite tired after missing the whole of June 1st whilst up in the air.
Mike nearly got us searched for drugs whilst at the airport which, on reflection, was quite funny! The lady at customs said: 'Have you taken any drugs' and he said no and then she said 'have you been offered any drugs' and he said no. Then she said 'so you weren't offered any drugs in Peru or Chile' and he said 'Yes!' Haha. It was a heart in mouth moment and I could here the sound of that rubber glove, but we both insisted we hadn't taken any and it was fine!
We are enjoying what we have seen of Auckland so far, despite the weather! (Lets not have any gloating comments on the message board about it being really hot in England thank you very much!). When we arrived it was four degrees and Mike has since invested in a coat. I lost my fleece in Santiago and have been wearing his hoody for a bit! Haha. It has been sunny on a few occasions but the coldness persists.
We managed to go on a free day trip around Auckland that included a walk on the Harbour Bridge, where we were clipped on to it so we didn't jump off! We then watched as two people hurled themselves towards the water on a bungee jump, which looked really good. But we didn't feel the bungee vibes this time. We have been discussing the possibility of a sky dive at some point though as that seems the done thing in NZ! (You can stop having kittens now mothers.)
We have sampled some local NZ beverages at the bar below our hostel on a few occasions and even watched a pole dancing competition (a tough one to resist) and some goldfish racing - which was hilarious! (Animal lovers skip to the next paragraph). The sight of little gold fish being encouraged to swim as fast as possible to the other end of the troughs of water by drunk people blowing bubbles towards their rear ends, courtesy of straws, was very funny!
We took a ferry to an island home to a volcano the other day, which was a good experience, despite the mini-Inca Trail style trek we had to get up to the summit of the flipping thing! But there were some fantastic views of Auckland city and the skyline from the top of the volcano and it was magical walking along paths with solid lava on either side.
We are enjoying the luxury of being able to speak English and understand people in a country! However, we spent the first few days greeting people with 'Hola' and thanking them by saying 'Muchas Gracias', which provided us and them with some amusement.
On Monday we are starting our Kiwi Experience hop-on hop-off bus journey, beginning with a trip to the Paihia (Bay of Islands) at the nice early time of 7.00am. I hope we don't miss the bus! Haha. We are very much looking forward to this as we have heard some great stories about people having a fantastic time doing the Kiwi Experience.
There is a possibility we could be enjoying some Kiwi-style Kareoke tonight, which would be very interesting to say the least! Will have to see how many drinks we have. However, I am quite up for doing it sober! Haha.
I hope you are all having fun back in Blighty and aren't too sun burnt. I will say bye for now and we hope to blog it up again very soon (I have probably missed out loads!)
Ciao for now
James/Smole
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