Arrived in Auckland international on a nice sunny Wednesday evening, a great relief to Jess and I after weeks of torrential rain in North Queensland. The four hour flight provided me with plenty of time to catch up on the third series of Gavin and Stacy with several nice complimentry glasses of red wine and not so nice Cajun Chicken Salad. We have decided Air New Zealand is slightly stingy on the food front, definately not up to Eithad or Quantas standards! While waiting at the airport we had a quick introduction to kiwi lingo and 'culture' from a random airport worker on his break. Basically rugby is everything, ten is pronounced 'tin' and every sentence has to finish with 'ay'. Armed with this important knowledge and a lonely planet we were set to step foot out of the airport and begin New Zealand.
Were lucky enough to stay with the Nightingale family for the first couple of days and the easter weekend, was very nice to be looked after and taken around and about around Auckland. Spent a couple of days with them and their friends south of the city camping at hot springs just inland from Raglan. Hot springs are definately my new favourite thing, a giant bath basically something which I had been gagging for after four months of either cold or horrible hostel showers. Everything closes for the easter weekend here even the supermarkets and pubs, luckily we were pre-warned and had stocked up on the essentials, ie red wine and easter eggs.
Auckland is the unoffical capital, the biggest city at 1.2m people, tiny in population but apparently the largest city in the world if you measure by land mass. This means big gardens and for a lot of people with houses on the hillside amazing views over the two harbours, Waitemata and Manukau.
A week after arriving, with a backpack of clean clothes and a big box of Ann's chocolate brownies to keep us going we were off on the road again. Hired a snazzy Explore More campa, complete with fridge, sink, standing space and Jess's fav feature... a wardrobe (I don't have problem with just throwing my clothes up on the shelf however I am trying very hard to be organised and tidy). We have named him Basher. For several reasons, one of which being the amount of time I have banged my head on him. A very quick week long tour of the north, including Dolphin Spotting in the Bay of Islands. Interesting fact: only 50% of baby dolphins make it through to adulthood and the bodies of those who die are carried on their mother's fins until they are eaten or decompose. Nice stuff.
Had a wicked days caving in Waitomo, absailing down into the glow worm caves then Black Water Rafting (completely false advertising is actually tubing), zipwiring in the caves, and a nice wade/swim through the remainder. Nice climb out up two waterfalls made slightly challenging by the fact my feet had gone completely numb and I was wearing very fetching rubber boots. All well worth it though, especially after a lovely hot shower. Hot showers are proving to be a complete luxury as so far we've managed to only pay once for our overnight parking, using either free parking spots on the road or free camp sites with limited 'facilities' ie one 'lovely' toilet. However when you have natural hot springs who needs hot showers?
Spent a couple of nights in Rotarua, nice lake, lots to do, shame about the sulphur smell. This is also marked the start of our 'health kick' which we had been talking about for the whole of Australia, while we were stuffing our faces with ice creams, tim tams and chips. I have given up (well nearly) coffee and the majority of chocolate and Jess chocolate completely. It is the start of a new us. No more coffee and cake which we spent the majority of our rainy Australian days having to escape the downpours. We need to be bikini fit for Mexico!
A week and a half after we arrived and the sun is still shining. Very good sign, start as we mean to go on!