Well we have made it past our first week and thought it was time for an update to the blog.

The first two days was passed sitting on airplanes. The flight was not as bad as we thought it might be, I-pods, games, books, food and TV passed the incredible 23 hours sat on a plane. However, by the time we arrived in Auckland we were a mess, without decent sleep for two days we stumbled our way to our first hostel and somehow explained that we had a room booked. We collapsed on our beds for a brief lie down at 5pm but ended up waking up the next day at 6am! It took a couple of days and a trip to the pub to re-adjust to waking up at a more sensible time.

In the first few days in New Zealand we surprised ourself with our productivity, organizing new Zealand bank accounts, phones and IRD numbers (tax). We even en-devoured to find work on the Friday afternoon phoning agencies. The weekend then came and we decided no one would be working so promptly took two days off. These were spent wandering around the city and climbing to the top of two volcanic hills that over look the city affording fantastic views (see pictures).

Since Monday we have been less productive, we registered with an agency in Auckland which deals with office type work and quickly realized this was not the way forward. We did not come to the other side of the world to sit in an office. We then set upon finding fruit picking work as that is the only way to work for short periods of time while traveling. We then dabbled with the idea of buying a car as that is the done thing over here and they are staggeringly cheap. However as yet we haven't done much at all other then sit in the sun. In short we are being faced with far too many choices with everyone we speak to recommending something different and both being very, very indecisive we are at a loss. All we do know is that we want to leave Auckland and leave soon so we are heading to Rotorua about 3 hours south of Auckand on sunday.

Weather wise, it is still spring and surprisingly like England. With lots and lots of rain but in short bursts followed by sun. However, when the sun does come out it is very strong. Suggesting that when summer finally comes it will be gorgeous.

Auckland itself, although covering a huge landmass, has very few high rise buildings and the city center is tiny, if NZ biggest city is this small we get the impression the rest of the country is going to be very very rural.

We have met some interesting characters already only a week in. The people in the hostel are all very friendly and it is very easy to get chatting. The most amazing thing is the number of Germans, at the moment we are about the only 2 English people in our hostel the other 20 or so being German! Cue lots of stereotypical jokes being made under our breath.

Tom