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We landed at 3.30am, killed a bit of time by declaring all the things that we weren't really supposed to bring into the country (although they let us through with all of it), bought a cup of tea and then there was a lot of noise and commotion....David Beckham had just landed too and was there with the rest of LA Galaxy (just out of interest can anyone name another of their players?!). They were welcomed by Maori dancing and singing and a hoard of photographers (well by NZ standards anyway - in England it would have been called a handful). We went to have a look but drew the line at taking photos - we have to maintain our English-couldn't-care-less attitudes. (Although it was actually quite exciting!). He is really small!
The rest of the day was functional - picked up our car, bought a tent etc, shopped for food and found somewhere to stay. The next day we went to Devonport, which is a really nice little town only 10 minutes from the centre of Auckland, and then went on to Waiheke Island. This is described in our book as being the place that Auckland city-dwellers dream of moving to, and we could see why. It is a 35 minute ferry journey from the centre of Auckland and is the most gorgeous small island with beaches, vineyards and arty shops and cafes - it feels a world away from city life. It must be amazing coming home to this after a day at work in the city. While we were there we went for a walk through forest and around the coast which was stunning, chilled out on the beach and looked around an art galler. We stayed in a very chilled-out place and wanted to stay for longer but there are so many places we want to go to that we had to move on after only one night.
We then packed up and have headed up the country. Stopped off at Goat Island where we were assured the snorkelling was amazing. Not so. Saw a ray though which was cool.
We are now in Paihia (the Bay of Islands) in the the north of the North Island. Yesterday we did a walk around the coast - we set out to do a walk that was graded as 'easy' and 2-3 hours, but as is usual for us, we thought we do a longer route and ended up walking for 5 hours. It also certainly wasn't easy as there was absolutely no flat whatsoever - we walked up and down and up and down and... you get the picture. (Javed - you would love it here!) By the end we were exhausted but it is all good training for the skiing that is coming up and pleasingly we don't have any sore muscles today. :-)
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