Weekend! And time for a family outing to the Mclarin Bach on Waiheke. Given the excesses at the vineyard, it was back to reality with a McCafe breakfast. The air was grim: the remnants of a tropical storm was passing over and the trip over on Hayley's dad's launch was ditched in favour of the car ferry. Drove to the other end of Waiheke, down a dirt track to the beach house on a remote beach. A truly beautiful spot. We were welcomed in by Arnold and Janet and coffee and biscuits were offered by our generous hosts. They pointed out the photo on the wall of Annelise on the quad-bike with Arnold, last time she visited. Chilled out on the veranda with a beer and watched the rain pour down.

Fortified with a cracking bacon and egg pie, Arnold, Chris and I went for a walk round the coast to the wharf. When the Bach was first built, there was no road access and everything had to be carried half a mile along the coastal track. The girls stayed indoors and played animal snap.

Rain let up for a few minutes: I made tea whilst Arnold convinced Annelise that 6 inch long centipedes with jaws like nutcrackers live all around the island…..

Arnold and Janet were real characters and it was such a shame we couldn't stay for longer, but we had a 5pm ferry to catch. For some reason everyone needed a snooze and to all other ferry users it must have looked like we had been gassed in the car.

Back home the adults prepared to go out for dinner….the venue was Cibo, a haunt of Auckland's chic.

Whilst waiting for the Syrah to arrive the occupants of the table next door caught our eye. Six middle aged good living type gents, not one of them a day younger than 40, accompanied by 4 attractive much younger ladies, who were most likely there in a professional capacity. (not lawyer type profession….). Normal folks would not have given it too much thought, however media types looking for a scoop decided the fellow dining guests warranted further surveillance.

As it happens, Chris recognized the host as the marketing director of a well known NZ sporting body, recently exposed for a somewhat laissez faire approach towards managing their financial affairs. If this gentleman was picking up the tab for this gathering with the company card then he reckoned there was an interesting angle. Hmmm….A Pap was called in to gather evidence by the front door and it looked like we were going to be staying until someone paid the bill. However we did amuse ourselves between courses by taking pictures of the suspects with our hairlines in the foreground. Great insight into the world of investigative journalism!

After dinner we moved on to the Boogie Wonderland club. The venue was an upmarket version of Clapham's Wessex House and no prizes for guessing the genre of music. A favourite with hen parties too. Annelise was too cool to do the YMCA but showed off her R&B moves later on.

Back on the street, Auckland was quite happening in the early hours. Hayley drove home whilst the passengers started car Karaoke…..H circled around the suburbs whilst we yelled along to Meatloaf. After the final ooh ooh aaahs' of 2/3 ain't bad, we arrived back and tiptoed into our room: our final night in NZ had been really fun.