Kia Ora

Thursday 8th January 2009

Thank goodness today had arrived the bed here at Wallys has given us 3 sleepless nights.True to form by 8am the sun was blazing and we were up and showered ready for the long drive home.

We had to retrace our steps up through Taupo,then into Tirau,Cambridge,Hamilton and onto Auckland.After 3 hours on the road we got to Tirau,the home of the giant corrugated dog and sheep(see photos for sheep) It is a good stopping off point so we took time out for lunch but neither of us were looking forward to another sandwich.Luckily where we had parked was right outside a nice little cafe called "The Cabbage Patch" and when we walked in we were glad to find lots of homemade fayre and couldn't wait to eat.

Once lunch had been taken care of (which was excellent) it was back on the road.It was so hot today that we had to have the aircon on all the way home.From Tirau to Auckland took us around 2 hours and things were going well till about 50km shy of Auckland a crazy lady nearly ran us off the road...

We made the hospital in good time to collect Mel's contract before going to the hostel we had booked in Ponsonby which would be our home for the next 3 nights.The room was tiny and so hot it took until 11pm to cool down.I was feeling tired after the drive so we just rested for a while so Mel could get all her paperwork in order.

There was a tiny refrigerator and no room for our perishables,so we left them in the room and went off to the supermarket for our dinner. Shopping completed,we had bruschettas for dinner before rounding off the evening with a game of scrabble in the garden.We went to bed early as we knew Friday was going to be busy.

Friday 9th January 2009 (another doing day)

We beat the alarm this morning as we knew it would be a busy day,it was my turn to have trouble getting into the bathroom until I found another one across the other side of the building!!!

So just before 8.30 we were at the car garage dropping off our ID so the car could be registered.Then it was off to Takapuna to the AA to sort out car insurance and AA breakdown,luckily we had done some groundwork on this before the New Year and it didn't take too long.While I sorted that out Mel stood in line to get her kiwi license sorted. We just had a quick stop at the bank to make and another few jobs were ticked off Mel's list!!!

The morning was flying by and the next stop was TEG (our immigration team) to complete our immigration paperwork and other crucial things,we severely underestimated how long this would take and after 2 hours we were still ploughing through it all.Luckily we had brought lunch with us so we ate that on our way to our next stop for Mel to have her medical,which meant more needles!!!

Because she was os prepared I only had to wait for around an hour before she reappeared with a bruised arm where the needle had gone in.Our next job was to be the most pleasureable and we drove back to collect our new car.It was ready when we arrived so we took the keys and swapped all the things from the hire car to our new car.Once we filled it up it Mel followed me back to the hostel where we parked up for the evening.

We had planned to go out for the night but got chatting in the hostel and the night flew by.

I had only spoked to my Dad that morning and when the phone rang I knew it was bad news and it was.Sadly my Uncle Mick had passed away that morning which was a real shock to Mel and I,so before bed I said a little prayer for him and we decided that tomorrow we would visit a church and light candles for all the people we knew who had passed away recently as our thoughts are with everyone back home at this time.

Sunday 10th January 2009

For some strange reason we were up for 6am and were unable to get back to sleep,so we got up and started our day.The day had ended badly with the news of Uncle Mick and it's at these times you realise how far away you are.

Downstairs was chaos even though it was so early,it turned out a room in the hostel had been burgled during the early hours of the morning and the thieves had got away with laptops and passports while people slept.This left us feeling on edge and we w ere reluctant to leave the hostel but secured what we could in our room and went out.

We took the hire car back as we now had no need for it,the timing was pretty good as we only had 2 days to run on it so not much money lost.It had been grey looking all morning with the htreat of rain hanging over the City so we took ourselves off to the Auckland Museum as they had an exhibit of a 67 million year old T Rex that was found in Montana.

It had bee 18 minths since our last visit and there were lots of new exhibits to see.The big draw was the TRex,it was amazing to see it,the skeleton was 90% complete and huge.The time passed quickly in the museum and after 3 hours we had to leave because our parking time was up and we didn't want a ticket!!!

It was another trip to New World for groceries and the days nourishment.To be honest neither of our hearts were in the last night at the hostel with all the goings on so we braved the bouncing rain to go for noodles,which were amazing before heading back in the rain to make sure we hadn't been burgled and luckily we hadn't.

There were people milling around trying to call insurance companies and embassies to sort out replacement documents so the place was a hive of activity.We sat in the courtyard listening to the rain bouncing off the plastic corrugated roof.

Sunday 11th January 2009

Back in the cottage,I don't need to say anymore than that.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx