Kia Ora everyone! That means hello for the people who think it's a make of orange juice!!

We arrived in Auckland at 5pm after a multiple of errors in Sydney airport. The 1st one was a stupid impulse buy on a 2 litre bottle of apple juice, unable to drink it before we went through customs then realised that the food court was before customs! Dammit! The 2nd error came when choosing food; there was loads of choice....... too much! We made the drastic error in choosing chicken kebab in pizza bread with spinach. I know what you're thinking sounds nice however it tasted of disappointment, and boy was my mouth dry, could really do with some apple juice!! Haha The 3rd and biggest error was choosing dessert; we had exactly 3 dollars left. Our options were a big donut or 3 chocolate chip cookies from subway both exciting choices but that little hesitation in the back of our mind creeps in; you know the one; 'the grass is greener on the other side' so we waited in case there was a better choice through customs. I have never felt regret all through our travels.................UNTIL NOW!!!!!! Not a food store in sight and just as our hope were diminishing there it was that big yellow shiny M..............Mcdonalds!!! We are saved......we scoured the board for anything worth 3 dollars and we found cookies, to the counter.....3 cookies please....she hands us not 3 individual cookies but 3 BOXES of cookies and they tasted like cardboard i was soo close to shotting them in her face haha Anyway Im babbling so let's move on!

When we landed we contacted our hostel nearby the airport for our shuttle. We knew we had arrived in New Zealand when the cold air and rain hit us! We had that night to prepare for Hayley's early arrival in the morning. Exciting stuff!

The next morning we got up at 6am and got shuttle back to the airport, with our handmade 'welcome Hayley woodhouse' sign. We awaited with bated breath and excitement and every time the doors opened we thought it was Hayley! Then she came out when we least expected it looking remarkably good after a 26 hour journey, we expected her to be crawling through the gates haha Big hugs all round and it was great to see her!

We caught the shuttle back to the hostel where we had a welcome surprise........ Some beans and egg on toast haha While Lou and Hayley caught up on lost time, talking a hundred mile an hour. I prepared breakfast in the kitchen. Normally i can make poached eggs in my sleep but iv been out of practice and a little bit rusty so in the end it just turned out to be beans on toast with round egg yolk. Somehow i managed to totally desecrate the egg and only be left with the yellow yolk haha Unfortunately the hostel wasn't the best so Hayley's first impressions of backpacker life was a bit tarnished but it can only get better.

The plan was to pick up the rental car in the morning from the airport for 4 days and pick up our Canadian friend Chandra and go on a ROAD TRIP!! Everybody loves road trips ............ except Chandra because she gets travel sick. That morning we picked up our hump a junk......... I mean car and after i had figured out not to use your clutch foot on the brake because it was an automatic and it results in sudden braking! Haha we began!!

We couldn't wait to see Chandra again she's such a hoot haha we also got the chance to meet up with our friend Chris who was also part of the Noosa gang, he has moved to new Zealand now and is working in a hostel near Mt Eden. The whole road trip was amazing one of the best things we've done. It was destined for success from the start, great people, great scenery and great laughs a recipe for pure fun!! First i will give you a little background on the trip.....the route if you will.....starting point Auckland, then heading north along the coast line to the bay of islands where we would stop 1 night in Pahia before taking a day trip to the northern most point in New Zealand called Cape Reinga where it's possible to see the Tasmanian sea collide with the pacific ocean. We would then return to Pahia for a 2nd night and make the final journey back to Auckland stopping off at places on the way.

It's impossible for me to tell you everything that happened on this trip because it would be the longest blog ever, I mean... do I mention.............the fire we caused?, the fun and friendly game of monopoly we played, my home made burgers, the Cape Reinga, the corn on the cobs, Hayley pumping in her sleep, the time when you left me running down the highway after the car, the chocolate factory, the nicest ice cream man in the universe or the awesome fish 'n' chips we had overlooking the lake!!!

I will elaborate on a couple of stories. I'll start with the fire story haha.......... Our first night was spent at the pickled parrot hostel which was excellent apart from the moody receptionist who was quite rude to us when we nearly set fire to the place Anyway we all decided on a BBQ for tea, we had burgers, corn on the cob and potato fritters. The corn on the cob was just cooked in its cover because we picked them up fresh from a local supermarket. We had just about finished our BBQ when the flames underneath became rather violent so i turned off the gas and served up the food, thinking the flames will die down eventually. After sampling the amazing corn on the cobs i looked behind..............YOU"VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!! The flames were HUGE and it didn't help that the BBQ was under a pagoda made of wood, my first reaction was to shut the lid to starve the flames of oxygen............just made it worse it angled the flames onto the wood practically setting the pagoda alight. So i opened the lid back up, now the flames were about 1.5 meter high so we stood back tried to think up a plan on what to do..... Maybe make a brainstorm board haha but all i could think of was how at what point did it become a fire rather than a BBQ however it wasn't the time so it got to the point where i ran for the fire extinguisher and just as i was about to rip it off the wall i heard Louise SHOUT...... 'bob what you thinking!!..........they will charge us for that' haha after realising she's right and putting money before our life we opted for the water instead. However in the mean time a fellow country man and an innocent bystander obviously was witnessing the pathetic 'Dilly Dallying' of our rescue attempts and took matters into his own hands and chucked a full pot of water onto the blaze!! This put it out and resulted in smoke everywhere!!!! I put it down to the BBQ not having any sand in the bottom therefore all the fat from the burgers and the oil from the fritters gathered in the bottom of the tray and set alight.

We then did a day trip to Cape Reinga where the scenery was unbelievable, it was where the ocean met the sea and it was weird because the waves were colliding against each other. That evening on the road trip back to Pahia we made a detour to end the journey with some famous fish n chips at a local shop overlooking a lake at sunset.........great finish to a great day!!

Next day we had all sorts of plans sea kayaking, mountain bikes and waterfalls. However in a backpackers world PLANS mean Diddly squat!!! So in the end we agreed on playing.........MONOPOLY haha we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, what started as a nice friendly game ended in a ruthless and violent bankruptcy........for Lou and Chandra, Me and Hayley were slogging it out for outright power but my excellent business skills prevailed and i won. That night we decided on another BBQ, hoping to get it right this time I also gave everyone an insight to my home made burgers that went down a treat!

The last day was all about getting back to Auckland but we decided to stop off at a little village which was set out like Italy and we visited this excellent chocolate factory and a homemade ice cream shop which was inhabited by the friendliest ice cream man you have ever met. Me and Chandra had lost Lou and Hayley by this point and lo and behold we found them in the ice cream shop, He had 24 flavours of ice cream and Lou and Hayley were well on their way to sampling all of them the pot for where you deposit the dirty spoons was empty when we arrived and after we had left i had counted...........................wait for it................ 46 dirty spoons!! And didn't pay a penny!

That night we all stopped in Chris's hostel in Mt Eden where we treated ourselves to a dominos pizza. The next morning the time came to say our goodbye's again. It was an early morning departure for us as we were boarding the kiwi bus however Chandra got up with us and seen us off at the bus stop waving as our bus drove away. We will see you in Vegas and/or Canada Chandra groves!!!! We've pretty much seen you in every country haha

Love Adam, Louise and Hayley xxx