Well its been a while since i last updated thee ol' blog page. Been all over the place the last week.

How and I flew out of Heathrow on the 4th of Feb. It didn't really feel like we were off for six months! The flight to LA was about 11 hours. How managed to fit in 4 movies, good going i rekon. When we got to LA we got the shuttle bus to Hollywood Boulevard and found a little hotel to stay in. We checked out the Boulevard that evening. Loads of Neon lights, buskers, people in character outfits and massive posters on the side of buildings. We had dinner at a classic italian/american pizza place. The nicest pizza ive had. Were feeling pretty tired by 9 so went and hit the sack. In the morning we decided to walk to the Hollywood sign as it would be more interesting than doing a tour. We went to the Hollywood Bowl ampitheatre on the way. I bragged to a couple of patriotic Americans that the Milton Keynes Bowl would beat the Hollywood Bowl any day in an Ampitheatre contest. A proud moment. We saw the Hollywood signs about 2 miles in the distance along the ridges of the hills. Are mission was to touch it. A couple of hours and a cheesy photo later we were pretty close. Then it started to rain alot. We couldn't walk back over the hills as they were to muddy so we hitchiked a lift back to Hollywood Boulevard, apparently people never hitchhike in the area so we quite lucky. That evening we went down to Santa Barbara, a two hour train journey away to see Emma Casson, Tom's (a good mate) sister. While in Santa Barbara we checked out the town, done some NZ research and hit a College Party. It was mad! Just like the American Pie ones but with better electro music. Webragged our way in to the party. There was free booze, plastic red cups and the garden backed onto the beach. How chatted to a bird who said 'you speek good English' then carried onto say 'Do they speek English in England?'. Classic. We also went sea kayaking and i fell in the water after thinking i was really good at it. For breakfast one day we went to a classic diner which had free refill coffee! we were buzzing after about 5 cups. Emma was a star and made us feel very welcome while we were in SB.

On Monday we got the flight from LA to Auckland. It was bout 12 hours and i slept for about 7 so it went pretty quick. We stayed in Auckland for a night so we could sort our lives out and buy a car, tent, camp stuff, surfboards and food for the week to come. By the end of our shopping spree we might as well should of just bought a house. It was nervous times when buying the car. We got Mechanically Inspected and payed for a legal check opn it. Then the mechanic was trying to get us to spend a bit of money on it. After speeking to a couple of other travellers we decided that the mechanic was trying to have us on and for the money we were spending for the car it was never going to be an aston martin. So we bought it. We headed to Piha on the west coast. Stayed a night there. A pretty place with a quality drive from Auckland all along windy roads with great views. It rained alot when we put our tent up and was pretty windy. The surf wasn't to good and didn't look like it was going to improve for a week so we decided to head north and do a bit of touristy stuff. On Thursday we stayed in a forest starting with W (forgot the name and havnt got travel guide with me). A really nice location, the campsite was right next to a stream. In the morning we went for a dip in the fresh water stream. Then headed off into the forest to find NZ biggest Kauri tree! The trunk has a girth of 16m and is about 50m tall. Apparently its all about the girth in NZ when it comes down to trees. We got back on the road and after an hour of driving saw a beautiful looking bay. They did sandboarding but we missed the last trip for the day so we stayed the night in the little town called Oponini. We done some backflips of the jetty to get some respect from the local kids. In the morning (today) we went acroos the bay on a boat and done some sandboarding. How was a bit of natural, doing slides and stuff, but we both ate alot of sand. After sandboarding we headed north again to the Bay of Islands which is where we are now. Its kinda like cornwall with the coves, dorset country side with a slight carribean twist. Where thinking of doing fishing tomorrow or sea kayaking. On Tuesday where going to head to the west coast to actually do some surfing! Hopefully a swell should be arriving there. The break is called Shipwrecks and Supertubes. When it works you can get somje sick 500m rides. Fingers crossed! Well thats about it for the mo. The internets out of the main towns and citys are a bit hit or miss so may update by the end of the week.

Cheers