Kia Ora Everyone!

So after updating our blog on good friday (which was actually thursday back home - weird!!) we walked into the centre of where we were staying (Mangere - suburb of Auckland) and got some food before wandering back to the h9ostel. Did we mention the fact that apart from the odd food joint everything else was closed as apparently it is law here that nothing can open on good friday or they are fined by the police!! Not good news for us but gave us a chance to catch up on some sleep (especially as we lost a day flying over the international date line - Mark was rather distraught that he has lost a day of his life!!)

So after discovering that we weren't going to be able to book a camper until saturday at the earliest we decided to book a night in a budget hotel in the city centre so we could have a good look around on saturday and then pick up the camper sunday (fingers crossed!) so on saturday morning we bid farewell to Scotty and Micky (the hostel owners) and set off to find a bus into town. Thankfully the public transport is much easier and clearer here and without too much hassle we found ourselves in the city centre on the high street. We set off in the direction of the hotel loaded up with our backpacks which funnily enough seem to have got heavier since the last time we had them on (hhhmmmm?!?!). To our delight Auckland is like fifth of the size of LA (probably smaller) which meant the roads are normal lenghts instead of the 20 mile long roads in LA so we reached the hotel in no time (although slightly sticky due to the humidity here and feeling like a tortoise with our homes on our backs), although unfortunately the trip was not made without an 'incident' which involved Mark flat on his face on the pavement struggling to get back up due to the load on his back - needless to say i had the giggles most of the way from then on!! :o)

We ditched the bags and then had a wander down to the harbour where we visited 'Food Alley' for lunch. The place resembled an indoor market with each serving hatch offering a different variety of food - I indulged in some turkish falafel and mark sampled some vietnamese beef dish. However the choice varied from sushi to indian to chinese to malaysian and so on and we couldnt believe how cheap and busy it was. For two meals and two NZ beers we paid little less than 5 pounds each!!! All in all NZ definately beats the US on price so far.

Mark taking over......

So fueled up we took a walk down to the harbour and located a 'red' pub called Fox's. Basically its a pub owned by a Liverpool fan thats semi-famous on Liverpool sites. The harbour is actually really nice, but the price reflects that as you would probably expect.

Next on our itinery was the Auckland museum that houses the Maori collection which is recommended in all of the guide books. The museum also has a natural history section as well as a 'wierd and wonderful', marine life etc etc. Entry technically is free but your supposed to offer a donation as you go in. We gave the recommended $5 each but there was a woman next to us who had the cheek to ask, "is the donation compulsary?". Obviously the answer was "no", so she then followed that up with "Oh, so can i just go in then?".

Seriously, what is it with some people!? I bet she was stinking rich and thats obviously because she's as tight as a ducks arse! I just wouldnt have the autacity to do that.

Anyway idiot woman aside, the Maori collection is actually really good and well worth a visit if you come here. Its a lot bigger than I thought as well. Wth Auckland being built on several volcanoes the museum also has a simulator thing that depicts what would happen if one of them erupted which was pretty cool. Its bacially a living room with a sliding patio door (actually a TV screen) that makes it appear that its your living room overlooking the harbour and the volcano, then you see steam coming out of the water and finally the eruption as the room shakes and then the tide of lava coming towards the window before it all goes black. Its better than it sounds, or at least I thought so!

So after spending a couple of hours in the museum we headed back to the hotel, past the scene of the earlier 'incident', although this time I managed to stay upright! Word of warning: Dont step on metal of any form when carrying about 300pounds on your back!

Nothing too strenuous was undertaken as we had an afternoon nap in preparation for the big match (Liverpool V Blackburn) at 11:45pm followed by Sunderland V the Scum at 1:45am.

Needless to say once Aimee was asleep nothing was moving her so I went down on my tod and watched the game with some strange cleaner man who was banging on about how Kiwi's are so famous for their drinking bla bla bla...

Oh, and the Mancs fluked ANOTHER win...

Easter Sunday began with a hearty Maccy breakfast (one more off our fast food world tour!) and then off to Apollo to pick up our home for the next six weeks.

We arrived at the Apollo office at about 11am to find hordes of people waiting to be seen and ended up waiting about an hour to be spoken to. The chap we dealt with was (i think) the manager but im not kidding when i say he was the single worst sales/customer service rep you've ever come across! He began by telling us that we couldnt have the camper we wanted if we were dropping off in Christchurch, not bothering to offer ANY alternative or anything until we asked that he call the Christchurch office and check if there was anything else they could offer us.

Turns out (shock horror) that the camper we wanted WAS in fact available so its a good job we pushed him to actually (god forbid) do his job! (numpty).

We ended up having to earwig on the next table though as that rep actually bothered to go through the terms and conditions with the people there and explained things to them. The chap we spoke to (lets just call him numpty) even made a joke about how many questions we were asking!

Well, heres a thought, numpty: DO YOUR JOB AND WE WOULDNT NEED TO.

Rant over it actually turned out ok and we've now set up home in our new camper which is a lot smaller than the last one and is pretty much a large van that has been converted. Not quite as luxurious and a little more cramped but im sure we shall cope!

The night was spent at a campsite in Red Beach whish is overlooking the bay which is really nice. Its also about half the price that we were paying for similar sites in the US - bonus!

Tomorrow we are making our way up the west coast of the north island to the meeting point of the tour bus up to Cape Reinga. I cant remember what the town is called but it begins with 'A' and is just below 90 mile beach (which we cant go up in our camper, hence the bus tour) so what im saying is, get the map up and look for it, its about time you lot contributed to this blog... :op

Also, they actually have weetabix here which incase you dont know is pretty exciting!

So that is all for now.

Love and Manhugs

Me and Aimee x