Tomorrow Katie, Emily and Julie are leaving New Zealand and flying to Fiji. No, we haven't ditched Alyson and done a runner, she is going to stay in NZ with her dad, who has recently flown out, as well as her bro Dave and Ellen. Daddy Barker and us girls have spent some time admiring the architecture of Auckland and broadening our minds in the Art Gallery. Daddy Barker has been hopeful that we have found ourselves and are raring to go get jobs when we get home, alas he is disappointed! So, Auckland has been a pleasant surprise having been told by many people not to bother spending any time here. Its nice and sunny (sorry about that, what with your snow back home and all!) and busy with people shopping and sitting in cafes etc. Before that we had been up to the Bay of Islands, which is a proper beach resort. We didn't do much except hang around and walk along the beach but not a bad way to pass the time. In Hamilton, we basically stopped because there was a cinema and we wanted to see Harry Potter. It was a brilliant film (Em loves Ron). Before that we had become bored of throwing ourselves of high structures and instead decided to head down a cave instead. We booked a tubing trip into the glow worm caves in Waitomo, with visions of floating gently along rivers in huge cavernous spaces. What we actually got was a caving trip that meant crawling through pitch black tunnels on our hands and knees, squeezing through tiny cracks and swimming in freezing cold water. Oh and we floated in rubber tubes for about 10 minutes. It was actually quite good fun, despite the black wetsuit and white wellies look, and the glow worms were amazing, kind of like those glow in the dark stars you put on your bedroom ceiling, except thousands of them!! All of us were definitely glad we did it. On our first day in Auckland we had to hand back Dave (the car), which was a sad day as he has been an excellent travelling buddy. Bye Dave, Bye New Zealand! Except for aly who will be hanging around a bit longer. (Alyson - do you miss us?) XX