When I flew to Auckland I crossed the international dateline and due to the flight times, I completely lost one day of my life, the 15th May. So I thought I hope NZ is going to be worth it and it definitely was!After 3 month I met John again at the airport, he landed just a few hours before me. It was really nice to see him again as I missed him so much. Hopefully the next weeks are going to be fine - I was a bit worried!

We collected our camper van and drove straight to Brian and Tina, Penny' parents who offered us to stay with them. On our arrival day, Brian was driving us around town showing us Auckland, the city and outskirts and we went up on top of the hill for great view of the city. Bryan pointed out the 'one tree hill' which actually hasn't got the tree anymore - so it's really a 'none tree hill'.

Auckland is quite big and right in the middle of two sides of the ocean. It has a great skyline and a huge bridge with heavy traffic as we noted the following day. John was always wondering how this can be as they have only about one million people living there - everyone must be out in their cars!

Anyway, the following morning Brian and Tina brought us to the west cost of Auckland and we had some great fun driving their 4x4 car on an empty beach for miles. Fantastic off road driving at such a beautiful place! After lunch we had to say goodbye already and head off to see Johns brother, Jeremy and his wife Gladys. They were making a lovely dinner and we kept chatting until late. We stayed a night and after breakfast we left Auckland.

A big thanks from John and I to Tina and Bryan, Jeremy and Gladys for the time they had with us and the lovely food they cooked in the evenings. It was great. We had a fantastic time visiting you guys!