I'm going to begin my final Kiwi blog entry with a question that has followed me the entire way around the country, and is one that my fellow travelers would surely have thought at one time or another - WHO IS PAM???! The mysterious Pam deserves a medal, for without her budget cooking would be nigh on impossible. She makes and sells tuna, bread, cheese, pasta sauce, shower gel, nappies, you name it and good old Pam probably does it. If I could meet the woman who started this colossal empire I would shake her hand. Although it's probably an acronym, but we'll let that slide.

That aside, what can I say about Auckland? Not much as it happens, although for you fact lovers it is the second largest city in the world by size, but definitely not population having only about 2.5 million inhabitants (I think, evidently I stopped listening to my drivers by the end of the trip). It is the only city in the world to have an east and a west coast, or port, again I must have only been half listening, has the largest Polynesian population in the world and is known as the 'city of sails'. I do take some umbrage with this moniker as I only saw about 3 sails the entire time I was there, all the boats were packed away for the winter. And I thought Kiwis were a hardy sort.

My first night was spent with the rest of room 22, the guys from the Northland trip, before being left on my own once again early the next morning. (I can hear you all sobbing in sympathy at my plight.) But not to worry as I was to meet Adam, a fellow Bradford citizen and a character you may remember from Kaikoura. Over the three days I spent in Auckland we visited a few places, along with Sebastian, a cool German guy in Adam's dorm with a penchant for hats. Culture vultures that we are we spent a nice afternoon at the Auckland museum and war memorial, one and the same place but very confusing since half the signs said one thing and the rest another. The best part was designing our own t shirts in one of the displays - there was some kind of exhibition going on, cue Adam's query 'do they think they designed the t shirt or something'. Classic.

The next day I had decided to walk up Mount Eden. It was a bright and sunny day when I set off, although some ominous clouds were hovering above my head, prompting me to include my waterproof on the off chance. Good job I did as after about half an hour pounding the streets it started drizzling, not what I wanted when I had a ruddy great hill to climb. Luckily this was just a blip and it soon cleared which meant I got some pretty sweet panoramic views of Auckland and out over to the sea. The fine weather wasn't to last, sadly for me as I'd started walking over to one tree hill (of U2 fame). I was about 20 minutes down the road when the heavens opened. It was literally bucketing it down so I attempted to take shelter under a tree which I think actually just got me wetter from the humongous drops of water splashing down on me from the branches.

Once I'd got back to the hostel and dried off to prevent pneumonia it was time to go to Nandos - amazing. Me and the guys also went to see Total Recall which was really good, not that I can remember much of the original so I had nothing to compare it against.

Since I was feeling energetic during my time in Auckland the next day I attempted to walk to Mission Beach, a mission that was soon aborted as I seemed to be walking for days and not getting anywhere! Despite this massive fail it was a pleasant wander along the wharf and coast, helped by some nice sunny weather and marred by some random old woman tutting when I didn't immediately respond to her hello since I couldn't hear with my headphones in. She was probably having an internal rant about the youth of today as she stormed off. As this was my last night in New Zealand the evening was spent having a few drinks and generally going to bed waaaaaay too late for a 3am alarm.

I was quite emotional saying goodbye to New Zealand, it has been my favourite place by far and I know I'm going to jump at the opportunity to visit again. From the glaciers, mountains and prairies of the South Island to the volcanic green and pleasant land of the North there wasn't a single moment I would have changed. Countless awesome people helped make the trip what it was and the Kiwi experience bus was a good choice, despite the worrying rumours I'd heard! So for now it's so long to Aotearoa - land of the long white cloud, the first country to give women the vote and home of Frodo and time for my final leg in the mighty US of A. Au revoir NZ - I'll be seeing you.

Becca