25th -28th April 2013 - Auckland

Hi All,

It has been a while since either of us has written a blog, so I thought I would fill you in on our lives in Welly and our little weekend away to Auckland.

So as we left you in our last blog we have both been working full time, now been in employment for just over 2 months. Matt finds his job a bit mundane and very easy, but has already had a pay rise so he can't complain. My job is going well, everyone is nice despite the team dropping like flies. Two of the other PMO's have left since I've joined which now makes me the second longest & senior team member, Julia has been there the longest at 3 months. Quite shocking really considering the programme has been running for a few years. We both are enjoying our work to walk in the morning, I think Matt really loves not having a car and being stuck in traffic every morning and evening. He has even got on a bus a couple of times, oh how he has changed J

We have made some friends, mainly through meet up groups which is a website where you join different groups with similar interests to you & meet up. It's mainly travellers and other foreigners that go so it's no wonder we now have an eclectic group of friends. We have started going to a weekly bingo session at a pub just around the corner on a Wednesday. Beers & ciders are only $5 and every week so far we have one at least one full house at bingo which wins you a $20 bar tab, you can also win free drinks. The first time we went we though the bar tabs had to be used the same night so we ended up getting rather drunk on a school night. It was funny.

We have also been enjoying lots of Welly's wonderful restaurants, there are a lot of them and its rude not to try them all. We have also brought the entertainment book which gets you heaps of discounts and money off most of them, so we have been abusing it quite a lot. But apart from drinking and eating we have been trying to stay healthy; we have joined a Gym round the corner and try to go a few times a week. I have started playing netball, only for a social team but its great fun and nice to ease back into it after a few years off. Matt has started playing football with some guys from my work, he has been playing left midfield and has scored 2 goals in 3 matches so far. We have also been going to the cinema a lot as its super cheap on Tuesday to go gold class and the cinemas here are ace. So far we have seen Oblivion, Wizard of Oz, Warm Bodies & Broken City and off to see Iron Man 3 this week.

This weekend we headed up to Auckland for 3 nights as Thursday was a bank holiday for Anzac day. I cannot get over how relaxed the airport security is here when you fly domestic. It was so easy. Libby our wonderful housemate dropped us at the airport 30 minutes before we were about to fly telling us this would be plenty of time. We literally walked straight to our gate, put our carry ons through the scanner, containing all of our toiletries and said nothing. It was insane, on the way back we even had a massive bottle of water with us and they didn't bat an eyelid. Everything was just so easy, we didn't get our ID's checked once. We even checked in online and just had to show them a text message we had received as our boarding pass.

We managed to get the mecure in the centre of Auckland for really cheap. It was smack bang in the middle of everything which was brilliant but not as great at night as we soon came to realise. As New Zealanders don't believe in double glazing it appears so it was very noisy. I was rather stressed when we got there as Matt had realised the night before that he had tendonitis in his foot again and considering last time we had to go to hospital in Australia when he had it, I was a bit reluctant to even go. We dropped our bags at the hotel and went for a wander, one thing we also forgot is that New Zealand shuts down on bank holidays, so nothing was open until 1pm. So we found a cute little Belgian restaurant and got some brunch. Yum. We then went for a walk along the waterfront. Once everything started to open we decided to have a little shop, now New Zealand isn't great for shopping as they only have a handful of men and women's shops so it didn't take us long. We then headed back to the hotel, whacked some deep heat on Matt's leg and chilled out for a couple of hours. In the evening we headed into BritoMart which is a new area of Auckland right next to our hotel, it has some amazing bars, cute boutiques and yummy restaurants. First of all we went to 'The Garage' which is a rooftop bar overlooking the water. It was rather busy so after a quick drink we headed to 'XUXU' and had the most amazing cocktail called 'Dark & Stormy', it was so delicious. Made up or dark rum, ginger, blueberries and lime. We also had some amazing Asian food, we just ordered a couple of dishes and shared. We had an early night as we wanted to get up early to go to Waiheke island.

So Waiheke Island is about 40 minutes north of Auckland by boat, It is very green and picturesque with lots of lovely beaches. On the way we also passed a couple of the volcanic island and had a great view of Auckland City. We got a ferry over and planned to hire bikes and cycle round the island. Matt's foot was still not great and his calf was now also hurting and he was in quite a lot of pain. We decided to get an all day bus pass and find our way round the island that way. We headed to the other end of the island and grabbed a smoothie before having a nice walk along the beach and chilling out there. We then got back on the bus and headed to the local village to have a look around the shops. They were very cute and beachy. We then went to the Information centre and chose a winery we thought we would sample. So we headed to 'goldies' to sample some wine and get some lunch. Unfortunately they were only open for food on the weekends, so we just had to stick to the wine. The woman was lovely and told us a lot about each of the wines, we left with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and headed off in search of lunch. We were stood waiting for the bus when a lovely local stopped and offered us a lift. She was so nice and told us a bit about the island, saying there were 7,000 residents but in the summer it got up to 45,000 and they had a really bad drought. She told us to try out a thai place which was overlooking one of the beaches. We headed down there and grabbed a table, but after 20 minutes of trying to get some service we gave up and decided to head somewhere else. We weren't the only ones who left. We then checked out two more but didn't fancy anything on the menu, we then found some cute little cafe and got a meat mezze platter. It was yummy. It was such a nice day so we sat outside and enjoyed the rays. I can't believe it is still 20 degrees here and it's Autumn, not that I'm complaining as its lush. It was now mid afternoon so we headed back to the ferry and caught it back to the city.

In the evening we headed to the sky tower, we did try to book a table in the restaurant up the top but it was fully booked for the 3 nights that we were there which was a bit rubbish. We went up last time we were here and weren't that fussed about going up again. So we headed to one of the restaurants in Sky City and grabbed some very tasty dinner, Matt's seafood pizza was epic. We then headed to the casino as Matt wanted to get some practice in before we head to Vegas in June. Of course everyone knows that when you gamble, practice makes perfect. Lol

The casino was insanely busy, it was crazy. People were queuing to get on slot machines and tables I have never seen a casino that busy even in Vegas on a weekend. We enjoyed some $5 coronas and had a little flutter, but got a bit frustrated with just how busy it was.

Saturday we had a bit of a lie in then headed to BritoMart to check out the farmers market, there were only about 10 stalls it seemed pretty lame to the massive one in Welly on a Sunday that we go to. After that we grabbed brunch at a lovely cafe, I am basically addicted to Eggs Benedict so that is all I seem to eat at the moment as Brunch. Lunch is for losers. We then went shopping again as we do need some half decent clothes for Vegas in June, can't be looking like our skanky travelling selves. I managed to get some I Panema flip flops or Jandals as they call the over here, some Levi's jeans for $50 (bargain) and some black heels. Matt got a pair of vans also for $50 and a couple of t-shirts. Overall a good shopping day for us. Matt headed back to the hotel to rest up his leg and I went for another wonder around BritoMart, it is a lovely area. In the evening we had booked into a rather posh restaurant on the waterfront called Botswana Butcher. It is so posh inside, very glam and decadent. I order the crispy Szechuan squid for starter and matt ordered the tuna Wantons, they were both amazing and we soon realised that the portions were rather large for somewhere so posh. For mains I had the wasabi crusted tuna fillet with a noodle salad and Matt opted for the fillet mignon which was wrapped in bacon. The food was epic, love it so much. Very reasonable as well.

Afterwards we headed for a couple more drinks to finish the night off.

Our flight was at 7am so we had to be up early. We had such a bad night sleep though as the drunk Aucklanders were so loud that we barely got any sleep. The flight on the way back was so easy again and Libby picked us up the other end which was fab. Auckland was really good and we had a great weekend but we are so glad we chose Wellington and it's so nice and a lot smaller and suits us a lot better.

Sorry for the epic blog, but I hope I have filled you in on our lives in Wellington. We miss you all loads and no doubt we be getting super jealous of the weather soon as we head into Winter and you all head into Summer. Well, fingers crossed you get one this year.

Lots of love Carly & Matt x x x

Modes of Transport so far - 7 planes, 4 Taxis, 11 Tuk Tuks, 6 VIP Bus, 3 shared taxis, 6 minivans, 3 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 6 ferries, 3 pickup trucks, 6 sleeper bus, 1 kayak, 1 moto, 1 Campervan

Countries Visited - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand

Beers Sampled - Chang, Tiger, Leo, BeerLao, Namkhong, Angkor, Anchor, Klang, Green Saigon, Red Saigon, 333, Larue, Caroune, Hanoi, Singha, Acha, VB & Tooheys Extra Dry, Carlton Cold, Mac's gold, Mac's Pilsner

Miles Travelled - 22,061