Tuesday 12th February

Oh dear, all this not working lark has made us even worse morning people than we were!

We dragged ourselves out of bed at the last possible minute ready for our 8.45am flight to Wellington, New Zealand. We were uber excited by the prospect of settling down & experiencing life in the heart of a capital city, so it wasn't all bad.

Arlene very kindly dropped us at the airport in plenty of time so we said very quick goodbyes there & headed through check in & customs in record time. We had a Burger King breakfast, spent the last of our Aussie dollars on crossword books, magazines & water for the plane.

The flight was actually really good. We were dreading flying with Qantas after our last few experiences in 2008 with them but it went well.

We arrived in a not so windy Wellington, the sun was shining, our bags were in tact & our manually typed out visa for Carly was enough to get us through Customs! I managed to block Carlys immigration account online so we could only print mine, then save it & edit it with Carlys details!

We grabbed a taxi to our digs for the first 11 nights on the fringe of town, settled in & took an afternoon stroll into the city. IT'S AMAZING!!!

We walked along Cuba Street, which is equivalent to Gloucester Road I guess, with lots of boutiques, record shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, pubs, clothes shops & loads of street performers to keep you entertained. We had dinner in a small Italian restaurant & called it a night.

Wednesday 13th - Monday 18th February

Over these past few days we have walked God knows how many miles, looking for apartments, agency meetings, work clothes shopping, job interviews & generally checking out the city & all it has to offer.

This place is fantastic, we are both loving our time here, everything is so close together so we can walk from the CBD to the waterfront in 2 minutes, watch the football or cricket at the Westpac Stadium, a 2 minute walk from the centre, Courtenay Place (equivalent to Whiteladies Road I'd say) is a 1 minute walk from the waterfront or CBD & there are more restaurants in a 1 mile restaurant than we could eat at in a year if we tried a different one every night! It's ridiculous. We assume that nobody actually cooks or even owns a cooker over here.

No job offers for either of us as yet but we are getting some good leads & it shouldn't be long before we are in employment & earning some cash.

The house hunt is going ok, we have looked at several places & think we are going to have a few options by tomorrow night. One place is seriously amazing but it's sharing with up to 5 other people. We'll keep you all updated & pictures will go up at some stage soon.

Some of you will have seen our FB picture in 'Hotel Bristol' with a couple of ciders. I'm pleased to report that Speight's cider on draught is awesome so we have a good taste of home on our doorstep! After a 21,000 mile trip to get here, it was worth it!

Modes of Transport so far - 5 planes, 4 Taxis, 11 Tuk Tuks, 6 VIP Bus, 3 shared taxis, 6 minivans, 3 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 5 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

Miles Travelled - 21,271