Our time in Auckland passed quickly - after walking around the central city we took a ferry to Devonport and did a 5km walk up and around a couple of extinct volcanoes to look at another distant extinct volcano in the sea. It's a cute little town, nice old houses, big trees, a sheltered family friendly beach and only 15 minutes from downtown Auckland. It would be a great place to live if you worked in the city. Auckland itself is bigger and noisier than I expected, but still relatively easy to navigate.

We went to the cinema to watch Lust, Caution which was not as great as I'd hoped, but still pretty good to watch. We also saw 'After the Wedding'. Wow. What a powerful film. Go and see it if you can. We've also seen No Country for Old Men while we were in Australia and really enjoyed it. I can understand why it won the Oscar. I can also recommend Black Book, a German film directed by Paul Verhoeven with lots of nasty Nazis getting their come-uppance and a really gripping storyline that reminded me of watching Where Eagles Dare about, ahem-ty years ago.

Spent our last day squeezing stuff back into our suitcases - Brian's is relatively full, mine looks like a small eruption in a clothing factory. I am going to have to employ people to sit on it whilst I zip it up. And that's after an afternoon at the Post Office mailing stuff home. gah. And I still have nothing to wear. Porque???