Hello Everyone! We have just returned to Auckland after a 1677km jaunt around the beautiful, and occasionally very wild, east coast of North Island. On the outward journey we visited the Coromandel peninsula with the picturesque islands of Mercury Bay, beach-walked through the sea arch of Cathedral Cove, stayed in a charming colonial-style B+B high above the sea in St Michael's Mount-like Tairua, re-traced the steps of a previous visit to the gold-mining town of...

Hello Everyone, We are presuming youngest daughter Kate and boyfriend Steve have arrived safely in the UK after their flight from Sydney or we would have heard to the contrary! They are back for a few weeks to attend Steve's brother's wedding in Cheltenham, to visit friends and, of course, to meet nephew Oliver for the first time! Our friends Anne and Martin have been with us in Auckland for the last few days and we have taken them exploring to some of the area...

We have had a busy week or two, firstly at Laura's family bach on the northern beaches (which we wrote about in the previous blog) and now down to visit Peter and Trish Brown at Marton, near Wanganui, on the west coast about two-thirds of the way down North Island.Denise's ex-colleague, Peter, has really landed himself a plum job at the Nga Tawa Diocesan Girls School, where he is the chaplain and RE teacher. It is a private secondary school, with 235 boarders and...

Hello everyone, We have just arrived back at Sue and Dave's in Auckland after a splendid few days at Leigh, near Matakana. The opportunity came completely by chance. We were at a pub quiz with Sue and Dave and met a very nice lady called Laura. She very generously offered us her holiday home, or bach, during midweek as they only use it at weekends. It was in a very small community and built right into the bush. At night it was pitch black and the stars were bri...

Hi Folks, After over 2000km around South Island in a camper van with a slightly dodgy steering rack it was quite a relief to hand it back in Christchurch and sit back in the comfortable (!) seats of a New Zealand Airways turbo-fan as it flew us up to Auckland at the top of North Island. Only a short hop and enlivened for us by a 16 month-old little girl and her mother in the seat next to us. Between us we ran through all the 'baby games' and it made us realise h...