Auckland Sunday 9th & Monday 10th January

We boarded our plane at 9:15 pm (Pacific Time) on Friday 7th January and arrived in Auckland New Zealand at 07:00 am (New Zealand Standard time) on Sunday 9th January after a 12.5 hour flight - no Saturday!!!There was a lot of turbulence as we crossed the Pacific, made worse by the fact that we had booked the back 2 seats in the plane (movement is always worst in the tail).However, this was off set by the fact that we had no-one on either side of us and slightly more room.As we descended through the clouds and got our first glimpse of the rolling green hills surrounding Auckland, Ant described it as "just like Devon"!!!!

Our first adventure was getting through "Biosecurity".New Zealand has very strict laws about what you can bring into the country and we had been advised to declare everything just to be on the safe side.We headed nervously down the "items to declare" lane and confessed to the Biosecurity Officer that we had hiking boots, a trekking pole and sweets and crisps in our luggage.He cast a cursory glance at our boots, declared them clean and waved us on!!

Next came the search for the bus (Airbus Express) that would that would take us to our hotel for just $16 ($23 return).This accomplished, we settled back and enjoyed the ride.We knew the bus stopped somewhere near our hotel but we were pleasantly surprised to find it was literally outside the door.Even better, our room was available even though it was only 09:30 in the morning.After a quick shower and shot of caffeine we were ready to explore city.

On the flight over, Air New Zealand had a concierge on board who told us to take the ferry to Devonport (well Ant did say it was just like Devon!), and hike the volcano for good views of Auckland Harbour and the Sky Tower. It was very warm and in typical Ant fashion, he found a bar showing American football.Luckily for me there were 2 bookstores nearby!!We eventually made it to the top of the hill for the amazing views. On the way back to the hotel, Ant found another bar where he settled in to watch the remainder of the football while I took myself off to the beauty salon!!

There are a plethora of Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian and Japanese restaurants here in the city and spoilt for choice, we chose the one in the alley behind our hotel.Ant did OK with his 3 BBQ and rice dish but I didn't do so well with a very bland vegetable stirred noodle dish which I assumed would be like a stir fry or chow mein.Never make assumptions!!It consisted of a glutinous mess of noodles topped with bok choy (which I hate!"), tofu, and various mushrooms that looked like something from another planet - needless to say I went to bed hungry!After loosing a night's sleep (and a day!) on the flight over, we didn't make it past 8:00 pm and promptly fell asleep trying to watch TV.

Waking early on Monday morning, we set off to explore the rest of the Harbour, first stopping at Starbucks where we paid $3 (about £1.50) for an hour's Internet access. New Zealand consists of 3 main islands in the South Pacific Ocean (North, South and StewartIslands), with an area of approx 268,000 square kilometres and a population of 4 million.Auckland, situated at the north end of NorthIsland, is New Zealand's biggest city with 1.4 million people from over 100 different ethnic backgrounds which is evident from the eclectic mix of restaurants and shops found here.In some ways it seems very British (American!!) and there are a lot of familiar sights (McDonalds, Starbucks, Burger King, Vodafone, HSBC to name but a few!!) and the Queen's head on the coins.At lunchtime, we found a food court that once again had a huge, diverse range of foods to try.This time we opted for Japanese - a fish bento for me and chicken bento for Ant.This consisted of 4 different dishes in little bowls and a type of miso soup.More walking in the afternoon as we tried to find a post box for the postcards we had bought earlier that day.We actually managed to stay awake until 9:00 pm tonight!!

Tomorrow we have an early start as the bus picks us up at 8:00 am to start our tour.