So today we started our stray adventure! Caught the bus a short walk from our hostel at 7:40 and the bus was almost full! Once we got going we had to go to the front one by one and introduce ourselves, say where we were from etc. A few English people here, German, Dutch, Swiss, Swedish, Finnish and Irish. Most people are aged between 20 and 30 but there's one lady who must be in her 50s and another in her late 60s/70s! Made a stop for hot choc and another for a...

Another fairly late start this morning but decided we need it when considering the schedule for the next three weeks! Sun was out again so Kate had another ice cream (the best ever apparently!) and we took our books and sat in a large square where there were some trees for shade. I decided I needed to get a new book as not much of mine left to go so got a cheap one...hopefully I'll have enough room in my case to carry 2 around with me for a couple of days! This...

Gorgeous day here today, sun has been shining and our skin is still as pale as ever (apart from Kate's which is significantly more red). Spent the day on Waiheke island which is about 40 mins on the ferry from downtown Auckland. Beautiful beaches and scenery all over the island. Only downside is they wouldn't serve us a glass of coke as we didn't have our passports on us and driving licence wasn't accepted! Lesson learnt there, will have to start taking our passp...

Yesterday was supposed to be a fairly chilled day but ended up being quite full on! We woke up feeling not too tired and we both facetimed home to check in which was nice. Kate had friends from uni passing through Auckland so met up for a delicious cookie (very healthy breakfast). We discovered where the supermarket was and stocked up on stuff to make sandwiches and pasta for the evenings. The rest of the afternoon was spent in Auckland museum which was full of a...

First day in Auckland was amazing. We managed to navigate the airport successfully and on the bus to the city a local New Zealander started chatting to us and offered to be our tour guide as he had the whole day to kill before he was flying to America that evening. So we dumped our bags at the hostel, freshened up and off we went to explore the city with Mike, a honey bee farmer who produces makuna honey so we learned a lot about all the benefits which was fascin...