Auckland (13th Nov - 19th Nov)Have started to put dates on so you don't get confused about where I am when.The flight passed quickly and I arrived into Auckland airport on time. As I was queuing at passport control, I got chatting to an American guy who had also been in Fiji but had been couch surfing (ie staying at people's houses for free thanks to the website couchsurfing). He said he'd had an 'interesting' stay in Fiji, had met the mayor, stayed in a shack and partied with the locals -now that's real travelling! Anyway, we decided to get a taxi to town together as he was couch surfing somewhere downtown and I was going to Hope's in Kingsland not far away (or so I thought). First we had to get through the fort knocks that is New Zealand immigration and customs. I got asked about a million questions about my stay in New Zealand just to make sure that I wasn't going to become an illegal immigrant or try and work there. The American had had to buy a return ticket before he entered the country to prove he wasn't staying! The woman was really stern with me and I was a little bit scared but a bit annoyed since I had my return ticket and was coming as a tourist to spend money in their country -traveller or not. Anyway, she wasn't too impressed that I'd written 'traveller' in the employment bit…but I wasn't lying! Anyway once she'd reluctantly granted my visa I had to go through customs and the biohazard area or something. A New Zealander on my plane told me they were really strict about declaring things and they would fine you if they found something in your bag that you should have declared. The list was endless -no fruit (Chile all over again!), no animal products, camping gear and walking shoes that have been used to trek in other countries and untreated animal fur and wool. I was nearly going to declare Alex the Alpaca! I did have to declare my coconut bracelet though(!) as well as my trekking shoes where she asked me about 20 questions as to where I'd been. I understand New Zealand has a delicate ecosystem and they don't want foreign things being introduced into the country and fair play to them at least they're thorough. I'm glad I wasn't in the queue behind this Indian family who had the biggest box filled with food products and spices I have ever seem and each one was being checked intensively! Once we were out of customs we proceeded to arrivals and were just discussing how much we thought a taxi would be when Hope popped up out of nowhere! She'd decided to come pick me up as she was worried I'd get lost and still be trying to find her house at midnight! For those who don't know, Hope is somebody I met five years ago whilst working on the south west coast of France as a receptionist for a resort. We lived in a converted meeting room in the hotel and there were 2 dorm rooms -one for the girls and one for the boys. Hope was the nanny for the child of one of the bosses but spent the majority of her time hanging out at ours. In fact I used to come home to find her cleaning the kitchen or just chillin even if none of us were there! So anyway I had said to her that one day I'd come to New Zealand to see her and five years later I eventually did. She's from Auckland and went travelling when she was 16(!) for five years and has just finished her architecture degree. She kindly offered to take John downtown and then drove us to her house -it was really lovely to see her and even though we hadn't had much contact for the last five years we chatted like old friends. We arrived at Hope's house and it was lovely. She bought it last year and has designed the interior herself and although she says it's not done properly and she'll redo it when she sells it, I loved it. She has loads of reclaimed pieces including a huge black and white print of Marilyn Monroe she found in a disused factory and a table made out of a door. She rents the three bedrooms out and has converted the garage into her bedroom and work area and it's fab although she's not quite got round to putting in a staircase to the main house and you have to walk outside in your jim jams if you need the loo in the night! That evening I was pretty tired from travelling so we just had a glass of wine and then caught up for a bit before going to bed. Hope gave me a key and just told me to help myself to stuff as she was childminding and up at 6am the next morning. It was really lovely to be in someone's home as opposed to a hostel and I really appreciated the little things like not having to share the kitchen and being able to put on washing and leave it in the washing machine until I remembered to take it out instead of having someone dump it on the side and cover it with spilt soap powder. Also comfy sofas and a TV! I had a really long lie in that morning, checked my emails at my leisure and did some washing and then made my way into town. I had to go to the chemists on the way to restock my first aid kit and to get some bite cream as I'd noticed I had a bite on my leg that had started to go a bit septic. The people in the chemist were so lovely and helpful and gave me directions on how to get into the city centre. I'd arranged to meet Hope in Devonport, one of the suburbs a short ferry ride from the city centre. Devonport is where Hope grew up and it's a very sought after area, especially with the many Brits who move to Auckland. In fact the family Hope was child minding for were originally from Scotland and moved over herefive years ago and I can totally understand why. I really liked Devonport, it had a really villagey feel with lovely little shops and cafes, and Hope seemed to know everyone. We had to go to the school to pick up the other children and then we drove around the area with Hope acting as my tour guide. She showed me the houses she'd lived in, her old school, some of the huge houses of her friends including the one with a view of the sea, which must have been worth a fortune. We saw some of the many volcanoes and then went up to Mount Eden to see the crater and the stunning 360 degree view of Auckland. In fact, Hope's old school is built on the side of Mount Eden. It hasn't erupted for thousands of years but a couple of students once decided to play a trick on the whole of Auckland. Basically it was several years ago when another volcano further south erupted and some people had to be evacuated. The next morning after this had happened, the students went up to the crater early, through a load of tyres into it and set them alight. So Auckland woke up to seeing black smoke rising from Mt Eden and panicked and started to evacuate. Apparently the police didn't see the funny side and they got a pretty big rap on the knuckles. That evening once Hope had finished child minding, I cooked her dinner to say thanks for having us and then we got ready to go out with some of her friends. We got a lift from Hope's French flatmate and made our way to the docks area. The bars were really nice there and I felt like a dirty scruffy traveller with my same going out outfit on! I longed for my Parlux hairdryer, straighteners and dressy clothes and shoes and bags that night! We had a good night all the same and I met some of Hope's best girlfriends including Olivia who had just come back from London to get married. She'd met a guy from Leeds in London and they were due to get married in January so she'd come back a bit earlier to sort stuff out whilst her fiancé was still working. She was telling me how much she loved England and how it had the best shopping out of all the countries she'd visited and how she loved New Look and Primark etc. It was nice to be able to speak to someone from New Zealand about stuff they wouldn't normally know about from the UK. We went to a few bars and then for some reason Olivia and Sarah thought it would be a good idea to go to Show Girls, a strip club! Hope was very apologetic and kept telling me this wasn't normally what they do and that they hadn't been here before but it was actually pretty funny and only $10 for girls! We got bored after a while and Hope and I left the others to it with Olivia shoving tipping dollars in the girl's garter! Next morning I had a lie in and then caught up with my blog before going over to Devonport to meet Hope. This time she was working at a café called the Stone Oven (she's a busy bee -never stops in fact). She made me a free smoothie and I sat and read my new NZ guidebook while waiting for her to finish. We then went to pick up Olivia and her other friend before heading to the liquor store. In New Zealand most supermarkets don't sell alcohol and you have to go to these special stores to buy it but they won't let you in if you don't have ID. In fact in every bar you go to you get asked for ID and they say if you look under 25 they will ask -I was actually quite flattered and more than happy to show them my drivers licence (I felt like saying, "I'm 26 would you believe!") We also picked up some food for the bbq we were having and headed to Piha for a party at one their other friend's houses. Piha is a beautiful little place in the bush and on the coast, about an hour's drive from Auckland. It has an absolutely stunning beach and there are no shops only houses - you even have to bring your own water supply with you. We arrived at the guy's house and Hope was putting the car where she normally does and saying,'I wonder why everyone else parked on the grass.' Just as she did it became clear why everyone else was parked on the grass. We got completely stuck in the sand this guy had just laid down but we decided to sort it later and went off to the beach to find the others. After having a few drinks and watching the sunset, we made our way back to the house and started the bbq. Everyone had brought so much food so we had a real feast, however I was tempted into trying a NZ famous green lipped mussel and even though I'm not a massive fan of shellfish I'm willing to try anything once. Bearing in mind that I have only ever had mussels a couple of time, which were tiny and smothered in sauce, this one was huge and had just been done on the bbq. I knew as soon as I heard what it was called and saw the lips on it, that I wasn't really going to enjoy it but I wanted to appear polite so I put the whole thing in my mouth. I actually thought I was going to vomit, it tasted of dirty sea water and I could feel the lips of it in my mouth and the worst part was I couldn't just swallow it, it was that big I had to properly chew it. Funnily enough when I was offered another I politely refused. We stayed up drinking for a while that night, then headed to another house in Piha for a party but that was a bit rubbish so we got home and all crashed out. We hardly got any sleep that night thanks to one guy in particular who would not shut up. In the end Olivia wasn't well so we left at about 6am and went back to Hope's, spending the rest of the morning and early afternoon watching films. We had to go out yet again though in the afternoon to Hope's friend's little boy's 2nd birthday party. We didn't stay too long but the party food was good and helped with the hangover! Also I met some lovely people here including someone born inManchester but who had lived in Auckland pretty much all her life and a lovely couple with two children who had been travelling before they got married and were telling me how much they loved it and how jealous they were of me. The guy asked me where in the UK I was from and then I thought he said do you like curry and even though I thought this was a bit of a strange question thought he must have been to the curry mile and so I started talking about that. He looked at me a bit weirdly and in actual fact what he had said to me was do you like Corro -meaning Coronation Street! They call it that over here and they actually show it, although they're a year behind over here. We went home that evening and had an early night. Monday was an extremely average day and I generally did lots of reading, blog updating etc. I couldn't walk anywhere as the mosquito bite had become that infected that it was the size of a golf ball on my leg and it was extremely painful. I decided to go to the doctors the next day once I knew where it was. Hope worked all say and when she got back she insisted we watch this film that I have forgotten the name of that is apparently a New Zealand classic, if a little depressing. She didn't have a copy of it there so we drove round three video shops looking for it and returned empty handed as all copies had been rented out. Hope couldn't understand it as she said it was a really old film and even though it was a cult classic it was strange that all copies were out. Ah well, it wasn't meant to be. Whilst we were in the video shop, she pointed out all the kiwi movies her mum had been in and that her dad had worked as a set designer on, which was pretty impressive. Had another early one as picking Kate up at 4.15 the next morning. Tuesday 18th Nov. Got up very early to pick Kate up. Drove to airport, Kate was on time, I hobbled over to her to say hello and it was good to be reunited! We drove back, nearly ran over a kitten, which was wandering the streets and very strange to see in New Zealand even if it was completely normal in South America. Hope tried to drop me off at the accident and emergency hospital place but it was shut(!) so we headed back to hers and all went back to bed. We got up late and I was still in pain and Hope had gone to work so I phoned for a taxi to take me to the nearest doctors. The taxi driver's five minutes turned into about 45 even though 'he was just round the corner' for half of this time...nice to see there's no cultural difference between taxi drivers in NZ and the UK. I got to the doctors which was a bit like an NHS walk in centre and exactly like Shortland Street and got to see somebody pretty much straight away (def not comparable to NHS in that respect!) The doctor was a bit of a strange guy, he cut me off half way through me talking and told me it was probably scabies!! He examined me though and obviously changed his mind but then said it was pretty normal for people to have reactions to mosquitoes from Fiji and that they'd have to drain the bites. Had one on my leg and one on my bum so was pretty embarrassed about some strange man squeezing my cheek! That one was ok and not too painful (must be all the cushioning!) but the one on my leg was the worst and so painful. He then proceeded to cut it open WITHOUT anaesthetic and squeeze as hard as he could. More than a few expletives came out of my mouth and I had to apologise afterwards. I thought I was going to faint! After I thought he'd finished he just said that it was very infected still so I'd have to go back the next day for more torture. I paid the bill, got given ibuprofen and codein and then nearly passed out in the chemists whilst waiting for my antibiotics. I had to grip the counter while the chemist was telling me how many antibiotics to take a day. I went back to Hope's, then Kate and I got the bus into town, looked around the shops then went to the pics to watch the new Guy Ritchie film Rockarolla. Had tea in a proper Chinese cafe place and got a taxi back as not too sure which bus to catch back. The taxi driver obviously wasn't too sure where it was either and after continuously checking the map, we arrived about an hour later. Hope lives five minutes away from where we were. Wednesday 19th Nov. Hope took me back to Shortland Street on her way to work and dropped both Kate and I off. Kate went for a wander while I went through the whole painful process again. It wasn't as bad this time though as the doctor kindly gave me some anaesthetic. He then told me the nurse would clean me up and left me to go and get her. I waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. For an hour in total. I couldn't get up to get anyone as I had blood running down my leg and I didn't want to look like an impatient foreigner. The doctor finally came back in, looked at me and asked why I was still there. He then looked a bit sheepish when it dawned on him that he had forgotten to tell the nurse I was there. Marvellous. Eventually I was patched up and I went to pay again (it's costing me a fortune, bloomin mosquitoes!) They gave me a $10 voucher for use the next time I went, completely useless to me, I would have much preferred money off there and then! I felt so much better and more able to walk so we went for another wander, I bought some more flip flops to replace the ones stolen in Fiji and decided to walk back to Hope's for some exercise. She was working late again so we cooked tea, chatted with her housemate's for a bit and then went to pack as we were leaving early the next morning.