We arrived in Auckland unprepared, without our lonely planet guide, so we headed to the travel people who booked us into the ACB for our first night. What a bizarre place, its an office block converted into a hostel, and exactly that, take out the desk and put in a bed!. The drive from the airport looked exactly like england, green fields with fresian cows....spooky. Our first taste of Auckland centre was a very expensive pint in an Irish pub and cheap plentiful noodles in an underground asian foodcourt, excellent We'd had our free pint in the ABC bar which was awful, we walked into the bar where there was a bloke downing a pint in one as a bloke with a mic chanted(just like a very bad student union/18-30s) ....erk!. That night we called Cov and were immediately told to meet up with him the next day with our stuuf and to stay with them as long as we wanted, which was really kind. After a night in the local with Cov and Sam and lots of catching up and lots of beer we had a good nights sleep. The next few days were spent buying delia the campervan.....what a pharse they forgot to book her into a garage etc etc the woman was a witch, Sam lost her cool because she felt the woman was an insult to the excellent kiwi customer service record. All a big thing with us all being really annoyed and ranty which ended in the guy who delt with it getting sacked, even though it was the woman we had complained about. We did lots of trips to the diy shops in between to turn her into a camper, the first time she conked out and we had to call the mechanic, turned out to be the dodgy gear box, not getting into P, he was really annoyed and we then were continuously being shouted at for having taken her away when we werent supposed to which really got our goat. In Cov and Sams driveway we had originally taken a set of seats out, whern Cov and Claire discoved that all the seats reclined to make a perfect bed. We bought a cheap matterss and duvet etc and a camping stove, and we were ready. During this time, Sam was working but Cov (mainly ) wasnt so we pottered about with him. It was all good fun, we ate lots of takeaways and of course Covs famous meat and potato pie. It was great to spend time with friends, and thanks to sam for introducing us to some NewZealand films like once were warriors bro. Oh and the Peter Kay videos which had us in stitches. On the Sunday we went over to meet some Rellies. Mums cousin Bob, his wife Bev and kids Kirsty and Helen. They took us to the Kelly Tarltons sealife centre which was cool, we saw giant rays, sharks etc and a colony of penguins. We then went back via the city sights and had kebabs back at theirs and talked for hours about their obsession Lord of the rings. Bevs sister in law's horse was leglasses horse but would have been shadowfax but didnt like being ridden bareback.....many claim to fames in this country everyones connected somehow, its only a small population.