we'd been given until 1pm to drop the van off in auckland, washed and cleaned before we would be charged a tenner per hour. we got there just befopre one so it was a little after by teh time we'd run her through teh car wash. the map we'd been given for the depot was pretty much non existent and we had no idea where we were going. its a bigish city i would say by world standards but massive in NZ standards. more than 1/3 of the entire population live here so its pretty lively. the traffic lights take three years to change and its 100% one way, so not ideal conditions to plod around.

we decided the best option was to findt he hostel we were goingt o stay in for teh nigth, unload our things and see if they could give us directions. like magic it appeared so i pulled over, ignoring the police on the street, i figured if we were in the way that much they would say something and id already snapped at one ofd the girls for been a back seat driver so wasnt in the mood to try and find a good parking spot.

there are two depots for wicked campers in auckland, one on the way to the airtport and one in teh city,. id requested the city one. the map they gave us turned out to be teh airport one. the woman in the hostel made sense of the map for me and gave me directions but i was still unaware that this was the wrong depot at this point. so i set off across the city, 10miles later, a few illegal U turns and a sigh of relief we found it, the wrong one. no worries, they wanted it at this one anyway so only problem now was getting back.

so pretty sad to leave her, we said good bye to Pam with 4000km more on her clock and headed for the bus. id say about 2 hours later we made it back to 'downtown'!

prepared for a big night out since it was our last together. met a girl in my dorm from Hebden Bridge (they just keep coming im telling you).

didnt quite get teh big night we planned, well, it was pretty drunken and alot of fun and a late one to be honest but since most places were closed because it was tuesday it seemed to spill onto the streets a bit and include the one bar i ddint wantt o go to. i even had to change my flip flops as i had to wear shoes. it might have been a couple above zero but im on holiday, its allowed!

i managed to get myslef up the next morning, sort my stuff out and take mtyslf off for a look around Auckland which ended up in me going to teh skytower and having a lamb lunch in the revolving restaraunt at the top, i thought id treat myslef, again! good to see the city but since the weather was horrific the view was a fair bit limited.

a strange coincidence but we all flew within 20 minuted of ech other so we went to teh airport together and were able to stay together until boarding the planes. i checked in my 30kg of luggage (i was allowed 46kg for some reason) and headed off to get some food and ring the hostel to ask them to post the stuff id left behind (yes im geting rubbish again) while i was on the phone over the tannoy came -'will joseph oller please go to desk 53' which luckily charlotte heard since i was completely unaware of it. turns out id left the bookelt of remaining flight tickets at the check in desk which would have meant id of got as far as Santiago and then had no ticket out!

so boarded the plane leaving NZ and that side of the world behind along with quite a few thigns ive managed to loose along the way.