Auckland April 27 - May 2

We arrived in Auckland, what would be our final destination of our travels together and set up camp in a free campsite just outside the city on the north shore. With half the day left we set out to find a windscreen repair company to take a look at the chips on the camper windscreen that we'd noticed when driving to Milford Sound. After much driving around and cursing Google Maps we found our way to one and were informed by the experts that the chips had already been repaired! This was awesome news and meant that we could splash out a little more in Auckland, spending the money we'd put aside to repair the camper. Janine still had no luck finding a hairdressers so had to resolve herself to dealing with straggly hair again! After a trip to the supermarket o load up the camper for our final few days, we returned to the campsite and spent the evening in front of the tv.

Day 2 and we caught the bus into the city across the harbour bridge which is longer but far less grand than the Sydney equivalent, it does offer some spectacular views across the bay to the city and its skline, dominated by the SkyTower - the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere and about twice the height of the next tallest building. The bus stopped in the city centre and we decided we'd wander up to the Auckland Museum. We took what must have been the most indirect route possible and ended up making a proper trek of what should have been a quick stroll, but it was worth it. The museum sits atop a hill in parkland known as Auckland Domain and is a grand white stone building with huge pillars dominating the front aspect, there were plenty of interesting exhibits on Maori culture including a 25-metre long war canoe carved from a single huge tree trunk and capable of carrying 100 men. There were also some moving WW1 / WW2 exhibits and a national library of servicemen where we researched our ancestors involvement in the wars.

After a couple of hours at the museum we were literally chucked out at closing time and made our way back into town along Posonby Road which we'd been informed had a number of restaurants and bars. We'd decided that we'd splash out on a nice meal on our penultimate night and researching restaurants was a good excuse to wander along Posonby and reward ourselves with a beer and a glass of wine in a nice little bar.

For our third day in Auckland we decided to research restaurants in another area, the quayside. So once again we got on the bus and made our way to the harbour. We wandered around, growing jealous of the huge Abramovich style yachts and beautiful apartments overlooking the bay then turned up Queen Street, the main shopping street in the city to do some window shopping and generally not buy any of the over-priced souvenirs.

The next few days were relatively quiet during the day. We decided we'd take a lift up to the top of the SkyTower and got lucky as it was a glorious day and the view in all directions were spectacular. You can really get a sense of how volcanic the area around Auckland is - every view contained a hill in the shape of a cone somewhere, remnants of ancient volcanoes that had formed the land that Auckland is built on. It was a scary reminder, especially when we thought back to the museum and the 'Volcano Simulator' which gives you an idea of what an eruption in the bay would be like, spectacular but in a terrifying way! We also sat in the cafe at the top of the tower and watched the crazy people who had paid money to jump off it base-jump style, but with a rope instead of a parachute, crazy!

That evening it was time to make our way to the North Shore stadium to watch history being made. The New Zealand Breakers basketball team were playing against the Cairns Taipans in the deciding match of a 3-game series to determine who would be the winners of Australia's National Basketball League. No Kiwi team in history had ever won an Australian competition but the Breakers were heavy favourites to change that with a huge sell-out home crowd. Earlier that week we had managed to bag a couple of tickets through much website refreshing and a little patience after following the Breakers' progress on the news. We felt privileged to be there, but a little like frauds given the number of news stories that week revolving around life-long Breakers fans who had been unable to get a ticket! The atmosphere was incredible, at 4500 capacity, it's not the biggest stadium but the noise created by the fans was deafening throughout. The Breakers dominated from tip-off and went on to win the game and make history - it was an awesome experience and one we wont forget in a long time. We had little time to hang around afterwards for the celebrations as we had a Royal Wedding to get back to! We sat in our camper watching the events unfold and toasted the new couple with a couple of glasses of wine. The excitement in New Zealand surrounding the Royal Wedding was incredible and we both got really caught up in it.

Friday started with a quiet afternoon, wandering along one of Auckland's beaches and then relaxing in front of a film (Arthur, with Russell Brand and Helen Mirren) before making our way into the city for a meal on the quayside in the evening. We both opted for some famous New Zealand lamb which was excellent but were a little disappointed with the dish. This didn't put a damper on our night though as we both made the most of having a three course meal cooked for us followed by a couple of drinks in an Irish bar overlooking the quay. The evening was lovely but I think we were both very aware of the fact that our time together was coming to an end, it was the elephant in the room and completely unescapable. The thought of going our separate ways was becoming a reality and neither of us really wanted to face up to it.

Our final day in Auckland started with a fruitless journey into the city, first to a market that we'd read about but didn't exist and then to a second-hand bookstore that wasn't open. We were both determined not to allow the trip to be a complete waste so tied up a few lose ends, Janine buying some new hostel-friendly pyjamas and dollars for South America followed by a coffee and hot-chocolate in a cute little cafe down one of the shopping lanes. For our final night together we packed our bags, cooked up some fajitas and tried to relax, pretty much to no avail.

Monday had finally arrived and after a final blitz of the camper we set off for the airport, the journey taking longer than necessary due to the often less-than-informative New Zealand road signs. I checked in and we were informed that Janine wouldn't be able to check in until after I had flown meaning that we would have to say our goodbyes at security. This triggered the first of what would be a flood of tears over the next hour or so. After a KFC lunch we came down to our final few minutes together and were both suddenly hit by the gravity of the situation - after spending every minute of every day together for the last 6 months we were suddenly being thrust into a situation where our only contact would be electronic for 2 months. Neither of us were prepared for the goodbye and drew a lot of stares as we both stood blubbing in front of security, unable to tear ourselves away from each other. 3 aborted goodbyes later and I turned the corner into security, catching the final glimpse of the girl I was about to miss more than I could ever have imagined.