Well, we are back in Auckland after our mini tour with the girls before we head further up north for the first leg of our Kiwi Experience.

We spent the few days in Auckland taking in the sights and sounds of New Zealand's biggest city. We spent much of the first day just looking around the city, popping into the shops and getting to know where things were. This included picking up about 20 different maps and money off vouchers for various things, about 19 of which we didn't actually look at the whole time! After a tiring day of window shopping, the girls arrived on their flight and it was out for a bite to eat before we started the real tourist things in the morning.

The next day we headed off the aquarium, or to give it it's proper name "Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World". Here we rode in a snowcat along a track which runs along the penguin enclosure, as well as having views of the penguins under the water. We also saw Phoebe, a bloody huge stingray that weighs just over 200kgs!! The next part of the aquarium was even better, as they have constructed a huge clear perspex tunnel that is surrounded by water, and as you stand on the conveyer belt and travel around, there are sharks, turtles, eels and all kinds of fish swimming right over your head and all around. It was a pretty amazing experience to see them all so close up. After doing a few circuits, we got off and went to see the piranhas and the octopus before heading out into the city centre again.

The afternoon was spent wandering around the many stalls and shops of Victoria Park Market, before we headed off to the Sky Tower to check out the views from "the tallest structure in the Southern hemisphere" - we have heard that so many times now!!

We went up to the first observation deck, which is 186 metres up and were a little disturbed by the glass panel in the floor of the lift, as it's not really what we were expecting!? The views of the city were great, although it a little weird walking over the glass sections of the floor, especially as the glass is only 38mm thick!! We then headed up again to the sky deck at 220 metres, but found that when you're that high you can't really tell much difference.

The next activity for the evening was finding a pub to watch the second Lions vs All Blacks match. It's amazing just how many Lions supporters are out here, and the pub was a mass of red shirts, but they were all fairly quiet come the final whistle.

Our second full day in Auckland was much more civilised as we headed out to the museum via Parnell, an up market district with a great shop called "the chocolate boutique". We got to the museum just in time to watch a traditional Maori performance which included a few dances and stories, such as the history of Maori weapons, and also the haka. The museum itself was huge and we spent a good few hours walking around all the exhibits that ranged from the early beginnings of Maori life and the first white settlers, to the role that New Zealand played during WWII (didn't even know they were in it until then!?). Even the museum itself is a really impressive building.

After we were done in the museum, we picked up our hire car and drove out to Mt Eden, an extinct volcano that overlooks the city. The views over the city were really good, but it was starting to get a little cold, so we headed back to the warmth of our hotel. Once it had got dark it was time to go back to the Sky Tower so we could see the city at night as we had brought a "Sun & Star" combo ticket. We thought the views were going to be even better than before, but once we got up to the observation deck we found out that the only really impressive building to look at and take photos of at night was the one that we were in!!

As a friend of Christine's, Craig, had come up for the day, we thought it only right to seek out a few public houses in the evening. We headed for Lenin bar, where unsurprisingly vodka featured quite highly on the menu, but it was the bar next door that we had come to see - the Minus 5 bar. This bar is made completely of ice and people are only allowed in for 30 minutes at a time, and then they are given huge parka's, hats and gloves to enjoy their drinks with. However, we weren't about to pay $30 for the privilege of one drink, so we went next door where there is a window you can look through while sitting next to the fire!! Then it was off to Danny Doolans for a few more drinks, some entertainment, and a few more drinks again. One highlight of the night was the two guys on stage covering The Proclaimers "500 Miles".

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The next day we headed off to Rotorua, the Sulphur City, where there are hot pools and geysers a plenty, and the smell of sulphur hangs heavy in the air, much like that of rotten eggs. After a brief stop in Waitanga, we arrived in the early evening and had a quick drive around the town and could see steam coming out of drains in the middle of the road, as well as the pools along the bank.

The next day we headed to Whakarewarewa, a geothermal national park, where there are dozens of hot pools, mud pools and geysers - the highest of which spurts out water to a height of over 10 metres. The whole place had a strong sulphur smell, but at least it was warm due to all the geothermal activity, and sitting on the floor kept the chill away!

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Then it was on the road once more as we headed to Taupo for some food before continuing onto Waitomo, home of the glow worm caves, in the evening. We planned to go jet boating in Taupo but got distracted by some quad bikes and off road buggy's just outside the town, so instead of getting wet, we got muddy!!

Once we got to Waitomo the girls still had the quad bike bug, and so in the morning they headed out to a huge farm on the outskirts of town for another couple of hours.

In the afternoon we all went to the Black Water Rafting Company to get ourselves under the ground and into the water. After getting suited and booted in latex wetsuits (and it wasn't even the weekend!) we were driving out to the caves where we spent the next 1 1/2 hours jumping off waterfalls, wading through waist high water and tubing along the streams in the dark with just a head lamp to guide us. People were a little bit wary at first at the thought of jumping backwards off a waterfall holding just a rubber ring to their bum to land on, but this was soon overcome and when all the head lamps were turned off the views along the cave ceilings were pretty special. Hundreds of glow worms lighting the way as we flowed along the streams, bumping into and over rocks and each other before we emerged all too quickly at the other end of the cave. It does kinda take the shine off the glow worm experience though when you learn that they are just maggots trying to catch food!!

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The next day we headed back to Auckland via Hamilton and Cambridge for the girls to catch their flight home. Carol and Alanna got to do their jet boating finally in Cambridge, a town that is meant to be based on Cambridge back home, but I think they lost the plans somewhere along the line.

Tomorrow we head off to Pahia in the Northland, where it is supposed to be winterless so we will get the chance to warm up a bit again before we head down to tackle the snow and cold of the South Island.