Dear Mum and Dad

Thank you for the birthday money that you sent me so that we could do something special for my birthday. We had a great day out in Auckland doing lots of cool stuff.

However, the day didn't start too well. We had to get up early on Waiheke Island to catch the early morning ferry. This was not helped by the hangovers we were enduring from our last night out with Lyle. Donna, sneakily stayed up until three in the morning wrapping my presents, meaning she was having to be jolly to me on only four hours sleep. Luckily, the ferry has televisions showing daytime TV so a healthy dose of David Dickenson helping members of the public sell their old junk soothed our hangovers. When you see how happy some people are because they have sold a couple of glass decanters for fifty pounds, you realise just how lucky your life is.

I was really keen to get to the crazy golf course straight away to avoid the rush but Donna insisted that we go for a cup of tea first. This was either to help her worryingly blossoming caffeine addiction or because she wanted to give me all my presents. Either way, it was good. I got a bucket and spade, a packet of Tim Tams, a new notebook with a pen that actually works, some children's oversized playing cards and a beer holder from Australia to add to our collection. Sunny got a brand new keyring. It wasn't his birthday but he is getting quite needy.

We then went and played crazy golf. Because it was a bit later, it was full of other kids but I didn't mind because it was really cool and had lots of big dinosaurs which moved and made loud noises. Donna was very nice and played really badly just to let me win. Although she did show off and get a hole in one at one point, but I could be magnanimous and congratulate her because I was already so far ahead at that point.

Next, we went to the main event of the day which was doing the 'Skywalk' at the top of the Sky Tower. This involved walking around the tower, about 190 meters up in the air, with no handrails and only a little thin rope holding you to the rail above in case you fell off. We had to walk along on a path about a meter wide. If this was on the ground, it wouldn't be too hard not to fall off, but when you are that high up in the air, it seems very small indeed.

They were very strict and made you take off all of your jewelry and everything out of your pockets and metal detected you to be on the safe side. They also breathalysed us, which was a bit worrying as we'd had a beer at lunchtime to steady the nerves, but luckily we both passed.

There were six of us who went up together. Donna didn't really like the rest of the group. I didn't really notice them because I was too busy being scared.

Once we got out there, just as I was starting to get comfortable, the guide decided to make it more interesting by making us do different challenges like standing right on the edge and looking down and walking backwards while not looking at the ground (I almost walked off the edge at that point). The worst challenge was the bit where he made you stand on the edge and slowly lean out backwards so you were completely out over nothing. It would have been bad doing it once but he made us do it twice more so that he could take photos.

Apparently, they have a similar tower in Las Vegas and if you are really brave then you can do a jump from the top. I have promised Donna that I will be braver when we get there if you guys fancy it as well?

After that, we had a quick dinner in the pub, then headed off to drive to the Coromandel for the night. To get to the Coromandel, involved lots of cool driving along rugged coastlines, winding backwards and forward around the cliff face. We had judged leaving Auckland perfectly so the sun was setting in the sea to the west and the colours in the world were beautifully golden. A perfect end to a brilliant birthday.

All our love

Jim and Donna

INTERESTING KIWI FACT OF THE DAY

Although it is a deliberate misspelling, Auckland is actually named after the orcs in Lord of the Rings which was filmed here. The first three Peter Jackson films were quite a big deal in New Zealand at the time. One in four Kiwis worked on the film at one point or other. A lot of the extras in the films who played orcs happened to come from Auckland so it made sense to name the city after them.