Wow! It's time to leave! After fourteen fabulous months in NZ, where we've had some amazing adventures (and some bad ones too!) it's finally time to head to the airport and start a whole new set of adventures in SE Asia. And as much as we've enjoyed our time here we are ready to leave now. We've been saying our goodbyes over the last month - it's always difficult when something is coming to an end and you are waiting for something new to begin - you feel sort of in limbo. But we both feel that we will come back again one day, thought perhaps not for such a long period of time, but we have good friends here now and despite doing so much over our 14 months there is still more that we want to see and do here. It is a beautiful country with some amazing wildlife.

But when we do make it back, one thing is for certain - we will not be coming back to our hostel, The Brown Kiwi, again! It is without doubt the worst hostel that we've stayed at over the last 14 months. The facilities are dire - there are not enough bathrooms, sinks & toilets for the 34 people staying here and those provided are grotty & dirty, and as for the kitchen, it is far too small and the bin is always overflowing, literally! Apparently it used to be quite nice, but it has obviously gone downhill. This morning I got told off for leaving a chair in the wrong place when there were mouse guts (or something similar) on the outside shower floor for the first 3 days we were here - priorities! So all that nice pampering stuff that you want to do in the bathroom before a summer holiday has to wait until Bangkok - we've paid for a nice hotel for the first 3 nights and we're really looking forward to it!

The last few days have been absolutely hectic for us both as we've packaged up most of our belongings to send home, been getting currency for Asia, doing some last minute shopping, paying a final visit to the Travel Doctor to get various medications, etc, etc. We found a new home for some of our belongings: a few days ago we met a lovely German girl, Maria, who is travelling on her own, has only been here a week and was having a bit of a tough few days. We asked her if she would like any of our bits and she ended up taking everything that we had accumulated over the year - blankets, a hottie for winter, plates, pans, etc. She was delighted with her stash and we felt good for cheering her up. Maria, it was lovely meeting you and we hope that you have a fabulous time here!

In the last few days we've popped back to IEP to thank you & goodbye to the crew. We haven't had a huge amount to do with them, but whenever we've needed them they have been superb, really helpful & efficient. And they had one last surprise for us - as we've been here for so long they asked us to come in and chat to the staff and give some feedback on our experiences and any useful tips for other travellers, which we were pleased to do, and it was actually great for us too as it made us think about our trip and gave us chance to look back and reflect. And as a thank you they have paid for a door-to-door shuttle to the airport tomorrow and also a final trip up the Sky Tower to say goodbye to Auckland. Thanks guys, for everything!

Finally, you may have noticed from the last set of photos that we did manage one day out in Auckland, a welcome break from our preparations, which was a day trip to Tiritiri Matangi, an offshore island, free from predators which has some amazing wildlife as a result, especially some very rare birds. We paid for a guide for the day, Donald, an ex-actor who volunteers his time here. He gave a wonderful tour of the island, describing its history, explaining the various trees & bushes and of course pointing out the birds. As well as the more common birds, such as tuis, bellbirds, fantails, and robins, we saw the saddleback (which I love), stitchbirds, a little blue penguin in his box, plus three birds we haven't seen before: the whitehead, a small bird with a white head (surprisingly!); a kokako, a rare greyish magpie-sized bird with a bright blue face who hops like a kangaroo; and a takahe, a large flightless bird, once thought to be extinct, which remains exceedingly rare. They are fabulous, they look totally prehistoric and those on the island had been hand-reared so were quite used to people, in fact they were around our feet like cats waiting for crumbs from the table, though you didn't want to get your fingers caught in that beak! It was just what we needed and I'd love to go back again one day.

Anyway, I have to keep this blog short & sweet so I'll sign off for now and be in touch again from Thailand! I have no idea what Internet access is like there, probably variable, so I expect I may add far fewer photos and write a little less! But I will try to keep up with the blog, even if I don't manage many personal emails.

To our family & friends back home - we've missed you and can't wait to see you all again very soon!

And to NZ & all the wonderful people that we've met here - thank you, it's been amazing!

With love, Jo & Su, xxx