Wellington is in the south of North Island and is the capital city of New Zealand. The stunning harbour is surrounded by hills and our excursion took us around the bay. Wellington reminded us very much of San Francisco with it's brightly painted wooden houses and hills. The lovely old worldy beach houses are mixed with modern expensive ones. Some are built into the rock face and have their own funicular railways to take you to the top. At Lambton Quay we board...

We arrived at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand by tender, our ship is too large to dock at the harbour. It's our first time to New Zealand and it looks beautiful, although called the Bay of Islands, Paihai is not an island, there are 144 islands surrounding it and secluded bays with superb marine life in this North Island region. The Bay of Islands is popular for fishing, sailing and tourism and we spotted half a dozen dolphins swimming around our ship when we ...

Auckland is New Zealand's, New York! It is the largest city and is quite sprawling but neatly arranged and everywhere is clean and upmarket. We headed over the harbour bridge for a tour of the suburbs on our way to Devonport, this is an affluent area with most homes over $2 million. The houses were pretty and colourful and many are pre 1930's with verandahs made out of kauri wood. The Devonport beaches are great for surfing and we stopped there on our way to...