We have landed in continent number 2!

Although we finally touched down at 4pm rather than 4am after the trauma of Santiago airport, it still felt good to be in an English speaking country - even if we did have to fight the urge to still great everyone with a "hola"! We were naturally shattered and jet lagged, but long queues at passport control followed by us being directed off to a baggage inspection area which seemed to be reserved for UN folk who appeared to be trying to bring a staggering selection of stuff into the country, meant that our patience was pushed to the max! (note to self: do not let Hutch talk you in to declaring that you have walking boots in your backpack)

Thankfully my walking boots came back from inspection freshly disinfected and we were finally on our way!! As we sat in McDonalds later that night, nice and showered and chowing some much needed comfort food, our first impressions of Auckland were that it seemed full of randomers, with the guy sat next to us cross legged and shovelling his home made dinner down , together with a preacher on the street telling us that we are all gonna die, the prime examples! Anyway, needless to say we slept pretty damn well that Friday night, with our last proper nights sleep being on Tuesday!

On Sunday we had one of those days where you sort allsorts of stuff out and we worked our way down our to-do list (compiled by Hutch, not me!!) as we had a really successful day. We arranged our car hire for a little road trip to Bay of Islands the next day, booked our bargain of a bus pass on the Stray bus, did some laundry and fixed ourselves up with tonnes of little essentials (highlight of which was defo replacement head torches for the pair of us!!) in the local shopping centre - all in all a very productive day!!

We got up early on Sunday and headed to the Auckland Skytower for some cool views out over the city and then at midday picked up our little passion wagon for the next few days -"el cheapo!". The drive to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands took about 3 hours and we had some brilliant scenery en route, even if our little car did struggle when it came to making it up hills!

Because we made good time of it we were able to squeeze in a visit to the Waitangi reserve - a place of important historical significance as this was where the Treaty of Waitangi, between the Maori tribes and British in 1840, was signed. It was nice learning about the history of NZ and capped off a really busy but good day!!

Monday was Labour Day in NZ (the trend from South America continues!) so we figured it was a good time to do the long day trip up to Cape Reinga at the very northern tip of the island. We saw the lighthouse and then did some awesome bodyboarding down the massive sand dunes - hurtling down the slope head first! It was great fun, even if the trek up to the top of the dune each time burnt like hell!!

On our drive back to Paihia we took a slight detour to visit Ninety Mile Beach - the huge stretch of coast that vehicles can actually drive along. Although we were sensible and didn't take out el cheapo out onto the sand, that didn't stop us getting in a bit of a pickle when I slightly misjudged a 3 point turn and ended up reversing down a small ditch! Thankfully I managed to get it out again - good job seen as when we tried to push it it went nowhere! I've now started a campaign to get Hutch to do all driving in future (or at least reversing!).

We had a much needed lie in on Tuesday and spent a nice couple of hours chilling out in the sun by the beach before boarding our boat to head out into the bay, which we had got free thanks to Riggers and Staff! We saw a large school of dolphins close up on out way to the 'Hole in the Rock' and stopped off at an island on the way back, where we could appreciate the fantastic scenery of the bay with 360 views from the top of the hill.

Another early start on Wednesday was needed to make it back to Auckland in time to drop the car back and after getting to know a particular stretch if Highway 1 pretty well we ended up timing it to perfection by rocking up at 1155!

Wednesday afternoon then featured a landmark moment as, 4 months on from my last one, I finally said goodbye to my curly Afro and got a haircut! I felt a little sad seeing my locks fall to the floor, but Hutch convinced me it was for the best - although I now feel the chill of the wind a lot more!!

After faffing for the rest of the afternoon we tried to get an early night (which failed again) to get up at the crack of dawn (before 7am - seriously what is that about?!) to catch the Stray to set off on a journey round the rest of the North Island!