When I woke up in my tent in Waipu Cove this morning I did not expect my day to pan out quite like this. I am in a hotel near Auckland airport and preparing to sleep so I can pick I a very delayed Gaz at 4:35am... Some 12h after he was due to arrive. I enjoyed watching two large oyster catcher type birds strutting their stuff around the campsite at the break of dawn. I made my way down the coast from the campsite to Langs Bay and then to Whangarei heads stopping ...

I started my morning trying to find a weather forecast on tv and ending up watching NZ's Phil & Fern equivalent for a while. I filed my nails and did nothing, and enjoyed it! The map I have of Auckland describes it as NZ's big little city. Having spent a day pottering around I now understand this. It takes less than 20mins stroll from one end of Central Auckland to get to the other and yet there seems to be a lot that has been packed in. Before I left the...

We touched down in Auckland at 1pm, 39 hours after leaving the cottage in Devon. I was trying to work out when I first developed a desire to visit New Zealand but as hard as I thought I couldn't pin point a time. I do remember spending hours looking through the lonely planet guide when working at Cotswold Outdoor in South Cerney when I was about 18. I know that since then, NZ has happily had the #1 spot of places I want to visit. That's 20 years, uncontes...