So... we arrived into New Zealand from Spanish speaking Argentina and were most impressed to hear our first Kiwi accent. Now we had already been warned by Emma and Dayna that it was a very interesting accent but this did not prepare us for the amusement of actually hearin it first hand! After this initial fun we then had to get down to the more imprtant business of getting through customs. Now being the good honest girls that we are this should have been fine but oh no... we almost got oursleves deported before even touching actual New Zealnd ground! The form is a particulary lengthy one asking if you'd been in a jungle recently- yes, been in contact with farm animals... now when it came to the question - do you have muddy boots, which in my opinion is a stupid question anyway we both answered no. Now this wasn't a lie (for me at least) since i had not worn the boots in the jungle and they were therfore not muddy. Now next thing we know the bags are going through a scanner and the man is asking us if we have any boots to which i said no and Katy stupidly copied me. Off we go round to the other side of the scanner where a scary looking man is looking at me very suspicously and then asks me if this was my bag and were there boots inside? This time of course i had to say yes leading to him asking if we'd declared them to which i said no and the suspicous look became one of 'i do not want to let you into my country'. fortunatley after examing both mine and Katy's boots he decided to be nice and let us through. By this time both me and Katy felt like criminals and were more than happy to be getting out of the airport.

We were standing by the door wondering how exactly to get to our hostel when a lovely man came up and asked (in English) if we needed a shuttle! Sorted! So much easier when everybody speaks the same language! So, we're bundled off into a little bus and driven by another lovely Kiwi man to our hostel. On the way he gave us a brief history of New Zealand and a little tour of the area before wishing us a good trip and leaving us at our new hostel - one with flushing toilets that you can put toilet paper in!!! We were checked in by Vinnie a very funny man we came to love during our stay with only one exeption which i will get to later! After a nap we headed into Auckland city centre where there was a childrens Christmas parade taking place. Now it was baking hot this day so maybe we shuld have realised but we were both rather shocked to see that Santa wore 'Jandals' (flip flops) and Sponge bob featured regulalry - what kind of Christmas parade has Sponge bob? To ease our distress at the lack of proper Christmassyness we then went, for the second time, to see Harry Potter before having a nice tea (where we both mistakenly said a lot of gracias and si's) before managing first time to get the bus back to the hostel. Next day was pretty uneventful with a bit of shopping and the first time we actually cooked a proper dinner in about 3 months. Our thrid day was even less productive when we tried in vain to book onto the Kiwi bus and found we would have to wait until Friday. We then decided we would hire a car to head up to the Bay of Islands but got a bit side tracked talking to the Canadian and Swedish guys in our room. After a night of drinking cider with the Canadian we went to bed vowing to get up early to check out and get a car.

Come lunchtime the next day we were proud hirers of an exceptionally large, automatic car with the gear stick on the steering wheel, the hand brake as a pedal on the floor and the indicators on the right hand side. I could not for the life of me get it into the drive gear and actually had to go back into the office and ask the man how to do it! But... in my defense who knew you had to keep your foot on the brake while you put it into drive? Certainly not me! Anyway, we eventually got going and as soon as we were moving a little warning light came on! Not knowing what it was for we just kept driving and hoped for the best - luckily all was fine! If that wasn't enough the real fun and games then began as we tried to navigate our way out of the city with the aid of a tom tom who told us to do such things as 'jig left, jig right'! Miraculously we did manage to leave Auckland but not without circling it a few times first. We then headed up to the coast where there were some amazing views. After a few hours we stopped at an amazing little beach to have a little picnic before carrying on up to Paihia in the bay of Islands. After several long stretches of bumpy roads, a cow in the middle of the road and a few wrong turns we finally arrived in paihia and took in the view of all the Islands. After checking in to our hostel we then got ready and went for a wander and food before heading back to the hostel for a drink. While we were sat reading and drinking we were hounded by a bunch of seriusly irritating American boys who must have been about 18. One of these boys showed us his tattoo - a portrait of a lady who he claimed was his Grandma (funny story about that to follow!) which we thought was a very strange thing to get a tattoo of and didn't believe was his grandma for a second! After moving up stairs to get away from the boys we then found oursleves locked out of our room and had to wait outside it until one of the girls with whom we were sharing returned. Losing our keys is starting to become a bit of a habit!

Next day we got back into the beast and headed back down South back to Auckland. Needing petrol we stopped at a little petrol station where once again we looked more than a little stupid! Now i knew that SOMEWHERE there wiould be a little lever to pull or a button to press but could i find it? No of course i bloody couldn't! Katy drew the short straw this time and had to go into the petrol station and ask the man to come out and help us! He spotted it from 5 miles away and then clearly thought we were too stupid to be put in charge of the petrol pump so did it for us! I've never made such a quick exit from a petrol forecourt!!! We made a few stops on the way back - one being at another pretty little beach before making our way back into the City centre much more successfully than coming out the day before. Now with our past history of having issues with renting things and getting them back on time (San Francisco bikes jumps to mind) we made sure we returned the car before closing time, all be it without the petrol topped up which would incur us a fine! After all our rushing though the man told us to take it back to the hostel with us and he would pick it up in the morning. This therefore gave us chance to go fill it up with petrol which then resulted in a 45 minute drive round the suburbs as we got ourselves lost. the procedure of putting the petrol in did run a bit smoother than the last time though!