One of the worst nights sleep ever. For starters we can hear everything on the streets as they have paper for windows. We're in a dorm, which fortunately is only a 4-bed, and this girl came back to the room at about 2.30am, shortly after we'd started to get to sleep. Then she got up again at about 4am to leave! She must have had an early flight. Then the other guy in our room started snoring. I was so close to throwing my cushion at him. I didn't have anything heavier near me. I eventually got to sleep.
And then, I heared someone come into the room. I didn't take much notice as I was too tired but then I heard Therese talking. Basically, the guy who we checked in with last night was in our room saying he had given us too much change last night and needed to get it back to balance the till before he left. Therese already said can we not sort this out later! It was bloody 6.30am!!! And he only gave us 60 cents too much ...that's 30p!!!!!! The prat woke us up at 6.30am for 30p.

We just love dorms.

We slept then until about 11am, then got ourselves out to see Auckland. Clear blue skies! Finally, nice weather. We grabbed some lunch then had a wander around. There's lots of small shopping arcades with little shops like you'd have in seaside resorts in England. Feels very English here too. Took a walk down to the pier...cannot believe how nice the water looks! It's a turquoise colour, not what you usually get around piers.

We've booked a hop-on hop-off bus pass around New Zealand with a company called Stray. We booked it in around around August time back home so I wanted to go double check all the details at the office. Smart office down there. While we were waiting to be seen, a guy called Nick was in there who we briefly met in Surfers. Got talking to him and he was in the same situation whereby he'd had to come over to NZ early.

We got seen by one of the Stray reps and started going through our pass details, when I realised that it was the same guy I booked with through Skype, Dan. Good guy, very helpful an knowledgable, so he helped us out getting our stops or the next few days sorted out. He also managed to sell us another pass to the far north of NZ, to Paihia and Cape Reigna - got a discount too as we'd already bought the other pass.

Dan had given us a tip to go visit a place called Davenport which is a short ferry ride away. He'd given the idea to Nick and another girl called Lisa who Nick had swung by the office with. So, we all ended up going together. Cost us $9.50 (£4.75) each return and only took about 15 minutes to get there. Nice ride across the bay too.

We landed in Davenport and then took a stroll along the front before making our way to Mt Victoria. We walked though the local neighbourhood on the way there an I couldn't believe how English it looked. It was like a village out in the country. A lot of the houses reminded me of American houses though too.
Then we climbed to the top of Mt Victoria. Ok, it's not exactly a climb, but it's steep in parts. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get to the top...and what an amazing view!! Couldn't believe how nice the view is and how much we could see. Really clear blue sky day as well. When the ferry pulled in and we saw Mt Victoria I just thought we wouldn't see much at all. Well I was very wrong - good place to take a picnic too as there's loads of benches with views over Auckland city or at the other side there's lots of island's and dormant (I think) volcanoes. And the see around all this place is such a nice colour that you just wouldn't expect. Beautiful anyway.

We walked back down towards the ferry pier and did another of Dan's suggestions - got fish and chips! Well, it wasn't no Haddock, but it was still pretty nice. Snapper we had with "chips". Obviously not the same as home but they were still nice. Sat on the grass in the park and ate them. Forgot to take a flipping photo as well.

There was a couple of nice bars/pubs on the walk down, so we walked back to one of the pubs and had a pint sat outside in the sun. We drank one of the local beers called Steinlager. Nice, but cost us $8 (£4) for the privilege.

We had a nice afternoon anyway. Glad we did it too as we weren't going to do it because it was about 4pm when we got the ferry which we thought would be too late. Fortunately it doesn't get dark until around 8pm. We made a quick shopping stop at Countdown, which is the name here for Woolworths, for some breakfast bits and water and then got back to out hostel around 9.30.

We've signed up with YHA - it's the international hostel place. Membership was $42 (£21) each, but that comes with a voucher for one free nights dorm accommodation. So that's worth $29 (£14.50) in this hostel and more in the other more expensive ones. Plus we get the $3 (£1.50) per night non-member fee that we were charged for the two nights we'd already paid here. So membership cost us $7 (£3.50) max and we can use it worldwide - will come in handy for the USA.

Then we also bought YHA Bulk Beds vouchers. We've bought 10 nights of bed vouchers for $250 (£125) each. So now we know that our accommodation won't cost more than $25 (£12.50) each per night! That's half what we were paying in Oz!! It's a really good deal because some of the hostels are over $30 a night. It's a shame our first stop in Paihia is already fully booked though!

We made a few phone calls home to let everyone know we were out of Oz safe and sound and in sunny New Zealand too. Before we knew it, it was nearly midnight...and we'd yet to pack our bags for our early start tomorrow...