Hello again! Yesterday continued to be cool, cloudy and drizzly, so we spent the morning going round the shops and a local museum. We then decided to visit the local vineyard ('winery' here) and do a tour and wine tasting (well, what can you do?!). 2 hours, a lot of wine, cheese and crackers to be pretentious and very well informed (7m deep roots of a vine, I have you know), we fell into the transport back to the lodge and cracked open a dodgy New Zealand Merl...

Cool, cloudy and fine rain that soaks you through today. Finally worked out how to work the text facility so can put a few pics on here if I can. Found out last night I am now the proud aunty of a gorgeous baby girl, so will be coo-ing at tiny Billabong flipflops and the like in every shop I go into I expect! Plans today just to look around Kaikoura, relax and try some fish at the fish barbeque near the seal colony I think. Hoping for some sun again later. L...

tryin 2 send this pic again of auckland 2 days ago. no wonder we burnt slightly! x

Kia Ora! Here we are in Kaikoura. Sunny and hot!! We finally arrived in Auckland after a 4hour delay and a plane change (fuel valve problem) at 9am NZT. We had 2 NY Eve's - one at GMT and one as we approached the international date line. Los Angeles is HUGE!!! Managed to stay awake in AUckland til 7pm and then crashed. Hotel lush and nice to get the travel smell off. City was amazing, though after 3 hours kip in 48 hours was taking its toll. Found and bo...