Tuesday 17th January - Drive up to Paiha, about a five hour drive north. Arrive in a sweet beach town and a nice family run hostel. We had to get a dorm to save some money (about 5 quid each) which meant I had to share a room with smelly men!! Had a walk around the town and made some friends in our dorm. Wednesday 18th January - Up early to catch a trip to Ninety Mile Beach. It was a fabulous day looking at Huge sand dunes and sliding down them! We went to C...

Saturday 14th January - Up early to catch a flight to New Zealand. It seemed strange to have to go through imigration, since we have not had an international flight for such a long time! However, on the plus side I am building a number of stamps in my passport! We touched down in Auckland around 3pm, with NZ being 13 hours ahead of UK time! We had nothing booked but managed to find an info point and get somehere to stay. Auckland is very small and we pretty much ...