Rent a wreck is the marketing name, but they spend even more money to say that they are not wrecks. Well our wreck was a Nissan, by the time they got the illegal tyre changed it was too late to go anywhere. Instead we headed to Hollywood. Divine inspiration played a part in the navigation. The driving was scary - 7 lane freeways, trying to turn left across 4 lanes of traffic was not my idea of getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. We did get the...

Ground hog day! We are going to experience 25th August twice as we are going over the international date line. Despite a 12hour flight we are getting there 7 hours before we set off -let's hope it is a good un. LAZ airport is a nightmare, it took probally two hours to get out of the airport. Security measures include retinar scan and finger print checks in addition to all the other measures that they have put in place. The hassles did not stop here, we waited f...

An emotional day as we had to say goodbye to Sarah, Dave and family. We said goodbye to the kids after watching them horse riding. With a tearful goodbye we said farewell to Sarah and effectively started the long journey back to England. This part of New Zealand is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. It is like England in a parrallel universe - looks similar but with different people. On the way back we were amazed to see that the Kiwis just stop tra...

Went off with Sarah, Dave, Luke, Sam and families to another nice beach. The evening was spent eating with a few beers. It has been lovely getting the home feeling, nice meals and a sofa to chill on - and of course coffees during the day.

Another sunny day and warm. We all headed off further north to Matauri Bay for the day. Matauri Bay had a memorial to Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior that was sunk by the French - it was now collecting coral out in the bay. The bay is very pretty with lots of off shore islands and a white sandy beach (it reminded me of South Africa). After the short slog up to see the memorial we headed to the beaches. Stan showed us his surfing skills, and Dave showed us his abili...