We flew out of Santiago on the evening of the 24th of November and arrived in Auckland 13 hours later on the morning of the 26th, completely losing a day somewhere in the process as we crossed the international date line. Unsurprisingly we did experience a little jet-lag! We stayed in a B&B in Auckland for the first two nights which was well located, and spent some time exploring the city. The weather was great, we went up the sky tower and had panoramic views over the city and wandered around the harbour area. We had a fantastic meal of New Zealand lamb down by the harbour one evening too. We also bought a new camera to replace our other one which broke in Bolivia. There is a large Japanese community in Auckland and a lot of shop and restaurant signs are in Japanese as well as English.

We then collected our campervan which is called "Wolf"! It is quite compact but has everything we need we need in it and is quite cosy. There are seats and a table which become the bed at night, a fridge, sink, gas hob and grill. We drove north to the Bay of Islands and found a campsite to stop at in Waitangi. Campsites are everywhere here with excellent facilities and only about NZ$30 a night which is just over £10 for two people. The next morning we took a speed boat (Mack Attack) from Paihia through the Bay of Islands, seeing the Hole in the Rock, Cathedral Cave and Cape Brett Lighthouse.

That afternoon we drove down to the Kai Iwi Lakes and met up with Tom Dawn and Cam, Mandy and Annalise his Kiwi friends. We spent the afternoon out on Cam's boat while they took it in turns to Wakeboard behind the boat. Wakeboarding is a bit like snowboarding and we all know how good I was at that so I declined to have a go! Martin had a go and it took him several attempts to get up but he did eventually. The effort left him with sore muscles and he walked around like a old man for a few days afterwards! We drove to Whangarei that evening and Cam offered for us to park up at his place for the night, so we did and spent Sunday morning with Tom, Cam and friends before getting invited to lunch by Cam's cousin Loren Duffy, her husband Elvan and one year old daughter Lily. We drove south that evening back towards Auckland and stopped for the night at Red Beach. Monday we spent the day at Pukekhoe preps.