16th February 2011

This morning Tina took me to the bus station in Whangarei to catch the bus to Auckland at 11.45am. It was sad saying goodbye to her but hopefully I will see her soon in Guernsey :o)

I slept on the bus and got to Auckland at 2.45pm where Kate met me. I had never met her before but I felt at ease straight away and we chatted a lot. We got back to their house and her husband, Ray, rang and said that he had broken down in town and could we please go and rescue him? We went along in Kate's jeep and found him and his Porsche at the side of the road, looking very sorry for themselves. The car has broken a land speed record in New Zealand so it didn't look too good sat there in the layby! I went back with him to get the trailed from their house and stayed there while they sorted the car out. I skyped Mum which was nice :o)

Their house is lovely and they have a piano so I tinkled around on that for a while and stalked some people on facebook - a good afternoon! They have a cat called Biggles and he's lovely - such a pretty kitty.

We went out for tea at an Italian called Bosco Verde and had dessert of McDonald's ice-cream :o) YUMMY! We stayed up till 1.30am looking at old pictures!

17th February 2011

I woke up at 9 and skyped Mum and Benji - so good to see his face. I decided that I wanted a kiwi bird tattoo as a memento and, handily, Ray's nephew is a tattooist with his own business! He couldn't fit me in himself but I got in with a girl called Rachel - i'd never had a tattoo from a girl before so was very excited. My appointment wasn't till 1pm so we pottered about in the morning and did some washing etc.

Kate found me a nice design online so we printed it and headed off :o) We got to the shop and I handed the drawing to Rachel who went off to draw it up. She called us through and down to the basement where there was a drumkit and a few station set up. I decided to get it on the side of my left foot, behind the ankle bone. It didn't take long but was very painful!

After that we headed over to Sky Tower and had lunch at a place called Rebo. We went up the tower and I not only managed to look through the glass floor but I walked on it and sat and had my picture taken on it too! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be really. We got some funny pictures taken that looked like we were bungy jumping off the tower!

When we got back I packed and they took me to the airport. We had McDonald's (naughty naughty) and before long it was time to get on the plane. I was very sad to leave New Zealand and also very sad to leave Kate and Ray and wished I could have more time with them. I promised I would be back and would bring Ben next time!

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