Auckland (22nd Dec - 29TH Dec 2008) Arrived in Auckland after a short 90 minute flight from Christchurch on one of Branson's airlines Pacific Blue. Auckland is easily the biggest and fastest growing city in NZ. Its population of over 1 million is more than double the population of the whole South Island. For the past week we have been living in relative luxury in a serviced apartment (Quest) in downtown Auckland. It has separate living room, bedroom and kitchen...

New Zealand - South Island (Fri 12th Dec - Sun 21st Dec) We have spent the last 9 days travelling around the South Island. We reached our first destination Nelson after a blustery 3.5 hour ferry crossing across the Cook Strait followed by a 2 hour car journey. A notice board in a local park claims that the first ever rugby match in NZ was played here but then I heard a similar claim in another town later that week. We climbed the nearby hill which has a statue a...

New Zealand -Auckland and the North Island (Friday 5th - Friday 12th December) Early morning flight to NZ. We left Tahiti at 7.30 am Thursday but due to crossing the International Dateline on route we lost a day and arrived in Auckland lunchtime Friday. We are now 13 hours ahead of the UK. Apart from myself other major celebrities arriving in Auckland that weekend included David Beckham and Kylie Minogue. An old friend Simon was at the airport to meet us and whi...