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 and bathroom with all mod cons, balcony with good views of the city plus (very important these days) good wi-fi connections and is only 15 minutes walk to the high street shops. It's been a fairly lazy week with some desperately needed R & R before the next stage of our travels. It has also been the first time for many years either of us has spent Christmas outside of Scotland and it doesn't feel quite right. Christmas time is also part of the main summer holiday season here and therefore seems to be a bit more low key than in the UK.

It's been good to spend a few days in one place living an almost normal life watching TV (lots of UK stuff), cooking proper meals, going for haircut ! and knowing you don't have to go or do anything if you don't feel like it. Having said that we did a few of the touristy things such as going up the Skytower, visiting the Auckland museum, hiring bikes and cycling along the coast to Mission Bay. This hiring of bikes seems to be a theme of our travels and is a good way of seeing parts of a city you might not otherwise see. One day Gwen went off to visit some relatives.

We spent a very pleasant turkey eating Christmas Day at Simon and Michele's in Devonport. They also showed us some other parts of the city including Franklin St. famous locally for the external Christmas decorations displayed in the majority of houses in the street. On out last evening we all went out for a dinner/cinema evening. (new Woody Allan film) - still to see a decent film on our travels.

On my final day I managed to play 9 holes of golf at a nearby course. Being so bad at the game I was hoping to go out on my own but I finished up playing with 2 Maoris, James and Ben and a heart transplant patient who all easily outdrove and outplayed me.

I have enjoyed our 3 weeks in New Zealand. It is in many respects like Scotland but with better weather (in general) and a few more vineyards. If I were to live here it would have to be Auckland. The south is just too deserted and most of the jobs/opportunities are in the north

One final point - thanks again to Simon and Michele for all their hospitality which has made our 2 stays in Auckland so enjoyable and hope we can return the favour sometime