We wake up this morning in a state of confusion the clocks went forward last night, but did our phones adjust automatically? We are booked onto the Overlander train, leaving Wellington at 0725, and we have to check in at 0700.

The alarm goes off and after some panic, we realise that it is only 5am, so I turn it off and set it again for another hour. It doesn't go off second time round and I wake up at 0615, run round the hotel room getting ready and we are downstairs just as the taxi arrives at 0630.

Once we are in the taxi, the day starts to run as you would hope, ten minutes later we are at the station, and just after 0700, we have boarded the train and taken our seats.

It's going to be a long trip, we know that, it's due to take about twelve hours, but the train is comfortable, not crowded and we have no screaming children in our carriage.

There isn't much to be said about the train journey, it goes through the farmland, across some more farmland and across some more. It's broken up by the odd viaduct every now and again, and we get a break about mid way through for half an hour to stretch our legs, but it's not the most exciting of journeys, but does fit in with our plan of not wanting to use rental cars or fly when we don't need to.

Arrival into Auckland actually happens about half an hour earlier than scheduled, at almost 1900, and we jump straight into a taxi to our hotel, The Ocean Inn, in Northcote. It's a 20 minute trip, but somehow, doing nothing all day whilst being stuck on a train has taken it out of us, so we go for a quick walk to familiarise ourselves with the surroundings, and head back to the hotel to watch Scotland play Argentina, and crash for the night.

We have a week here in Auckland, so plenty of time to left to see the area. The comforting thing to know is that we have no more travelling for a week, no planes, no trains, no automobiles.....