Hi all!

We are just about to leave Auckland for Fiji in a few hours so decided it was time to do a quick rundown of our time here. We are returning to New Zealand to travel round the North Island in a couple of weeks, but our time in Auckland will be minimal.

We have found Auckland to be a pretty cool city- many people say that they do not like the place, but i cannot see why. I would not want to stay here for too much longer, but thats because it is a drain on precious money for us poor backpackers - not because of the place itself. If we were here on holiday with no budget then we would have had an awesome time, and spent loads!

I think the highlight of our time here has been watching the sun set from the Skytower. We were 220 metres up and had the perfect view, so sat for about 2 hours just watching the city go dark, and then light up again beneath us. It cost us about 10 pound, but for the time we spent up there it was well worth it. Andrew was scared to walk over the glass floor, but is contemplating doing a skydive - does anyone think he will go through with it? Answers on the message board please!

We also went to see "We Will Rock You" on Thursday 22nd. Now i know it may seem pretty cheesy, but we really enjoyed it! It was a very good show and the lead guy's voice was amazing (but i could have sang better than the lead female!). The highlight of the show was the woman sat about 3 rows in front of us who was dancing about and clapping her hands, singing along for the last 10 minutes - she was difficult to miss! That made the show for us!

I would say that the worst thing we have seen is the 'authentic Maori cultural experience' at the Auckland Museum. If you can imagine Actors from drama school working a really rubbish job that they have no enthusiasm for and do it simply to be paid then you have the gist of what we saw. We learned absolutely nothing about the culture that we did not already know - so we are hoping Rotorua will enlighten us when we get there! But never mind, you live and learn i guess!

Another cool place was 'Minus 5 bar' - which is literally an ice bar! Everything is made out of ice, the furniture, the bar, the cups you drink from, everything. They have some really good sculptures (including a hoover which Rob tested - more on Rob later!). We were given a big wooley coat and 2 pairs of gloves to wear and had about 25 minutes inside - and gee it was cold! But its fun to drink from an ice cup and not stick to it (how do they do that?).

Rob is the first nice American we have met on our travels! (so far). He was our dorm mate and taught us a few new phrases to use when we get home, which are on our video blog. He is working in New Zealand for a while but very kindly said that he loved England, especially the fish and chips and heinz beans - but does not like our minted peas - has anyone ever heard of minted peas? We haven't!

Finally we went for lunch with Hemoata, a girl we met in the Cook islands and a native Kiwi. we went to Tony's restaurant and had yummy fush and chups (how they say it!) and a steak which was delicious. Hem is so much fun and brightens up anyones day, we really enjoyed our lunch with her and will hopefully meet again at some point.

Ok then, we are off to Fiji now. We have heard that the internet is pretty expensive over there, and we are island hopping for a week so may not be updating the blog for a while - but never fear, we are back in NZ from the 5th December.

Love to all, love Andrew and Emma x