After a 12 hour flight we landed in NZ on the 3rd Nov at 4am. After all the crappy food and frequent use of Spanglish we felt like kissing the ground. People speak English great !!!

Our first stop was Auckland, the largest city in NZ. It was a really nice city, has a lovely harbour and the famous Sky Tower in the centre giving magnificent views of the whole of Auckland.

Whilst in Auckland we took in a few sites, the first being the Auckland Museum which had several interesting Maori artifacts such as an original war canoe, a meeting house, detailed carvings, shields, spears etc. Was really interesting to see how they lived before the European invasion. The museum also explained about the Treaty of Waitangi, an agreement signed between the British and the Maori giving sovereignty to Britian. Something we still have today. Anyway hope you are all still awake!

The next place we visited was Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic encounter/underwater world. This was amazing. A place where we could actually see King Penguins and Gentoo penguins, the 2nd and 3rd largest penguins on the planet, only the Emperor is larger. This was such a great experience as it is difficult to see these penguins outside of Antarctica due to the extreme conditions they require to survive. Kelly Tarlton's mimics these exact conditions, 3 tonnes of fresh snow are pumped into the penguin enclosure each day. The light and temperature cycle in the penguin enclosure follows the austral cycle of the sub-antarctic with more daylight and higher temperatures during summer this ensures that moulting and breeding occur at the right time of the year. Each day they see a sunrise and sunset.

We climbed into a snow cat mobile and then you go under a tunnel and on a track around the penguin enclosure. You can get really close and even see them swimming underwater. The King penguins were especially magnificent. They have the distinctive yellow collar and grow up to 95 cms high and weigh about 17kg.

We were also able to view sharks, stingrays, and other underwater life, such as seahorses, turtles, lobsters, killer fish (stone fish, puffa fish), all really good to see, would definitely recommend this as it was probably our highlight in Auckland.

After the sightseeing, we had to organise our transport around NZ. Like all travellers we went for the campervan option ,although ours is not such a van more of a people carrier! It is called a spaceship and unfortunately is bright orange. It has a double bed in the back, a 2 hob gas cooker, tiny fridge, storage for pots and pans and thats about it. Very basic, but us travellers have to save those pennies where we can! It's a good job we like each other, although after a few weeks we're not too sure, maybe we'll be back for Christmas!

On our last evening in Auckland we met up with Darren, our friend from work in London. We went out for a few beers which was good fun, always good to see a familiar face.

The next day we collected our Spaceship mobile, and hit the road. First stop the Bay islands!