Finally I have been let loose on the blog and have approximately 13 minutes to update Auckland... Yikes.

We arrived late on Thursday evening and were wonderfully met at the airport by Kate T and her hubby Andrew who very kindly have put us up for the past 3 nights here. We then drove to the top of Mount Eden where we got a 360 degree view of Auckland at night - quite a spectacular intro to the city - and incredible how big it is. We then headed back to Kate and Andrew's lovely little flat in Grey Lynn where we were to stay for the next couple of days.

Friday lunchtime saw us meet us with another OMD face - Mazelle, who has been over with HER hubby and son visiting the out-laws! Given that she was flying that night, an excellent afternoon of drinking ensued, with a finale couple of glasses of punch at a new bar - god knows what it was called - didn't have any title above the bar - and that wasn't the punch... But run by the guys who run a Wellington bar called the Matterhorn where Fat Freddy's Drop play regularly. I was very pleased - pretty cool bar with a really good outside bit which looked like it was about to get pretty lively as we left around 8pm. They had a policy of serving you with a lot of tap water as you drank thank goodness as the punch was very strong and led us to decide a curry was in order - sadly Kiwi curry is on a par with Australian as far as spice goes... serious gap in the market for expats surely??

We spent Saturday checking out the black sand on the eastern beaches and watching a truly dreadful movie with John Travolta and Giovanni Ribisi - Mike, even you would have agreed...

Sunday, we said goodbye to Kate and Andrew, and picked up the hire car to head off up into Northland via a quick coffee to catch up with Diane Howlett who's moved over to Auckland... This seemed easy at the time, but a couple of crap road maps seriously tested the patience as we whizzed in Auckland, so sadly a very quick coffee before she had to dash off for lunch and we headed off up to our first stop on the Kiwi road trip - Pahia, in the Bay of Islands...