We have had a great Christmas in and around Tauranga on The Bay of Plenty, on the North shores of New Zealand. We rented a house overlooking Welcome Bay and moved in on the 20th of December. We were joined by Lucy's Mum, Auntie, Uncle and eventually her Dad for Christmas day.

Eating New Zealand Lamb outside on the deck, in the sunshine, taking the boat out onto the bay and laying in the hot-tub isn't our usual routine for Christmas Day but it was a fabulous change! Between Christmas and New Year we explored as much of the North of NZ as we could.

We spent time in Auckland, Mt. Maunganui, Papamoa, Rotorua, Taupo, Whakatane, Waihi Beach and Tauranga itself. You'll see from the Christmas 2008 photo album that we visited several of Rotorua's famous Geothermal areas - all very smelly (rotten eggs) from the release of Hydrogen Sulphide.

New Years Eve was a fairly quiet affair at the house and we welcomed in 2009 on the deck, some 13 hours before it was 2009 in the UK, that means that somehow 2008 was 13 hours shorter than it should have been? It's not that I find this time-zone thing confusing but when we leave Fiji at the end of February we'll arrive in Hawaii 6 hours later, 19 hours before we left.

Lucy's family have now flown to Sydney for a few days on their long trip home so Lucy and I are enjoying the last few days in the house before setting off in another campervan to see the rest of New Zealand.

Having spoken to many Kiwi's we are looking forward to seeing the South Island, so far NZ is not the most amazing place we've been to on our little trip but it's the only place we would want to live in. The grass is always greener!