Another day, another 10am checkout. Grr. We hauled our weary bodies and luggage out of the room, leaving our bags with the bridesmaids and groomsmen, who were staying on an extra night. Sarah and Martin were hosting a BBQ at their plush apartment, with Pete in charge at the grill. Dean tried Pimms for the first time and was impressed - even more as the day went on because he could never finish a glass before it was topped up! We then hauled our cases in the la...

The big day arrived and we had a big lie-in before getting suited and booted and boarding the courtesy bus that Sarah and Martin had put on to take us to the Goldwater winery for their wedding. The venue was beautiful - the ceremony at the top of a hill overlooking the bay in brilliant sunshine, followed by a lovely meal and disco in the function room. Thanks Martin and Sarah for a lovely day!

In case we haven't mentioned it before, we're in Waiheke Island and timed our trip to coincide with Sarah (who Julie used to work with) and Martin's wedding. They moved to New Zealand several years ago and since many of their guests are travelling across the planet, they've put on a whole long weekend of activities. Today, we have beach rounders / cricket at 2pm followed by nibbles and drinks at Charley Farleys. We checked out of our hostel and straight into th...

Surprisingly we weren't woken by backpackers in the TV Room next door and slept soundly until late. Dean spoke to the owner and cancelled our last 2 nights for a full refund. We then boarded the Waiheke Island Hopper, a hop-on-hop-off service to explore the island. It wasn't great... Apparently they only started at the end of January, but we had a shocking experience. We must have spent three hours waiting at bus stops to link between the three loops and there ...

Another early start today, that would have been even earlier had it not been for our motel owner's kind offer to drop us off at the nearby Hokitika airport. The airport was quite different from the multi-terminal international airports we're used to. One check in desk that only opens an hour before departure and we walked out the 20 yards between the desk and our waiting plane. From the twin propeller, 19-seater, we had a great view of Mount Cook and Tasman and ...