I arrived in New Zealand at about lunchtime after a 3 hour flight from Fiji. The plane journey was pleasant and the staff very courteous, as had been each experience with Air Pacific. Along the way I had met a German guy called Phillip who was also travelling from the Nadi bay Hotel to Aukland, so we sat together on the plane and moaned about how sick of Fiji we were. It was a lovely day in Fiji and I could see the city of Aukland so very clearly from the plane. The one thing that struck me when I got outside though was how cold it was. Everywhere I had been on my travels so far had been lovely and warm (with the exception of San Francisco) and I knew that the items of clothing in my rucksack were completely inappropriate for the days'travelling that was to follow. After settling into the Base Hostel (which was clean and lovely), I proceeded to the travel agent to talk through my options of visiting the rest of the island. Backpackers rarely stay in Auckland very long. Even though it is a nice city, that is pretty much all it is, a nice city. It acts as a good base to fly in and out of as it is situated North of the North Island and therefore doing a loop of both islands, terminating back in Auckland would enable you to see as much as possible. After much deliberation, I ended up booking a package with The Stray Bus Company, which seemed to incorporate most of the places I wanted to visit, with the exception of Kaikora to do the whale watching, but I thought that I could try to incorporate that into my trip independently if I gave myself enough time in Christchurch. I also needed to change my outbound flight to leave from Christchurch, rather than Auckland, to save me the trip back into the North Island revisiting the places I had already seen on the way down. The following day, Daniel flew in from Queenstown, so we met up for some food and a few drinks. Wenmt to a really nice Belgian bar, which reminded me of drunken nights in London at Belgo's. All the same over-expensive, over-strength beers that we are accustomed to in Belgian bars back home. You forget how tiddly they get you, but budgets would not stretch to getting drunk on this particular trip. My money was much better spent elsewhere, after all, I had just parted with the best part of $1,000 at the travel agent for my bus trip. Daniel left early on the 27 August (the following day) after leaving me with all of his winter clothes and a couple of books to read. I guess these are the benefits with doing a similar trip to someone else you know, who is a few weeks ahead of you. You get to know all the best places to go, things to do, what to wear and thus preventing you from wasting too much time figuring it out yourself. This Friday was primarily spent shopping with Phillip (German guy), who was under instruction to ensure that my credit card stayed firmly in my pocket. He did a sterling job of ensuring that I didn't buy a $300 jacket that I really didn't need - although I did walk out of the shop with the address of their branch in Wellington (where I was going), just as an insurance policy!! I went to bed early that evening after sampling a nice Japanese restaurant and introducing Phillip to Saki (a warm Japanese rice wine), which went down a treat and helped me to sleep like a baby. The bus was leaving early the next morning to take me around the island, so I didn't want to be feeling too ill. I knew there would be much more of that to come in the following weeks!! So I drifted off to sleep excited at the prospect of what was going to be doing and seeing over my trip of New Zealand.