Day 174, 175 - Auckland & the NZ sum up, North Island - Saturday 7th, Sunday 8th April 2012

We drove into Auckland with the sun out and the city looking lovely! First up we headed to our campsite on the north shore to have a well needed shower and some breakfast before getting the bus into the city.

Once in the city we wandered about the shops and the waterfront - Auckland seemed like a lovely city with a good mix of cool cafes, wicked little bars, normal high street type shops as well as little boutique ones. The only problem was that we'd chosen to visit on Easter weekend which meant that the shops were closing early today and would be closed completely tomorrow - doh!

Anyway we made the most of our time and before we knew it it was 4pm and we were starving! We tried to find some of the recommended places to eat but in the end we were sooooo hungry we staggered into a little café with rumbling stomachs! A coffee and sandwich and chicken pie later we emerged and with the onset of rain and grey clouds overhead plus the thought of waiting for another hour for the bus (they were on bank holiday service!) decided to head back to the campsite.

Back at home aka the camper, we snuggled up with some tea and food and lots of chocolate (a whole easter egg and a whole family bar of choc - well it is Easter!) and chilled with a few episodes of entourage - rock n roll baby!

We were awake early this morning as it seemed that one of the local schools was using the campsite for a school trip and so the noise of kids skating around the park woke us at about 7am! Anyway we decided to snooze and laze around for the morning before showering up and heading into town to meet my friend Simon and his girlfriend Anna. I used to live with Simon in Ibiza and hadn't seen him since the last time I went to the white isle over five years ago and so was looking forward to catching up. Once we'd met up, we all wandered into town, it was a beautiful sunny day and the streets were dead what with it being Easter Sunday. We arrived at a really nice little bar and ate and drank whilst hearing all of each other's news. Before we knew it was 6 o'clock and so we walked back and said our goodbyes - it was lovely catching up!

Ad and I headed back to the campsite to start packing up the van and our stuff ready for the following morning's flight out of Auckland before heading to bed.

Sum up

Do you know that the scenery is so beautiful in New Zealand that we started to run out of words to describe it and so a couple of nights into our trip in NZ we wrote a list, yes a list, of words so we would never be left speechless or wordless in our blogs. Now if that doesn't say just how spectacular (yep that was one on the list!) the landscape and sights are in New Zealand then what does?!

As well as exquisite scenery there is also an abundance of scrap metal - the countryside is literally littered with mounds of it. Old metal containers, the shells of cars from another era. It's like they are collecting it just in case there is a need for it at some point in the future. When you see the start of the rusting metal you know that you're entering into isolated NZ and a small part of your brain wonders if you will ever see human life again…...

Talking of which, when you get to those areas of isolation you can drive for hours and only come across sheep and the occasional cow, who all stare at you as if they have never seen a human before. They then proceed to trot off in fear that you might come at them with a shearing blade (proof that they have in fact seen a human before!). We have perfected our 'moo' and 'baaa' to the point where I think the sheep and cows think we are one of them!

NZ is definitely the place to have your own wheels and we loved the freedom the camper gave us to explore off the beaten track and just do what we wanted, when we wanted. There were spots that we would have never discovered or known about if we hadn't driven past them. But the other side of camper was that sometimes when it was pitch back outside at 8pm and we were in a rest stop on our own, in the middle of nowhere, we did miss the hustle and bustle of a town - the noises of people.

We divided our time in the NZ to four weeks in the South and two weeks in the North and this was mainly due to everyone saying that the South Island had more to offer and see. We have mixed views on this. Although the South Island had dramatic and breath-taking scenery of the mountains and national parks, the action packed activities of Queenstown and the cool glazier climbs of Franz Josef, the North Island had the cool thermal sights of geysers and boiling streams (which is something we'd never experienced before), the lure of the big cities of Wellington and Auckland and more Maori culture to see and experience. So in our view both Islands had just as much to offer and so in hindsight we might have spent a bit more time in the North Island (the sun shone more there too which is always a good thing in our book!).

In summary we loved NZ and the variety of landscapes and activities it offered - although these came at a cost; even though the exchange rate was good it actually turned into our most expensive country thus far! So we sadly say goodbye to this lovely little country but are looking forward to the next trip on our journey. After two and a half months in Australia and then six weeks in NZ, totalling four months in western countries; we're both ready again for a different culture and to feel like we are in the middle of somewhere and something completely out of the norm - India feels like a long time ago and we miss the daily assault on our senses of the different smells, people etc. Come on Fiji we say!