Kel: So the next day we decided to climb up Mount Manganui (just behind the van site) before we took off. It was an absolutely scorching day and it took about an hour for us to make it to the top of the hill (avec hangovers). On the way we met a superhuman from Aberdeen who must have been in his 70s/80s and had lived most of his life in NZ. He told us he should never have moved and that once you're there you're stuck... you can't carry on travelling round the world so easily. I think M thought it was a message from above or something... spooky. So we came back down and I spent the rest of the day hobbling about again with my knee (see M was right about Tongariro after all)

We drove to Auckland, had an emotional goodbye to Casper and then made our way to Sarah and Tim's. It was great to see them again and Sarah's wee bump has definitely got a wee bit bigger. They were well and Tim was getting ready for a trip to London for the marathon. We spent our time there doing our chores, getting ready for South America, exploring the cool neighbourhood of Ponsonby Rd ... oh and Matthew became obsessed with Flight of the Conchords, a fine NZ export comedy series. Sarah and Tim spoilt us with roast dinners, M and Tim got a little tiddly on the last night, and before we knew it it was time to say our goodbyes to an absolutely bloody awesome country and head for the plane.