Yesterday we travelled from Auckland by hire car to the wonderfully named Mount Maunganui. The Mount is a big piece of rock attached to the mainland by a sandy peninsula. It makes a great holiday destination with almost 360 degree beaches. It's also where our friends Ade and Leanne live with there lovely children Maddie and Callum. Today we took a well earned rest from travelling and spent the day by the seaside. After a leisurely breakfast we ambled up the m...

We had a really informative day in Auckland so here are some of the things we learnt. At the Auckland museum we were intrigued at the examples of moari wood carving and weaving with new zealand flax. No demonstration of the hacker but I'm sure somewhere on our trip there will be one. We were amazed to find out that the first moari settlers got to New Zealand only 800 years ago at a similar time to king John signing the Magna Carta. There seems to be coffee sho...