We arrived in Auckland on a Friday afternoon having left Rarotonga on Thursday morning. This was of course as we had crossed the international dateline. The flight itself was only about 4 hours but we had lost a day (but gained a days budget!) and had gone from being 11 hours behind the UK to 11 hours ahead. Bizarre. 
Landing in Auckland was exciting but also cold! We were looking forward to exploring New Zealand but it was also their winter! This meant that after 5 whole months of summerwear we had to dig out what winter woolies we had. Having done this we quickly realised we would have need to get some proper stuff. What a great excuse to go shopping! Much time was spent perusing the empty shopping streets of Auckland, we couldn't work out where everyone was, but I guess with a population of 1.2mil Auckland isn't exactly a massive city, and they obviously don't consider Saturday a serious shopping day! Anyway, Mik eventually decided which coat he wanted to buy and we could concentrate on other activities!!
Like finding out what food was on offer! There was sushi galore, which was a real treat for me, hundreds of Chinese restaurants due to the large Asian community in Auckland AND most importantly (for Mik at least) fish and chip shops. One night we treated ourselves to a meal in a Brazilian restaurant. It had been so fantastic in Rio we couldn't resist. It was great, as much meat off the skewer as we could eat but it cost us a day's budget! I think that was a bit of a wake up call for us, we wouldn't be eating out much during our time in NZ.
The weather did come as a bit of a shock but part of me found it a nice change - go figure! Not the rain though, and the first afternoon there it was raining. We headed out with our umbrella, unfortunately it was also extremely windy and before we knew it our high quality umbrella, bought on the streets of Bolivia, was destroyed. Great! Not even an umbrella could have helped us the following day as we wandered around the city being soaked by horizontal rain, quite impressive! This was of course also before we had stocked up on decent waterproofs.
Our activities were further hindered the next day by a power cut. We lost power at 8.30am and when one is in a city you don't really expect it to last long so we set out for the shops hoping it would be back on by the time we got there. Yeah right! The power cut lasted nearly the whole day in most parts of Auckland. The whole city had gone down and as such many businesses had closed up for the day and gone home (to rescue the food in their freezers no doubt!) So we wandered the empty streets not able to book a hire car or buy anything. The most annoying part was that there wasn't much to be had by way of food either, in fact it was 4pm and the electricity had just come back on before we got some food - fish and chips by the way!
We had arrived in Auckland on the first day of the World Cup and as such made it our mission to find somewhere where they were going to show the England game the following day. Being 10 hours ahead of Germany wasn't going to make this an easy task as games were going to be at 1, 4 or 7am in the morning our time! Luckily the first England game was at 1am and we found a pub (serving pints of ale and cider - result!) which was showing it. We went earlier the same evening to watch the rugby and even though New Zealand had been playing there were actually about 3 times as many people watching the footie which made for a good atmosphere - despite England's poor performance. It was even better in that they don't allow smoking in pubs anymore, so there were many people watching the game through the windows, fag in hand!
Having sussed out the campervan and car rental deals we eventually decided to go for the car. I 
had really wanted to try and campervan at least for a few days but it was so wet and cold, and as we got a good offer on a 4x4 we went with that. This would also probably come in very handy when we reached the South Island as they had just had highest snowfall for 14 years - that could prove interesting! So after the winter clothes had been bought and the car hired, off we headed. The motorway out of the city only lasted until the skyline was out of view then became your average A road. Apparently they don't have much motorway at all, anywhere, but then with a mere 4 million people living in the entire country I guess they don't need them.
Our first stop was the Bay of Islands to the north east of Auckland where we were hoping for less rain! The area is beautiful and the lack of motorways made for a really enjoyable drive. We explored the bay and one of the islands by getting a boat across and luckily it was a beautiful day (well the morning at least). The weather appears to be very changable here! As we are visiting in the off season (could it be the rain putting people off?) there weren't many people out and about here either. In fact the largest number of people we saw in one place was when we got up at 6.30am to go to one of the local bars which was showing the footie and doing a breakfast special! The fry up was enough to tempt me up that early to watch football!
We also visited the Waitangi National Reserve covering the site where the treaty between New Zealand and Britain was signed back in 1832 making NZ a British colony. Then we decided to head further north to Ninety Mile beach, so called because.....well actually we don't know as the beach isn't actually quite that long. 
The locals obviously decided that 82 mile beach didn't have the same ring to it! We saw a very small section of the stunningly wild beach as the weather was closing in and we decided it we wouldn't drive the length of it. Instead we headed back south, crossed a river by ferry and stopped in a small harbour town for the night. We spotted a B&B sign and were really glad we checked it out as we ended up getting a whole 2 bed cottage to ourselves. It was the biggest place we had stayed in and even though it was just for one night we really enjoyed having a lounge and separate bedroom. Real luxury.
We had intended to set off early the following morning but as it was chucking it down we had a lie in ('cos we don't get many of those!)! The plan was to head into the Waipoua Kauri Forest and go for a walk to check out the famous indigenous trees. We reached the parking area at the start of the trail on vapour and after a chat to some guys who were travelling in the opposite direction we realised we would have to go back the way we came to fill up! Having done this and come back to the forest the rains came down and we abandoned the idea of a walk. We took a quick detour to see just one of the trees then headed back to Auckland. If we got there in time, and there were tickets left, we wanted to go see the All Blacks play Ireland at rugby. Fingers crossed as I don't think seeing a tree qualifies as an overly productive day!!
Cara
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