Feb 11, 2005 - Journey to New Zealand

A 3 day journey from Brazil to New Zealand (including the day lost to the 'reverse Phileas Fogg' International Dateline Crossing Manouvre. Left Rio on the 8th following my rather cunning Rio->Santiago->Los Angeles->Auckland->Queenstown routing. OK, that's not exactly direct, but LAN Chile are a right pain with cheapo seats and I couldn't get availability for a Santaigo->Auckland direct flight. Several people were/are taking the same route, so this isn't just me. However, I wish I noticed beforehand that two of the flights had stops, so the...

Feb 11, 2005 - Auckland, New Zealand

After a very long flight we finally got here. Due to the time difference we ended up losing a whole day (10th). We booked into a hostel for a couple of days so we could have a look around the city. The weather is nice and hot so guess what?? we got a little burnt again! We explored the city and it sights and then went over to Waiheke Island for the day which was beautiful, the beaches and scenery were fantastic. From the 13th we are hiring a sleeper van for two weeks and are going to travel the North Island, so we will report our findings...

Feb 10, 2005 - New Zealand arrival in Auckland

Well, here we are in New Zealand... We have met with quite a few kiwis along the trip especially in Turkey. We immediately contacted Kate and had lunch with her. She was starting a new job. It was so neat to catch up. We then started discovering the north island The Auckland region boasts three harbours, two mountain ranges, 48 volcanic cones and more than 50 islands. Auckland's population is approximately 1.3 million, making it by far the largest city in New Zealand, with one third of the country's entire population. Though a need city...

Feb 9, 2005 - New Zealand

New Zealand is absolutely beautiful. It was years ago when I was watching some of the scenes in Lord of the Rings and the camera moved across the landscape that I promised myself I would go to New Zealand and here we are. It is even more beautiful in person. Melissa and I agree that my sister and Brad would absolutely love this place. They have every sport from bike riding, mountain climbing, canoeing, kayaking, etc. that they love in a beautiful surrounding. We luckily rented a car in both the south and north island to see as much as...

Feb 9, 2005 - First Days in New Zealand, Diving the Poor Knights Islands

The North Island of New Zealand has proven to be most spectacular with great sandy beaches and nice waves to surf. I landed in Auckland and quickly headed north to Whangarei to do some diving. (The 'wh' is pronounced like a 'f'...one can imagine how I sounded to them--the local Kiwis I've been traveling with have great fun correcting me, fortunetly a young American from Penn was there to back me up. Kiwis don't seem to know how to pronounce there 'i's or instead use it for their "ee" like beer, or 'birr' with a short 'i' of course they...

Feb 9, 2005 - Auckland - February 3rd to February 6th

Woke up on the plane to a clear blue sky leading to a fantastic view of Auckland on our descent. The sun was shining and Auckland was in the middle of a heat wave - cool. Not so cool, checked into the backpackers - no aircon. Our room would give most saunas a run for its money. Had to leave the window open during the night, however the noise had a lot to be desired, soon find out that the local red light district was down the side of our accommodation - only so much tooing and froing you can put up with! So next day checked out and into...

Feb 7, 2005 - Aukland

Hello all, Candice and I landed in Aukland yesterday afternoon followed by Gail about half an hour later. The security at customs is pretty tight here. They don't want any outside biological material to enter the country for fear of pests and plants. We had to wait for about an hour to get our tent back. We haven't looked at it yet but I think it will be very clean. We spent the day today wandering around the city and trying to rent a campervan within our budget. We got one called a spaceship. I'm sure it will make it into some photos. The...

Feb 2, 2005 - Auckland, New Zealand, a fine city and wonderful dinner

We couldn't believe we were in Auckland, New Zealand, already. Again, we docked right downtown, which is very convenient. We took an introduction tour of the city, seeing all the sights. It is a beautiful city, and we always are reminded that there are other places to be appreciated. The big attraction was the Sky Tower....where several people from the ship were going to bungee jump. ......1,700 ft. One of the participants was a young guy from the gym and spa. Cute and Macho,....I noticed today that he has his finger in a cast. After...

Feb 2, 2005 - Back to Auckland

Back in Auckland for a couple of days to replenish our stocks watch a bit of T.V. in comfort and prepare to head south. The last ten days have felt a bit like a warm up before the big event - when we leave Ajmols place here we will be on the road for over two months solid! So after relaxing for a while, putting some updates on this site and a couple of nice meals we head off again - next stop is the Coromandel Peninsular south east of here.

Feb 1, 2005 - Auckland

Frustration was the order of the day today; mostly in myself for taking so long to make a decision on plane tickets. I suppose it is borne of the necessity to conserve my cash reserves, but in the end it cost me more as well as having to spend another day in Auckland. This morning I learned that I cannot get a ticket into Canada without having a ticket out of Canada, and likewise England. So what this means is that I have to purchase all my flights now and I cannot do my travels standby. Would have been nice to learn all this before I left...

Jan 28, 2005 - Auckland, in 'The Land of the Long White Cloud'

(Updated by: Giles) Auckland, like Sydney, is a city on a bay and we have to say that we both love the imposed feeling of space that this gives. It's hard to explain why, but Auckland feels more like the UK than anywhere we visited in Australia. Auckland itself has a small city feel so it's easy to get around, the people are always friendly and helpful and one thing we notice is that Maori's seem to fully embrace and integrate within the western style of living life (a stark contrast to the aborigines in Australia, those of which that we...

Jan 26, 2005 - Australia Day and we are in New Zealand...

First thing we did was try to book a boat tour of the Bay. There was a Dolfin and Whale Safari but due to weather it was cancelled. So we headed down to the harbour and took a ferry to Devonport. This is the original British settlement, lots of Victoria Homes and very beautiful gardens. We did a tour of some of the volcanic mounts. Auckland and surrounding area have numerous volcanic mounts that makeup the city. After the tour we caught a city bus to Narrow Neck Beach. On the way back to the ferry terminal the Bus driver Frank showed us...