The North Island

Auckland
see all photos »

After a grueling 14 hour flight from Santiago, during which we lost a calender day, had a faulty back door and had to change seats (due to the guy behind us having flyblown cheesy feet) we landed in Auckland.

What a great, beautiful, lovely country. Everything is clean with lots of green, and there's proper pubs with proper pints of proper draught ale. Get in there. We spent three days in Auckland, eating fantastic food and drinking lovely beers before hiring a Toyota Hiace camper van to motor round in.

Sunset from the Skytower
see all photos »

During our 11 days in the North Island we kayaked in the Bay of Islands, visited Ninety Mile Beach (only sixty-five), saw the oldest Kauri trees (2,000 years old), camped in forests, ran over an exotic chicken thingy, ate oysters at the Auckland sea food festival, surprised Diane Jones (one of Chesta's old work mates), ate at a hangi (lots of slow roasted lamb and chicken - we'll have one when we get back), got shouted at by Maori's, learnt about Maori's, saw Kiwi's, visited volcanic lakes and mud pools, marvelled at enormous tasty looking trout, walked around Mordor & nearly got blown off Mount Doom, met up with Jakob again, camped in a car park, ate fush n' chups, had a curry and a cheeseboard, tasted lots of wine and stuff. New Zealand had been one of the highlights of the trip so far, everyone was really friendly (even when they're shouting at you) and the countryside is unbelievably beautiful. Even though Charlie laughed whenever anyone spoke for the first week or so no-one seemed to mind, not even the massive Maoris that towered over Chesta. They really are big.

The very gnarly C-Mobile
see all photos »

On the 5th we got into Wellington with Jakob in tow and killed a few hours in the excellent museum and pubs. There's a big Maori display in the museum, which includes traditional instruments and buttons so you can hear what they sound like. Thinking that they were alone, Chesta let off a loud bowel howl before realising there were witnesses behind him. "And that Charlie, is the famous Maori Trumpet".

We'd been booked onto the 1:30 am ferry to the South Island, but after a fantastic curry and few hours in the pub we found out the the ferry had been canceled due to bad weather & 7 meter swells. Finally at 3pm on the 6th we managed to set sail for the South Island. Smashing.