Hi everyone, firstly we want to thank the Mossley crew for the little surprise hidden deep in my bag, i’ve only just found the little message book which you all put together. We enjoyed reading through the comments, and had no ideal about it, it was a great birthday treat along with the cards. Thank you all very much!Right then, so what have we been upto? Well we’re still in the city setting ourselves up, but we’ve also been doing plenty of site seeing. We visited the Auckland Museum, which was fantastic, there was so much to do and see, even a stuffed elephant! The museum has the biggest collection of Maori/Pacific art and crafts a big section on natural history, we saw loads of insects...even a Wetta and witnessed a volcanic eruption. Also there is a great section about New Zealand at war and topping it off I got chance to stand next to Edmund Hillary’s Ice axe. FantasticSO THEN THE BIG NEWS:We have a van, or should i say campervan, its amazing and has got everything we need, a sink, bed, stove, table, fridge, awning, and storage ...check out the video of our grand tour. We got a good deal on the camper, its showing its age on the outside a little but it came with everything like pots, pans and cutlery etc but more importantly its got new cam belts, fan belts, brakes, tyres, oil etc so we’ve been lucky to find it. Its a great runner, no problems and also insurance is really cheap, we got a quote from a specialist motorhome company for about £200 fully comp for the year! So lets hit the roadToday we’ve headed out to the beach to a place called Piha, its a really nice quiet stretch of coastline not too far from Auckland. Its been great testing out the van and to get out of the city and get a real taste of what NZ has to offer. The surf here is amazing, alot of people have holiday homes which lead direct onto the beach, we saw a bunch of rads just strolling out from their living room wet suited up and boards in hand ready to hit the surf.We took a stroll along the coastal track through the bush to a really good view point and then scrambled down to the beach. The wildlife was in abundance and i couldn’t believe how many starfish we saw, and the crabs are massive, the rock pools where just teaming with stuff. There was a hugh sea cave too but the tide was on its way in so we headed back to the camper to enjoy the rest of the sun before heading back to the city.We are just in the apartment now about to head out to see whats on offer for a birthday boy. Thanks again for the messages its good to hear what some of you are upto and looking forward to seeing some of you when you come out.Cheeryoxxx
Venturing out for a van
Sunday began with an early start, and as we headed to the train station we came across a film crew, and pac man characters just chilling out, they were holding mobiles so I guess its for some advert, it would of been good to watch on but we were heading to the Green lane car auction.As we arrived, we thought of our friends in Mossley and how in a few hours they would be arising for the car boot madness they all love so much. We stayed to check out a few of the little campers but they were pretty bashed, and not much more than a mattress inside. We got a feel for what is available though, and for people just looking for a car it would be perfect.As we headed back into Auckland, Lee had his mind set on getting back into bed, man flu was on its way. I thought some homemade veg soup would be a good weapon against it, so i headed to the shop, bag on back, Lee’s wallet in hand : ) although having a joint account doesn’t make spending his money any more fun. You cant complain getting half a pumpkin for 50p though.After some browsing on the trade me sight, the equivalent of ebay, I went to sleep next to thundering sneezes and dreams of a little camper. I was also looking forward to speaking to the family on skype first thing in the morning. We have internet all week for just $20 dollars and its really great to use.Thanks for the chat guys, really good to see you all, even oscar or should I say Dads legs with his black pants and slippers on : ) we have put a clock on the website which shows our time so you can work out the difference easily.So are you wondering what happened about that little camper that i went to sleep thinking about, well you are just going to have to wait a little longer to find out. Video evidence will be available soon I promise.Stay tunedEm xxx
Setting Foot In New Zealand
Well we made it! It was one long journey getting here, about 30hr of travelling I think, but our feet are finally on NZ soil...and it feels good. Although Em feels like the ground is still moving.The flight wasn’t too bad, there was loads of movies, music and documentaries to keep us entertained and excellent food which even filled me up! Our first meal was prawn cocktail followed by a gorgeous Lamb curry, top off with chocolate cake and cheese and biscuits...oh and don't forget the free booze. We also passed time by playing games against each other, I even got my name at the top of the leader board on one game against the rest of the plane hence I found it quite hard to sleep. Emma on the other hand slept far too easy, mind you she was sprawled out over me and her chair, giving her self that little extra leg room and more ‘horizontalness’!We landed in Auckland midday, but even with our free pair of socks and toothbrush we still had quite a decent aroma to us. It was fairly simple getting through customs...we had our boots and tent checked in BIO-SECURITY, but everything was ok. We got a bus into the centre of Auckland and headed to our apartment, but we didn’t anticipate that Auckland has some quite hilly roads and the 5mins walk took that little bit longer with 30kg on our backs! It was well worth it though as the apartment is really nice, we’re so glad we didn’t have to spend the night in a noisy hostel or at a random persons house, if we had gone with the HelpX option. The apartment has everything we need here...even a washing machine and free powder! We had an early night last night, only popped out to the supermarket to grab some food for tea, and then zap we were gone.We awoke today to find that there had been an earth quake in Christchurch, we’ve seen abit of the local news, it seems pretty bad but people seem ok, we hope our friends down there are ok too. The first thing to sort today was our banking, everything went smoothly, got our EFTPOS cards, one each for our joint account. Banks here are amazing, they have free internet and unlike the UK they don’t have a massive wall of glass between the banker and customers, its all open and its wasn’t busy. Amazing.I got a ton of leaflets from the iSite (visitor centre) and we had a walk around the docks which are really nice, the sea is beautiful, its got that really nice light blue colour to it! We also bobbed over to the Sky Tower and saw someone do the Sky Jump, think we will go up before the weeks done and check out the view.We just had a potter about today really to get a taste of city life in New Zealand, whilst we get over jet lag. We can’t believe how nice the people are here, people in the shops ask how you are and have a nice day etc people in the streets are the same, even the wildlife are friendly we had these little birds eat from our hands as we had lunch.Anyway, we’re going make some tea and head out later I think to see whats going down in the city of sails. Hopefully heading to a car auction tomorrow. Will post back soonLee & Em xxxP.S. Thanks for the messages on the Guestbook, we really love reading them