Our arrival in New Zealand was met with cheer; the airport shuttle was clear, clean and easily labelled making our transition from the airport one of ease. Our hotel room or rather pod was small. Formule 1 is a chinese hotel chain, the rooms incorporate everything - washing machine, cooking facilites, balcony etc all within 12ft x 7ft - you have to admire the planning. After nearly a month spent in the South Pacific our bodies were used to high humidity and hot temperatures so Auckland came as a bit of a surprise being cold and overcast. Bring only lightweight beach attire prompted us to panic about the looming 25 nights in the campervan. By the end of the week this had forced Caz to Kathmandu (Australian Outdoor Clothing Company) to further reduce her already small ... read more

Air New Zealand no longer flies between the pacific islands so getting from the Cook Islands to Fiji was going to be long winded. We were subjected to a 4 hour flight from the Cook Islands to Auckland crossing the international date line making it no longer tuesday morning but wednesday morning. A 12 hour transit stop in Auckland then a 3 hour flight to Nadi. Tired and exhausted we finally made it to Fiji, our third stop. Touching down late at night is always a daunting experience particularly when the taxi turns off the sealed road and drives down a bumpy dirt track for 20 minutes! As we got out of the taxi we were met with an unlit resort, lots of bonfire smoke and no one around except a 30 tooth ankle nipper guard ... read more

Once back from Akaiami we spent a few days on Aitutaki exploring the island by the help of a rented scooter. Before you can drive in Cook Islands you need to get a special Cook Island driving licience. The police figure that if you can drive from the rental garage to the police station and get there in one piece then you are a safe driver. Managed to get to the police station safely however finding a policeman to get the licience was slightly more difficult. We asked someone in the local market when the police were coming back and were told there were no policemen today and to come back tomorrow. So off we went driving around with no licience, life is very laid back in Aitutaki! Whilst on our scooter travels we came across ... read more

It all started with a huge two and half hour check-in queue at Heathrow terminal 2 care of Virgin Atlantic. Helpfully there was three girls trying to check-in four plane loads worth of people. Needless to say it didn't put us in the greatest of moods as it ended with us running for the plane and having to for go our traditional pre-flight booze up in the pub. We made up for it once airbourne. The flight was a very smooth 11 hours, managed to watch Pirates of the Carribean 3, 28 weeks later, Fantastic 4, Disturbia, Wind and Blades of Glory before snoozing for a few hours prior to landing. We landed at the wrong time, 4pm, just in time for rush hour traffic and just the thing we were both trying to get away ... read more