Hey guys. Things are going really well here in New Zealand, despite the weather, which seems intent on dumping as much rain as possible on us in as short an amount of time as possible. Happily though, whenever we seem to plan a day outside the weather clears up long enough do do what we were hoping to do, hopefully this keeps happening. After a variety of experiences in our 3 days in Auckland, Elke and I picked up our van, which is great and includes a fridge and a DVD player, and set off on our exploration of the North Island. We had some difficulties initially with directions as we went around in circles for about 20 minutes trying to get out of the city before finally caving and buying another far more detailed, and ... read more

Before I left Canada I tried talking to as many people as I could who had done some traveling in the countires I was hoping to visit and, without a doubt, the one country that kept coming up as a must visit destination was New Zealand. This was no real surprise as I have been hearing great things about New Zealand for ages and so I was excited to leave Fiji and head out to Auckland for the better part of 5 weeks. The flight from Nadi to Auckland was only about 3 hours and I would have to say that it was the most pleasurable experience that I have ever had on a flight. We flew with Air New Zealand and they treated us to a great flight. Plenty of room in the chairs, lots ... read more