Another big breakfast and got in the tank to go check out the local shops etc before heading to Vegas. We walked along the pier on Manhattan beach and then went to a "Mall", which is a large collection of shops, similar to what we would call a shopping centre. We had lunch and decided to have salad to be healthy and when asked if we wanted half portions or not, stupidly chose not to (come on only anorexics would order half portions of salad, seriously!). The problem arose due to the fact that the salads came with chicken (fine, except [View Full Entry]

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We got up and had the lovely breakfast, which was much better than UK Holiday Inn Express Breakfast. They had loads of cereals, fruit, eggs, danish pastry things and bagles. Drove to Disneyland, where we parked our (relativly) small car in the "Mickey and Friends Parking Structure". We went on lots of rides and had lunch in a fake mexican place. (One portion served two of us little English people). We found another microbrewery in Disney and I had the best pint of IPA on the whole trip there! I believe it was called the Pacific Coast Brewing Co. If you [View Full Entry]

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(Written 3 months retospectivly, but bored of doing revision!) OK, so 11 hours after taking off from NZ we land 9 hours before we took off, confused? I was. Fortunatly there was not much in the way of Jet lag cause the time difference is only a few hours, just the day before... Got screwed by the car hire people cause they then had to charge us extra insurance, fortunatly the bank increased my credit limit before we left England!!! But cause I "gave evils" to the woman at the car hire desk, she gave me the next car up, which [View Full Entry]

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OK, I got the keyboard back now! (Well basically Amy is still working, but due to admin type stuff I isn't) So a little tale about two breweries... We drove down to Auckland in the car and stopped in a little restraunt district where we enjoyed some tapas for lunch. I had managed to book us into a city centre hotel called the Shakespear brewery + hotel. Yes, we slept above a micro-brewery. the same one we visited briefly on our first trip to Auckland over a month ago! We journied out to the Galbreiths brewpub first, about a 15 min [View Full Entry]

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Hello Amy here, Rob has handed over the 'golden keyboard' - sorry if this is less amusing than his entries. This weekend was another bank holiday (Whaitangi Day for those who care) so off we went on another fairly long trip, this time to Rotorua in the centre of North Island. Got down there on friday and straight away noticed the smell. It is a geothermal area with loads of hot springs etc. and they smell of rotten eggs. Stayed in the Midway motel which also had a geothermal hot pool in the bathroom. How convient that the power of nature [View Full Entry]

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Tried fishing again this morning, no success, but our casting is improving. Travelled back stopping in Auckland to check out the "Well dressed outlet mall". I am now the proud owner of a "muscle shirt", which makes me look neither fat nor particularly gay. All I need now is a bit more muscle. Amy didn't buy anything. The best piece of divine retribution occured on the way here, some twat in a toyota "SUV" jobby honked at me when I didn't pull out into a gap in traffic that he though was big enough (personally I don't want to risk the [View Full Entry]

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Figured should start heading back North if we were to return by Tuesday (It's a bank holiday weekend for those of you who think we are slacking; you know who you are!). Took a quick detour via the tourist info to book accomodation after last nights escapades. And headed up Mt Egmont, a serious maontain at 2.5km high, could see snow on top. Views a bit Lord of the Rings like. Drove up North along the "Forgotten World Highway" It was like driving through Jurrasic park, even the bit where they is chased by the T-rex (although that might have been [View Full Entry]

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230km from Hamilton lies New Plymouth. We had breakfast in Hamilton and checked out the shops, it is quite a large city compared to Whangarei (a city here is wot we would call a town in the UK, a town here is maybe wot we call a hamlet (not the cigar but the collection of a few houses) often without an obvious pub!). Drove onwards to Otorohanga, which is built around the fact it has a Kiwi house, seriously, everything in the town makes reference to this fact and there are giant statues of Kiwi going in and out of the [View Full Entry]

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Went to a party last night, keep yer eyes peeled for photos! Having slept off the G+T's and microbrewed beer, decided to head south. Hamilton is about 3 hours away and it was about 1500hrs. ETA 1800hrs, except didn't anticipate Auckland bankholiday weekend rush hour traffic b***er. An uneventful journey down stopping only for KFC cause I was a bit hungry and got out the car for a weeand the smell made me buy it, honest! We found a motel in Hamilton where we were told the only room left was buy the road "but it does have 6mm sound resistant [View Full Entry]

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Drove up to Bay of Islands, stopping to see the world famous toilets in Kawakawa. We stayed in a motel for 2 nights. Were greeted by some crazy guy who smelt of really bad BO, with a bird on his shoulder which had evidently been trained to shit down his back. The rooms were clean though. Looked around town, went to the beach and swam in the sea, had some dinner (really cheap and nice seafood) and a few drinks. Then headed off for Kayaking the following morning. It was fairly choppy with a good breeze blowing and intermittant sunshine. Apart [View Full Entry]

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