New Zealand: Population 4million, Sheep Population 47million!

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We arrived in Auckland and it was definately colder than Oz. It actually made a welcome change though. The views from the plane were amazing. Auckland was, well just a city really but as the days went by it really started to grow on us.

On the first day there we wanted to sort out what we were going to do before starting work. Yes, work! Two and half months of sitting on our behinds is coming to an end, damit! We really wanted to hire a car to get around as we more than had enough of buses in Oz. But between the two of us it would be really expensive. Fortunately, due to my nosey, earwigging abilities I overheard a girl, Dite, who is travelling on her own saying that she wanted to hire a car too so asked if she wanted to share with us. Worked out that we had the same time frame and wanted to do the same things. Perfect. A bit later on we were talking about it in our room with a couple of girls, Jo and Laura and they wanted to come up to the Bay of Islands, so we suddenly had a full car which made it really cheap. Laura wanted to stay up there longer so we planned to leave her there. Luckily though, we met a Canadian guy, Mike, that wanted to do the rest with us so again, full car the rest of the way.

Auckland was pretty cool, we visited the Museum in The Domain which is a huge park there. The Museum had loads of really cool Mauri things and learnt loads about the culture and history of New Zealand. There was loads about volcanoes and found out that Auckland is actually sitting on one big volcano that can pretty much errupt anytime, made us feel really safe! We did a bit of shopping then back to the hostel where Dave, this cool Irish guy in our dorm offered to cook as a roast dinner. Well, we didn't hesitate and it was so fantastic! I can't even describe how good it was having home cooked roast lamb, roast pots and real gravey, heaven! (Thanx Dave, we'll love you forever). Everyone in the hostel was so jealous of us and kept staring! We also bumped into people we'd met in Oz, sarah who we expected to see, an Irish guy we'd met in Frasier Island and Jamie, the guy from Chatham we sailed the Whitsundays with. Its always really weird bumping into people you know.

That night a group of us went down to the ice bar called "-5". It is completly made of ice, the bar, the seats, even the glasses! We all had to put boots, massive coats, and gloves on to go in, we looked so funny! It was really cool (literately)!

The next day we got a free bus (free is Trev's favourite word!) to a lake just out of Auckland city. It was so beautiful there. We had to walk over huge black sand dunes to get there which sandboarded down which looked really funny. While he was doing that Jo and I trekked round to the side of the lake and climbed trees to jump in. It was so fun but did hurt when my legs slipped out from under me and I landed in the water on my bum! Trev joined us, made a spectacular jump (showing off) landing on is back, you could hear the pain! It was Waitangi Day In NZ (where the the Britsih and the Mauri signed an agreement on land rights) and there was a massive concert in The Domain which we then went to. It was brilliant, mainly Dj's playing a huge mixture of tunes. There was 40,000 people there and the atmosphere was electric. It made us love Auckland even more.

Next day we packed up the car (what a mission! five backpacks and five people, felt like playing "Tetris") and headed off for the Bay of Islands.

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Photos

Sky Tower
We didn't acually climb it but it was great to spot to help find your way home when your lost!

In our hostel kitchen!!
Ok, was actually a tank in the museum but still looks gross!

Helping to reduce the sheep population!
Jo, Laura, Dave and Trev ready to tuck into the fantastic roast.

Little bit chilly!
Trev drinking his disgusting pepper cocktail from an ice glass. Who knows why he chose that one, nearly made him sick and it was his first drink of the night!

All Wrapped Up
Top: Jo, Trev, Kim and Sarah.
Bottom: Susan, Laura and Dave

Sandboarding
Trev going down a huge dune on a body board. He came up covered in black sand, looking like he hadn't washed in weeks (actually he probably hasn't!)

I actually took a good picture!
This is the lake which i really can't remember the name of! It was so beautiful, the picture almost does it justice.

Comments

[Stefan SERB]

By the way, the last pic is not good. It is slightly blurry as the focus was not good enough. Very poor gallery, should have gone up the skytower, it is the best. For some real photos of Auckland visit my gallery at: http://www.pbase.com/stefan_serb/auckland