We arrived in Auckland on Sunday evening and checked into our backpackers in Ponsonby. That evening we explored Ponsonby road and found a decent foodcourt for cheap and delicious Thai food. On Monday, we walked across Western Park (Verandahs Backpackers sits on the edge of this green space) and into the city's CBD for a spot of shopping and general information gathering. By evening, we had worked our way down to the harbour and ate greenlip mussels and seafood chowder for dinner in a waterside restaurant/bar. On Tuesday, we went to RockShop on K'Road - just to look at the Slash signature Les Paul Gibsons! Then, we headed out by car to explore some of the suburbs on the North Shore. We drove up to Torbay and then worked our way down to Devonport. Mainly, we ... read more

Thursday morning brought blue skies and sunshine and reminded us why we had come to Northland first. Although, despite the previous days' it had not once actually been cold - the sub-tropical climate makes even the rain enjoyable! We checked out of Little Earth Lodge, said goodbye to the people we'd met there (including Muttley the dog) and headed north for Kahoe. On the way we stopped at Keri Keri which is becoming quite a thriving town since we last visited (the fastest growing in NZ) and headed to the 'Stone Store' and 'Mission house' which are the oldest buildings in New Zealand and a testament to the first missionary settlers who arrived in the 1820s. We had to apply sun screen and the thermometer in our car hit 28 degrees! After a look around the ... read more

Just a quick blog to let everyone know that we made it here safely and are now New Zealand residents! The flight from Heathrow was enlivened by the fact that our shuttle transfer was nearly an hour late from Manchester forcing us to run across half the airport and plead to be let onto the Air New Zealand flight. The experience was also greatly enhanced by the helpful security guy at heathrow who told us we had definitely missed our plane and should just give up and go and ask to booked on the next day's plane instead of attempting to get to the departure gate (we ignored him). Our commiserations go out to our fellow Auckland-bound passengers - it's can't be nice to sit next to someone for 22 hours who smells like they have ... read more

We took a quick break from work to spend 4 days in Rome. We arrived on the Saturday at Ciampino airport, took a shuttle bus to Termini station and then the metro to our hotel/B&B. We spent the afternoon and the rest of the evening walking around the centre seeing some of the famous sights: Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Spanish Steps etc. That evening, we enjoyed the wonderful italian cusine on offer at the Hard Rock Cafe on Via Veneto. On the Sunday, we took a long walk down to the ancient part of the city: Circus Maximus, Forum, Palatine Hill, Colosseum. A pizza-and-pasta lunch overlooking the Colosseum was a highlight, and paying the bill was a lowlight. That evening, we enjoyed more wonderful italian cuisine at a very nice chinese restaurant, behind the Pantheon. Monday, we ... read more

We took the train to the seaside resort of Jurmala for our last day in Latvia. ... read more