Blogs from Mount Eden, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

For the longest time I've wanted to visit one of the last remaining countries that is yet to be overrun with tourists - Laos - and this Southern Hemisphere summer I get to. I've been planning the trip since July, and now I find I'm just over a week away from departing. I'm so excited about the prospect of venturing deep into the unknown for three weeks. There are so many elements of planning that are only now just coming together and still more to resolve. I initially started out with this grand vision of travelling through the country really rough, without prearranged accommodation or transport... this footloose and fancy approach was really attractive to me (and in many ways necessary given the remoteness of most of Laos), but "reason" has prevailed in the last 24 ... read more

Don't know why we have such bad luck with airports! There was atone hangs before we left Chile so wewent about early to the airport. Did that help a bit, no. We wanted to leave our stuff and go browse but unfortunatelafoot us the gate wouldn't open until 7 o clock, no one knew what gate exactlyso we were of waiting in a line, anyhow in the end weblog there afterspoke time butwehave to say that LAN dI'd not impress us, there was one counter serving our flight and there wereabout 10 ppl outside to "help" customers! We arrived in Auckland a bit early, we were waitgnt for our host to pickups up, it was our first time as couch surfers. To those who are not familiar with it, you go to someone's house free of ... read more

We are about 6/7 weeks behind on our blog and have now left Asia. We arrived in Auckland, New Zealand today from Singapore (with an 8 hour layover at night in Brisbane) and we plan to travel around till March 15th when we fly to Sydney. The end of our Asian adventure was a miserable one! We both got Dengue fever, an illness passed by mosquito. It was an awful experience and we're now glad to be out of Asia. The way we're still feeling, weak and tired, we probably would have taken a flight home rather than to New Zealand if we had the choice back in Singapore. I'm sure after a good week of recuperation and seeing what New Zealand has to offer we'll be rejuvenated and more upbeat about travelling. My symptoms first ... read more

Ready for the travels! Going to be NZ for a year and than we'll see from there on. Stay with me - there's gonna be some awesome pics following eventually :-P... read more

We have enjoyed the last few days of our time in New Zealand, trying to appreciate the western comforts & ease of speaking English before we fly to Chile tomorrow! We returned to the North Island & had a few days in Napier where we stayed in a little cabin on a holiday park, which made a nice change from hostels. We had a look around Hawke’s Bay on a wine tasting tour which was great. The tour we booked on had been overbooked so we were put on a nicer one with just one other couple. They knew a lot more about wine than us & maybe thought we were a little strange when Mark & I agreed that one of the wines had the aroma of Baked Beans. Maybe we’ve had a few too ... read more