Next stop New Zealand!

---

And so we finally left South America and flew into New Zealand, a place we had looked forward to visiting ever since we planned the trip. We arrived into Auckland (and managed to see David Beckham in the airport as LA Galaxy had an exhibition game in the city that week) with two of the friends we had met back in Chile, and decided to head out on a little road trip for a few days into the Northland - the northern most area of NZ above Auckland.

After a few hours in the city (a very big, relatively clean city after all the polution of SA!) we started our roadtrip north and headed up the East coast, quickly noticing how green and lush the area was. It wasnt like the NZ I had envisaged, it was more like Cornwall of rural England - lots of green rolling hills, farms and many many sheep! We headed upto Whangarei where we camped on a beach and it was absolutely stunning.

We continued to head north the next day to visit the famous "Bay of Islands", and on route stopped off at a few beaches, that were absolutely stunning - beautiful sand with gorgeous turquoise/green water, something I had expected more of Oz or Thailand more than here! Many of the small beaches were completely empty so it was a great day, but we were quickly becoming accustomed to one of NZ's downfalls......sandflies!

We arrived at the Bay of Islands a little later that day and took the ferry across from Pahia to Russell, which was beautiful. The Bay itself was very pretty, however we felt it was a little over rated (The AA rates it as the No2 destination to visit in the whole of NZ) as it didnt seem to compare to the beahces we had visited earlier that day.

We headed to the West coast to visit the famous 90 mile beach, which was exactly as it sounds! But unfortunately the weather wasnt as great so the views down the beach werent as dramatic as we had hoped.

On route down the West coast we stopped off at the Whanganui National Park to see its famous Khauri trees, which are absolutely huge!! I have forgotten the exact dimensions but they were amazing, and are very important to the Maori's. hopefully the pictures will be able to show the sheer size of them.

We slept not far from the park and it was amazing to be camping in the great outdoors as the smells of the forests were lush and so fresh. We even went on a night walk to try and stop kiwis, to no avail, but we did spot many glow worms that easily made up for it.

We returned to Auckland via Piha, one of the cities surrounding beaches and it was incredible to watach the sunset by the beaches great "Lionrock".

Back in Auckland we said our goodbyes and set about exploring the city and finding our own car ready for our own roadtrip. The city itself is very large like most cities, but it does have a nice harbour and the star of the skyline in certainly the Skytower, which we took a trip up to see the sunset, and it offered excellent panoramic views of the city and surrounding areas.

We were quickly settling into NZ life and were enjoying our stay, and after finding our own car we set off on our road trip down towards the South Island!

---

Photos

Auckland
views from the Skytower

Beaches in Northland
not a person in sight!

Kauri Trees
they were enormous!

Auckland
Views from the Skytower

Skytower by night
it was suppose to look like a Christmas tree!