Kia Ora from New Zealand!

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Its spring time in New Zealand and we have had very mixed weather since being here. It hasnt at all hampered our touring of the North island but we were a bit worried when we arrived in Auckland and it started to hail stone. Since then it have been really pleasant but at night its cold and I've really felt very cold in most of the places we have stayed in. The houses seemed to be built for the warm weather and not the colder temperatures we are experiencing at night.
Besides that we found the people running the lodgings, indeed most of the New Zealanders we have met to be very open, hospitable and friendly. I guess most of the people in NZ are blowins really themselves..only just have stayed a little longer than us! NZ really does cater from the backpacker with huge networks of well equiped hostels (kitchens facilites to cook + tv lounge in most) and a whole load of activities geared towards 20 something backpackers.

So far in the last 5 days we have climbed Mt Eden, an instinct volcano in auckland, swam with some bottlenose dolphins (cousins of flipper) in the bay of islands, visited the first historic capital of NZ, Russell, played in some giant sand dunes near Cape Reinga in the very north and we had 2 great dives off Poor Knights island which jacques cousteau reckons is one of the top 10 dive sites in the world. The days are really flying so far but at least we have lots of flexability in our cheap car (Hyundai accent @ 13e a day!)

Hope to update blog entries with pictures soon now that I can access broadband in NZ...Fiji had mainly only dial up over there.

Hope everyone reading this is well...we havent heard any news in ages from anyone!!!

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Comments

[Emer]

Enjoying the travel log!
Hello Ulrika and Paul - Enjoying reading about your travels. I hope to visit NZ and Figi next year so I was particularly interested. I dont think I will be doing the diving though- too much of a scaredy cat!! I'm registering at the moment for the IST Conference in Helsinki in November. Annette and George will be going as well so I will keep you posted on how it worked out. Italo will also be there so it will be nice to meet him. Zsuzsi is travelling to Budapest tomorrow for a week. I'm just back from a week in Nerja which was very enjoyable, great to feel the sun. Take care, Emer

[Connie]

Hi Paul and Ulrika, great getting your updates.. though i may not comment, am reading and keeping track! ;) ..No news with me, plodding away at work and phd, going down to UL tomorrow actually to spend a few days at it.. Glad to hear all is going well for you both - looking forward to seeing the photos! Love, Connie