New Zealand - North Island

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Following our beach odyssey across the South Pacific, we were greeted with wind and rain when we arrived in Auckland. New Zealand's largest city, where a quarter of her population live isnt quite the bustling metropolis of Sydney, but it is lively enough, has a stylish renovated waterfront bustling with cafes and restaurants, and its landmark Skytower (highest building in the Southern hemisphere)dominates the skyline and gives great views of the huge harbour area, and the several extinct volcanoes that are dotted around it's suburbs.

Auckland is also very cosmopolitan - Koreans, Chinese and Japanese in particular ran all the touristy tat shops, internet cafes and restaurants - thus providing ample supplies of quality sushi. The "City of Sails" has more yachts per head of population than any other place of earth, though how someone would ever verify this fact, I'm not sure. In addition to this seafaring tradition, there is a lot of emphasis on the Maori culture, which is still alive, well and given huge respect by the authorities and tourist industries. Unlike other indiginous cultures that have been marginalised, apart from the odd patronising display in a local museum (I am thinking of the US and Australia here), the Maori in many ways really have pride of place in NZ society. The national museums in Auckland and Wellington have huge interactvie displays on the Maori's history, and the historic Wangui treaty of 1840, where the British took charge; Maori traditions are a significant political force; and most young New Zealanders, including the "europeans' proudly wear Maori bone carvings - it's trendy to be a Maori.
This is obviously carried over to the tourist trade, and the backpacker has a million and one oppurtunities to buy Paua shells, bone carvings, CDs of traditional Maori songs, and other assorted Maori flavoured paraphenalia.
In fact, take away the Lord of the Rings, the All Blacks, and the Maoris, and the NZ tourist tat shop industry would completely collapse.

Since the LotR, NZ's tourism numbers have gone stratospheric - last year, it took over Australia as the Lonely Planet readers "ultimate travel destination". And you have probably seen all the amazing looking tv adverts with it's stunning scenery. But the one thing they have cleverly ommitted from all the brochures is their weather.
It rained steadily for our 3 days in Auckland, and carried on during our stay in NZ. Think a particularly wet English summer, then add some more rain. Apparently, this is the worse summer in living memory.

After a few days exploring the various sites and attractions in Auckland, including an indoor refrigerated penguin colony (it was a slow day, and it was raining), we headed on a short flight down to the capital, Wellington.

This is where LotR was filmed, and dont they know it... greeting us at Wellington airport was a huge sculpture of the grotesque creature Gollum reaching for a large ring... only slighlty less scary was the sight of my old school friend, Ben Cattermoul who had come to meet us.
Ben and his heavily pregnant wife, Nikola live in a lovely little farmstead out in a rural valley a few miles out of Wellington. The town itself is much smaller than Auckland, and it's small harbour is dominated by the surrounding mountains.
After a long period of eating out, and moving around from day to day, it was nice to kick back, eat home cooked food, sleep in the same bed for more than 1 night, and generally relax. I got my broken tooth fixed, had my first game of golf in months, and caught up with another ex L.Welsh player and native Wellingtonian in Paul Swift. We did have some activity during our time here in using our newly granted SCUBA diver status. The water just outside Wellignton harbour was considerably colder than our previous diving in Fiji, and there werent quite as many tropical fish and coral reefs, but it was interesting all the same.

And so after a few really nice days catching up with Ben and Nikola, it was time for us to move on and get to see what we could of the South Island.

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