Blogs from New Zealand, Oceania - page 2519

We went on a day trip to Devonport, which is directly across the harbour from Auckland city. It's part of Greater Auckland, but is a separate town. It's a wee holiday place, with lots of Victorian buildings, and was a nice place for a stroll. We found a pub that sells Tennants lager as a speciality beer, isn't that funny! Devonport is built on two volcanic cones, and we climbed up one of them. We took lots of boring pictures of the Auckland skyline (which I'm not going to bore you all with) but in the other direction you could see for miles. The closest island to Devonport is Rangitoto, another volcano, but one which has only been there for about 600 years. Geographers among you - isn't that a great picture of a volcano?!... read more

We’ve been in New Zealand for a week now and there’s lots to tell… I’m not sure where to start… First impressions of NZ are good. Auckland is a nice city, very culturally diverse (it has the biggest Polynesian population outside the islands, and lots of people from SE Asia live here too) and very friendly. Even the people at passport control in the airport are friendly! After our introduction to Auckland nightlife on the day we arrived we had a low-key weekend, apart from finding a flat that is. We ended up flat-hunting by accident on Sunday (it’s a long story!) and found one we really like - very central, one bedroom, comes with Sky TV included, and is on the 9th floor with views of the city and the ocean. Oh, and did I ... read more

Hey Guys, Just a quick hello, how are you message from home before I leave, to let you know how I'm planning on updating you all. (ps Thanks for the great travel diary idea tiff, hopefully mine will be as cool to read as yours.....;o)) It's pretty exciting realising that departure is so close! A little scary too, but not too much! Just to remind you all....I'm off to Lyon tomorrow, via Chch, Auckland, LA and Frankfurt....all in all about 38 hours of airports and planes....sigh. Well lots of packing and last minute organisation to do here, of course, Sending masses of love and hugs to you all, hoping everyone is well and happy, I'll email from France when I get a chance! Any emails will be gladly recieved at my end, I'm sure I'll be missing ... read more

I spent the last few days in New Zealand in Christchurch staying with my great-auntie Janet - well I think that is her relation to me. Janet has been in N.Z. for forty years, yet she still has a broad Dundee accent while I have been in the country four weeks and have a strange mixture of accents depending on who I am talking to at the time. Janet and her welcoming friends and family are proud Scots and seem to have enjoyed re-telling stories from their past and I have very much enjoyed listening to them. Janet took good care of me, feeding me home-made soup and making sure my electric blanket was turned on. In fact it was just like being at home - which is where I wanted to go when I left ... read more

I was pretty jealous of the folk who had perfectly clear weather and took a scenic flight back to Queenstown, so you can imagine how happy I was to wake up and find that yesterday's overcast weather had cleared and once again the sun was shining without a cloud in sight. I phoned the airline and arranged to be picked up from my hostel, taken to the airport, a 45min scenic flight and a transfer back to the hostel in Queenstown.  Yep, the credit card has absorbed yet another one of my impulses which I will have to deal with when I get home!!! It turned out to be even better than that though - for no extra charge a hunky pilot picked me up and flew me back to Queenstown!!! Oh yeah!!! You will be pleased to ... read more