Goodbye New Zealand!!

Mr Nom Nom Has Style!

I didn't have long in Auckland before leaving New Zealand, but I made the most of it! After a lovely evening drinking wine and eating chocolate with Maia I spent the next day tracking down a bottle of wine for our evil prank on my father involving making him believe we had drank his wine. Which we kind of did, but we did get another bottle (the last one in the whole of Auckland! He had better be grateful!) I also had the chance to catch up with Jillian who took me out for some wine which quickly turned into a massive meal both of us were quite unprepared for! She showed me Auckland at night from the yaught harbour and introduced me to the maker of iwantoneofthose.com not a bad evening!

Getting a taste for Auckland Cuisine

My final day in Auckland was one of catching up on blog posts and general lounging around before briefly saying hi to a very knackered Rhiannon returning from some law conference in Australia and making my way to the airport for my flight. You can say many things about Kiwi's, but they are not subtle or indeed tactful it would seem. At the entrance to make your way through security you are confronted with a massive sign saying "This Is It Folks, Time For Final Goodbyes!". Quite frankly that just depressed me.

Me and (most of) The Freeman's (My lovely Auckland hosts!)

So, as the airport so aptly and cruelly put it, this is it. Goodbye New Zealand! The place where I made the transition between dependence and independence, between youth and adult. Oh sure the transition isn't over yet, but I've come a hell of a long way without it really feeling like I've changed at all. I guess I just understand myself and my limits a lot better now. I'm really gonna miss this country, it's amazing and I'd reccommend a visit to everyone, particularly if you're looking for a good place to do first-timer long term travel. I've met so many inspiring people on my journey, I'll remember them all and I look forward to seeing them again in future. So to all the people I've met, bye for now, thankyou for the influence you've had on the greatest adventure of my life (so far!) and make sure you stay in touch. Peace out!

The End of New Zealand

City Life- A Week in Auckland

Arriving in Auckland to horrible rainy weather (very much typical of my experience in the North Island unfortunately) but a very bright and chirpy Maia, as always! The weather for the next four days was horrific, I spent more or less the entire time indoors catching up on missed games console time and movie watching. Fantastic. I did do some productive things, like booking a trip up north and sorting out my accomodation in Hong Kong in a months time! Woop!

Auckland City

I spent some time getting hopelessly lost in central Auckland, the bus system is an absolute maze. Long story short I ended up somewhere a long way from where I intended to be. Not fun. The vast majority of the time was spent finding the things I wanted to check out rather than ACTUALLY seeing them. Auckland can be a beautiful city though, especially at night from Auckland bridge I found, unfortunately I didn't have my camera but it really is a magical sight to behold!

On a few of the days in the brief periods of sunshine between manic showers I did make it down to the beach in Mellons Bay, which was beautiful, a breath of fresh air and just a tad lonely. Nothing's as fun when you're not sharing it with any mates, so I resorted to hunting crabs in rock pools. And failed.

Sunrise in Auckland

However, I did have good fun in the evenings with Maia, sitting around eating chocolate and drinking wine infront of the tele. One night I cooked risotto for her and Rodney which was good fun, it'd been a while since I had last cooked a decent meal!

Mr Nom Nom- just look at the eyes!!

Auckland in a day..

Right I thought today wasn't going to be worthy of comment, ordinary shopping/sightseeing day. Dull. I was wrong, at least I think so personally anyway. Went into central Auckland on the train wandered around shopping, met Santa which is surreal in hot weather! Then my dad got us to meet up with his work friend Gillian (If that isn't how it's spelt I apologise!) who seems to know just about everyone and anyone, including people working on The Hobbit, apparently even Peter Jackson himself (connections win!). She took us to this very old fashioned shopping district (vintage clothes shops, antiques... you know the sort) where the shop owners were throwing a Christmas Party for regular customers. So we ended up lounging in armchairs, drinking free locally made cider, beer and wine!! (With bread and cheese on the side of course) whilst a DJ played old records in the background. If that wasn't enough we got to meet the top fashion designers in New Zealand (if that's much of a claim to fame...) who do stuff for fashion week or something. Overall, great afternoon!

Then we went all touristy and went to the top of Sky City tower for the fantastic views over the city harbour. And it turns out my dad is scared of heights, so of course sympathetic as we are we forced him onto the glass panels and jumped up and down all around him... funtimes!!