Hi everyone,
After five fantastic weeks it's finally time to say bye bye to New Zealand, the van and Phil's beard!
We headed up to the small town of Russell in the Bay of the Islands on Saturday and had a nice relaxing day of mooching around in the sun and drinking coffee on the beach on Sunday.
Russell was a bit of a hotbed of loose morals in its early days and became known as 'the hell hole of the pacific' due to the hard drinking, fighting-type of "tourists" it attracted in those days (insert your own joke here!)
These days it's gone a little more upmarket and makes a great place for chilling out in cafes, and as a base for exploring the many islands that are situated just off this part of the coast.
Breakfast - raging hangover optional
Then on Monday, we stopped off at Waitangi which is where the British and the Maoris signed the treaty that's seen as the founding of modern New Zealand.
How to negotiate a good treaty
After that, it was back to Auckland for one final night in the van. We splashed out a whole four quid on some local "champagne" to say farewell, before returning it to the depot on Tuesday morning.
When we first got the van we were a bit concerned about how we'd manage being cooped up in a tin can for several weeks, but in the end there was almost a tear in the eye when we gave it back (and also a bit of a celebration after we'd left the depot because they'd decided not to charge us for the windscreen chip we picked up on the last day or for the plastic plate that Sarah managed to melt after microwaving it on our first night).
Though on the plus side, giving up the van means we won't have to survive on a diet of microwave spuds and fish fingers and there'll be no more cold walks to the shower block every morning....and no more peeing in a bottle in the middle of the night.....(sorry).
We stayed with our friends Gareth and Sarah on Tuesday night. They moved over to New Zealand nearly two years ago and we weren't at all surprised to hear that they love it here. They cooked us the best meal we'd had in months (no jacket potatoes or baked beans!) and we had our first night's sleep in a proper bed since leaving Australia (for those of you who don't remember, we spent our first two nights in New Zealand in a cell in a converted jail before we got the van!).
We're back in Auckland today and have a hotel in the city centre tonight, which is very close to all the bars that are showing the Champions League Final at 6.45am local time on Thursday morning. Sarah is insisting on dragging Phil out of bed at 6 so we can get a good seat... poor bloke - how does he cope?
It's safe to say that New Zealand has been by far our favourite place on our trip. The scenery is just out of this world. In fact we were wondering if Kiwis are always disappointed whenever they go abroad because it must be hard to find anywhere that beats here (Whitley Bay excepted, obviously).
Hiring a van is the perfect way to see everything and the fact we extended our time here from three to five weeks shows just how much we liked it.
The South Island is still our favourite and we haven't seen anything that can beat the sheer beauty of Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook. If anyone is thinking of coming, then make sure you also visit Akaroa (near Christchurch), Dunedin and Otago Peninsula, Milford Sound, Queenstown, the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers and Abel Tasman National Park.
The North Island has also been great and we really liked Auckland and Wellington, the Tongariro Crossing was also amazing (though pretty tough on the legs) and the crazy-coloured, smelly pools and spas of Rotorua are well worth a visit, as is the Bay of Islands.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we're off to Santiago, though thanks to the international date line, we'll be arriving in Chile before we leave New Zealand....and we'll suddenly be five hours behind UK time instead of 11 ahead of you.
Phil's also decided that a new continent requires a new look, so the beard has gone down Gareth and Sarah's plug hole...
Shaw Guevara
Philly goat (g)ruff
Phil-lage people
Naked!
Now looking more Byker Grove than hippy drop out we're hoping we'll have less trouble at Chilean immigration...
Take care. Love Sarah and Phil x
