My Long Awaited 'Round the World' Trip

Not as interesting on this leg although this being New Zealand - breath taking scenery is a guarantee on every single trip so there is no such thing as a boring trip here.  We left Wellington rather early in the morning with Mungu (my spelling could be way out here) - a cool local Maori guy - as our guide and headed up to the Art Deco town of Napier that got flattened by a big earthquake in the 1930's & had to be rebuilt.  Not a whole heap to do but cute little town never the less.  Then moved up to Mount Maunganui the following day via Taupo & Roturua where we got to check out the stunningly beautiful Lake Taupo (largest freshwater lake in Australasia - same size as Singapore) with its snow capped peaks in the distance as well as the Huka falls (most visited natural attraction in New Zealand) along the Waikato river (one of New Zealand longest rivers) that drains Lake Taupo.  The falls are not particularly high but the velocity with which it goes over is just remarkable (the 100M wide river is squeezed through a 20M wide gorge - every second up to 220,000 litres of water gushes through the gorge & shoots out over 8 Metres beyond to create an exquisitely beautiful blue/green foamy pool).  The name Huka is the Maori word for foam which is certainly appropriate & if I ever get round to putting photos up you will see what I mean.  Really amazing.  I had a chilled evening in Mount Maunganui & then headed off to A gloriously sunny Auckland the following day to walk along the Auckland bridge for the gorgeous view over Auckland Harbour before heading to the hostels.  As it was Christmas parade day I thought I should take a little break and have a little look see given that Christmas is almost here which just seems weird to me.  So far I have to say that I like the look of Auckland as a city.  It is also the biggest city in New Zealand at 1.4 million people and the only city over 1 million.