Writing this from LAX, we’ve now had our final day in Auckland. As the flight was quite late we decided to make the most of the day and we’ve already seen the sky tower that we wanted to, so we headed out of the city to the Aquarium.

The aquarium itself is quite big, with the key elements being a penguin exhibit and a big shark tank. Whilst not quite the experience of Ocean Park, the penguins were very good and you can see them underwater as well. The shark tank had a moving travelator to go through it; which Rebecca wanted to stay on all day. Three loops round was enough for us and I hopefully got some good photographs. After a few hours we headed out of town towards the airport and relaxed for a couple of hours in a town called Davenport. All good and got some nice shots back at the harbour. Leaving I noticed that we were near an airport, trouble is the wrong one! Thankfully loads of time so arrived with time to spare, packed, emptied our faithful campervan back (got a refund on the heater we purchased) and straight onto the plane.

Half way home now, waiting in LAX. Rebecca has been a star so far and the seats we have are very fancy business class looking. 12 hours more flight and London will welcomed

Up and out at a good time as we’ve a 3 hour drive to Auckland. Not very interesting drive, it’s getting more built up and lots of industrial areas around. Getting to Auckland we parked our campervan and bussed into the city.

Walked around Queen Street which is the main shopping area then decided as its a nice day to head up the Sky Tower; tallest building in Southern Hemisphere. Glass floors in the lifts and at the top! Got lots of photographs and decided to have a glass of bubbly!

Nice last meal out down by the Harbour “Viaduct” then grabbed a taxi back. Relaxing day!

Up late today and relaxing start to the morning. Headed out around midday to the wildlife park. Primarily it has trout, ducks and lions. Strange combination but really nicely all laid out and Rebecca loved the ducks as you can feed them. Also got really close to goats, sheep and other farm animals. Overall really nice relaxing afternoon at the park with lots of hidden walkways and bug ferns as well

Dinner turned into a load of starters in a trending and relaxing bar. Would love to setup something like this in Risborough! Belly pork, mussels and seafood selection. Nice when you also add 3 large glasses of Sav for Li and, well, it’s a brewery so got to have a few beers.
Tony

Started of the day quite leisurely this morning with an full cooked breakfast in the centre of Taupo in an Irish pub (they really do get everywhere). Next stop just a short 50 mile drive to Rotorua, booked in for a couple of nights at one of the Top 10 camps and headed out to our first stop, Te Puia, which is basically a walk through a number of large boiling mud pools and spouting geysers. All very nice and some decent size things to see rather than what we witnessed yesterday. In fact we ended spending around 4 hours there so quite a big place.

Dinner was out tonight at a local restaurant, Li had some amazing pulled pork whilst I reached for the lamb again; both good choices. Returning back the the camp we headed straight to the outdoor thermal mineral pools. Something quite nice about laying there in the dark, just watching the stars in 40 degrees water…..unfortunately, we had to take Rebecca, so nice yes; relaxing, of course not! Quick shower, bottle of wine…all good really

Tony

Back on the road this morning after our day off yesterday and we’ve got a 90 mile drive. What we didn’t realise is that the majority is on mountain roads and we don’t have the most powerful bus in the world

Destination, Taupo, was reached around 1pm and a quick bit to eat on the run and straight to a thermal walk trail. Should have only been 30 minutes, but we let Rebecca walk a lot of it so this took a while. Some nice hot rocks and vents giving of steam and the standard sulphur smell, lovely. All very Jurassic with the big ferns about as well but the are only so many photos you can take of a plant with steam! Nice little cafe at the walk as well, with chickens, Lama’s and peacocks (odd selection, we know!). Still Rebecca had good fun playing with them all

Next stop is the real reason for being in Taupo, the Haka Falls. The main river that flows thought the area, the longest in NZ enters a very narrow gorge, around 500feet long and the river pounds through at a serious rate of knots. If you fell in, you’re dead, period. Really nice photo opportunity so spent some time there as I haven’t the rest of he holiday really. Second stop was a dam downstream, again with a narrow gorge after it creating some big old rapids

Anyway, the A&E part. Basically I’ve had a serious tooth problem all day. This has happened before and I was given antibiotics to help. So, down A&E and 30 mins later out with some pills. All good but mouth hurts loads

Up and out with a nice cooked breakfast this morning. First stop this morning, the National Aquarium in Napier. Not really a touch on Ocean Park, but then not much is going to be; however good fun and Rebecca had fun on a travelator that travelled though a under tank walk through

Wine tasting! It turns out that the majority of the vineyards are down a bit south of Napier so we had a bit of a drive but not too bad. Managed to get in 5 vineyards in the afternoon. The wine here is quite different from that in the south island. The different vineyards really do produce wine that tastes different is the main thing. The reds were also quite a lot nicer than in the south and we bought a couple. Good news is that we found out the allowance is 5 bottles each; more than I thought originally Dinner was steak cooked by the Mrs and then a bottle of wine was required.

So, hot off the press, Li got accosted by a bloke on the camp site claiming he hadn’t eaten for a week. She’s just gone and given him a pack of instant noodles that we didn’t want and a bottle of really horrid red wine that we bought for 28pence and was about to chuck out!!