We’d left Wellington to head to New Plymouth for new year to spend it with friends. We stayed with Andy and Midla in their lovely new home, very jealous of Andys kitchen and pop up extractor fan! We headed to Butlers to see Supergroove and bring in the new year, in shorts and flip flops, quite a change from the UK. Thanks to Midla for the late night snacks and hospitality! Sorry you weren’t with us Jo but glad you had fun with the Milking 
So what else have we done since then? Well we headed out of New Plymouth after lunch with Jo in her lovely house (they all have lovely houses) and on to Waitomo for an over night stop and swim in a lovely little campsite before continuing to National Park. We went for a walk through the hills, mountains and volcanic scenery (photos to follow) to see a waterfall flowing over a cooled lava flow, very cool.
We spent a couple days in Taupo, watching the bungie jumping and swimming in the lake.
But most importantly, we’ve come back to Auckland ready for 8:30 this morning to queue up on the 6th floor of the AA building to collect our marriage licence! Thats right, as well as Cars, Transport, Insurance, they also seem to do Births, Deaths and Marriages.
We’re staying in the SkyCity hotel which is joined to the Auckland Sky Tower, the pool on the roof looks right up at it, and while up the tower this evening you can see the tiny people swimming.
Tomorrow we’re heading off into the Coromandel to explore a part of New Zealand we’ve never been to and of course, get married.
So we’re all ready for Friday, clothes ironed, documents collated, accommodation booked and weather is looking good!
We pulled up to the traffic lights as we entered Wellington, “oh look a girl on a unicycle is crossing the road”.
Earlier that day we’d left Taupo and our spot in happy valley (between huka corner and lusty flats), with a little stop off to walk up to Huka water falls and the hot water stream (which was like bath water!). The journey had been spectacular coming through National Park and ‘Mount Doom’ which was covered in snow.
We entered the City of Wellington looking for our hotel, thats right, a hotel! With king bed and breakfast included, sometimes I spoil Becky. It was a very quiet evening being the first sunday after christmas, I’d left Becky in the hotel to have a bath and went in search for an open shop. Sadly I came back empty handed so we had a little snack and went out to find a restaurant, what we did find was a couple more unicyclists, obviously a popular sport in Wellington.
Our first nights sleep in a nice hotel and fell asleep watching some christmas movies. Lovely.
I had woken early to move our car, picked up Becky for our breakfast buffet before leaving to explore Wellington. We did a bit of shopping before walking down to the water front for some lunch and to see the Len Lye Water Whirler, the sister to the Len Lye Wind Wand. But then came more unicyclists headed down towards the TSB arena, intrigued we followed but before we got to the arena a precession of 640 more came around the corner and along the harbour. We soon realised this was the unicycling world championships, we waited for the British contingent to pass and followed them into the civic quarter to watch their acrobatics and opening ceremony with traditional Maori welcome.
Obviously that was the highlight but we did also visit the Te Papa museum. When we were here in Feb 07 the big news was that Te Papa was about take possession of a colossus squid so obviously we had to go visit the half tonne creature that is now on display.
Other highlights since then have been Waiohine Gorge where Becky proudly walked across the 100 metre long, 100 metre high rope bridge(!) and the ridiculous road through the mountains out of Wellington, sadly no photos as Becky refused to let go of the dashboard.
Off to New Plymouth now to spend new year with Midla and Jo on the beach!
The 22nd of December was a long day for us, worrying about the weather, whether heathrow would be closing, entertaining our families and waiting, lots of waiting for our 2200 hours flight from Heathrow.
We landed in Kuala Lumpar after 12 hours of turbulence with Becky a little green, the 3 hour break before our connection to Auckland was very welcome. We visited the same shops as we had 3 years ago with everything being very familiar, not least the ‘multi-cultrual toilet experience’. A new addition is the ‘mini’ forrest penned off in the middle of the airport, we went for a ‘mini’ walk through in the 30 degree rain.
The second 10 hour flight was no more enjoyable with more turbulence and the same meal we had previously eaten 3 times already. Five hours in and realising we weren’t even half way (the time slowed greatly when Becky broke her little telly and could only watch Hannah Montana: The Movie), I started to have doubts about how good an idea this was, of course those doubts disappeared quickly as we prepared to land in Auckland.
Stepping off the plane into the 22 degree heat with the blue skies reflecting off the sea it was of course worth it. We sat in arrivals and listened to the carol singers while our tent was off being fumigated.
It’s good to be back.
Merry Christmas from New Zealand.
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