Andy Bateman

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!