After Vietnam we headed for New Zealand this involved taking two flights. The first one was to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific and it was lovely, comfy seats, good food and a great choice of movies, TV programmes and games to play on the monitor at your seat.
On landing at Hong Kong we didn't leave the airport but looking out the windows it seemed very smoggy. After a couple of hours wait we got our next flight to New Zealand, unfortunately this was with another airline. The seats were uncomfortable, the food was alright and the in flight entertainment was very dated, David's monitor kept breaking up and my sound kept going. To cap it all we had an air hostess on our aisle who was very grumpy, she was alright with us but she was very snippy with the people behind and to the side of us. This was the longer of the two flights and seemed to go on for days if not months but eventually it was done. Hooray.
After landing we had to go through Customs, now I have watched Border Control at home and was feeling quite nervous about it, even though the only thing we were unsure whether it was dodgy or not was David's conical hat and we were going to declare that. On the plane we had to fill in a form with other items that might need clearance this included diving equipment and our camping gear. We were directed to the biohazard section of customs but thankfully we passed through no problem, with the staff being both friendly and helpful.
We soon picked up our rental car and were on our way. The first place we headed for was Margaret and Harry's house, Margaret is a friend of mine who I worked with a few years ago, she recently retired and moved to New Zealand with her husband Harry. Luckily we found their house quite easy and was warmly welcomed by Harry, as Margaret was out bowling. Both of them are already very involved with the local community, being members of a bowling club and volunteering at a local nature reserve.
We were only going to stay a night or two there and then head off but we ended up staying three nights. It was lovely meeting Margaret and Harry again and sharing all our news. They also took us to the bowling club, where we were made very welcome by all their friends, so much so that we went to a party at one of their houses before we left.
On our first full day with the help of Maragaret and Harry we headed to Auckland using the local buses. It was very strange seeing cars on the road following normal road rules and being able to walk on the pavement without avoiding motorbikes, pit holes or cows. The shops are starting to get very Christmassy, but it seems strange with it being so sunny. I even saw mince pies and the biggest Santa ever.
On the second day we headed to a nature reserve at Long Bay which is very close to Margaret's house and is the place where they volunteer. At the start of the walk we saw a big red shed, this amused me, as they say, it does what it says on the tin.
The walk along the coast was gorgeous with stunning views. We also saw lots of birds which was lovely, there was the normal sparrows, finches and gulls you would expect to see on coastal walks but also parrots were flying around.
The walk finished at a river.
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