New Zealand

So these last 4 days I've been staying in Auckland.  It's a pretty ordinary city but if you take a ferry to one of the surrounding islands it's pretty amazing.  I felt like I'm in a modern day shire when we arrived at Waiheki.  Waiheki is a great day trip if anyone is ever in Auckland.  The beachs are in these little nice protected coves with odd looking water with spots of purple that look like wine.  They've actually found a way to turn water into wine here I guess.  Peter and I grabbed a beer and chilled on the beach.  I actually fell asleep for a few minutes before waking up to a chilly breeze.  The weather is still a little bit cold here.  It's in the 60's in the day and 50's at night.  I'm hoping it warms up a little more in the next few weeks.

Today we got a car, which was a huge relief.  It's a gold Honda Accord that we are calling the Gold Nugget.  We will head up to Bay of Islands in a few and really start the journey.  It's not fun being stuck in a city when you know that the surrounding area is middle earth so the Gold Nugget is our ticket out.

The odd thing about New Zealand so far is that I haven't met a lot of locals.  Auckland is saturated with backpackers and I might as well be in England because Brits are ubiqitous here.  Australia had a lot more locals but then again Australia has a population of 20 million opposed to 4 million here.  3 million of that might be sheep...  Anyways off to Bay of Islands.