End of a New Zealand Era!

8th - 11th of February

We will miss you, precious NZ

Auckland, back to life without a car. The time had was great, but now its public transport time. We arrived at the hostel (Pentlands) around Mt Eden area. Lovely, peaceful, spacious with some nice people. Got our beds and mingled with some people. Canadian guy from Calgary, and then some Irish too. Good laughs and some sarcastic chat about sandwiches (Mark).

Next day, city time, souvenier time and sushi time too. Auckland is just another city so we didn't spend much time looking around. It does have 43 volcanoes however around it, but they are all dormant now, and just became hills really. We also felt like a few drinks tonight, so picked up a 3 litre casket of wine (goon) and away we went. Angela said that jaysus we will never be able to finish that before we leave, but as it happened she was wrong. By the end of the night every single drop was gooooon (ha ha ha). As Mark said once you finish it you can blow it up and use it as a pillow, and thats where the word goon comes from (the Aboriginal for pillow). Also this night we talked to an original kiwi, finally on our last days we met one. Angela got to confess her love for NZ to him, and he was happy. End to a good night.

Next day was less productive, so it involved more sleeping, more eating and more talking to new found friends. You gotta love the hostels for meeting great people and talking about random things, and sharing random experiences. This hostel was particularly good for that, as it was not too big and very comfy.

Last day proved to be a panic filled one. Our souvenier bag went missing. Everything we bought had disappeared. We were pretty unhappy at one point, asking everyone if they seen it. Putting up reward notes etc. We were sure it was stolen. Until we found it that is, in the kitchen, stuffed in a corner. Feeeww! Happy again. Off to the airport for our flight to Santiago, Chile.
The flight was awful for Angela, turbulence was pretty bad into around the 6th hour. But we pulled through and arrived in Chile safe. However, David mixed up the days, and thought it was the 12th, but it wasn't so we get to spend another day here and re-live the 11th for the second time. Weird ha!

Angela & David