Arriving in New Zealand

loosing a day definitely screws with your head!

02.02.2006 26 °C

Well our crazy days of trying to speak and understand Latin Spainish are well and truly over. 3 months seemed so long at the start of our world adventure but has certainly whizzed by. Over our final italiano charasco burger and chips in the restaraunt at Santiago airport we had a laugh thinking back on all the weird and wonderful people, places and experiences we've encounted. We were almost sad to leave. Just at the right time before the tears began to flow a gaggle of nuns toddled by making the South American nun count an impressive 32. (Nun counting started in Sao Paulo when we were waiting for our bus to Foz de Iguazu and carried on in most bus/coach stations. Seems rather sad, I know, but when your killing time nun counting is the way to go)

Oh yeah, it's now the 3rd of February but we didn't even get to see and of the 2nd. Not too sure where it went but all I can say is it had nothing to do with excess alcohol intake. The flight went pretty smoothly once the pilot announced they had a couple of final checks to make sure everything was 100%.

On arriving in Auckland at 4.30 am we had our tent checked for "illegal soil" and we were home free. Sarah's Uncle (Frank) had kindly offered to pick us up and when we got through to the main exit, at just gone 5am, there he was hugging his coffee. What a star!
Depsite not having much sleep the night before Frank also managed to take us round a couple of the nearby attractions being:

an extinct volcano, the One Tree Hill domain, which had the loudist insects in the world and was only 30mins walk from Sarah's uncles house.
The trendy and modern harbour, station and streets of Auckland city
Mt. Eden with even closer views of the Sky tower and the moutain ranges in the distance.