Auckland, New Zealand

After nearly 6 months of exploring the wonderful wonderful New Zealand, we were back to where it all began. Sat at Barry & Tomomi’s kitchen table, where the huge map adorning the wall once left us looking like idiots for pronouncing every name wrong and terrified us as to just how many places we needed to see and get to. Now we could look at the map and consider NZ, Done. We had literally gone as far North, South, East and even West as it is possible to go without hiking for several days!

When we first arrived in New Zealand the summer was 6 weeks late and we spent those 6 weeks wondering what we had done wrong, after the blazing heat of the Australia summer last year here we were having changed our plans to avoid the New Zealand winter and we felt like we were right in the middle of it. With our fleece pyjamas, hot water bottles and wool socks we battled through those first few cold weeks when we genuinely thought about changing our plans and knocking New Zealand off our travel list and thank goodness we didn’t, as it is the first place in nearly 2 and half years of travel that we both agreed, we could live here.

The views, the sights, the charm and most of all the people are what made us love New Zealand. Never ever have we felt so welcome in so many strangers’ homes and of those strangers there is not one that we don’t now call a friend. Whether you gave us a bed for a night or a week, a house for 7 weeks, invited us for drinks on Christmas Day, cooked us a breakfast, a lunch or a dinner, shared your tips on where we needed to visit, drove us to a hire car company, trusted us with your home and pets, took us on a tour or repeatedly invited us into your homes; hopefully you all know who you are and we cannot thank you all enough for making our New Zealand adventure that bit more special.

I did think that maybe we had been out of the real world for too long and we were just not used to how people had changed, but my mum and dads reaction to the cashier at the supermarket asking them how they were and what they had planned for the day truly expecting an answer and a conversation confirmed to me that it wasn’t us, it was New Zealand. Where people genuinely care and talk to each other, something so often missing in the service industry elsewhere.

Our final few days in New Zealand were spent in Auckland with the wonderful Barry & Tomomi who had offered us so much kindness. We went to the International Food festival and ate our way around the world in the comfort of an Auckland field. We watched happy clappers play glockenspiels; Rasta’s play the drums and even saw an amazing Japanese Drum display. The rain didn’t put us off, we ate ice cream under a tree until the sun came back out and continued the food tour.

The last night in New Zealand was also the final of the Cricket World cup which had come down to an Australia vs New Zealand final. Barry braved the BBQ on the patio in the rain and we all sat around and watched as much as we could as New Zealand got completely and utterly battered by Australia.

Just as he had picked us up at the start of our trip Barry was the one returning us to the airport for the next leg of our journey.

I have a feeling that this is not the last that we will see of our new friends in New Zealand, if there is a way that we can convince New Zealand to let us in for more than 6 months and will let us work to earn our keep then I predict that the Curries may well be making a reappearance.

Thank you again New Zealand and all our awesome Kiwi friends.

Farewell for now, next stop Tahiti!!