New Year's Eve in Melbourne and the temperature was 41 degrees. We could hardly move! Despite the heat we did have a really good time, we spent the evening with Nerida and a group of her friends.
We started the evening with a barbecue and a few drinks, then moved onto a local bar where we sat outside to watch the fireworks and ended it all by falling asleep in Nerida's back garden (!)
Despite our New Year's Day hangovers we were determined to see more of Melbourne city so Nerida kindly took us on a guided tour. This is Flinders Street Station. There are a lot of beautiful buildings throughout the city and it was very good for pictures as there were hardly any people about due to it being New Year's Day.
Melbourne is a great city, probably our favourite in Australia. There is a strong music, art and coffee culture.
You can't walk down a street without walking round the cafe tables on the pavement. It's very European and we very much enjoyed sitting around and drinking coffee.
That evening we had another barbecue and if you click on the photo to the left you can see me literally "chucking another shrimp on the barbie!" Cheesy, I know, but it's a classic.Auckland (02/01/08 -04/01/08)
The next day we had a flight to Auckland, New Zealand booked. We were supposed to arrive at 18:30 but after a 6 hour delay and a detour to Sydney we finally arrived at 01:30 with no accommodation booked! The next couple of days were mainly spent catching up on sleep and the usual activity of planning and booking that happens every time we reach a new country. Whilst walking around Auckland we got to see the famous harbour and experience the multicultural city. The only thing that let us down a bit was the weather. New Zealand weather is supposed to be very similar to English weather so this makes perfect sense!The Kaori Coast (05/01/08 - 06/01/08)
On the 5th we picked up a rental car and set off towards The Northlands of the North Island. After a lot of driving and a coffee at one of the weirdest cafes we have been to (the woman was obsessed with frogs!) we arrived at the Kaori Coast. The first thing we saw were some beautiful fresh water lakes called Kai-lwi.
When we reached the Waipoua forest we got to see the largest Kauri tree in the world called Tane Mauta or "God of The Forest" the trunk is 17.7m high and the girth is an amazing 13.8m! If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see Jennie waving her arms at the trunk base.
We then spent the night at a place called Opononi which has a population of 150. It might sound a bit out of the way but it was one of the homeliest hostels we had stayed at and was right next to the huge Hokianga sand dunes.
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