Andy Bateman

We've almost been here a week now and it's flown, we were sad to leave Rarotonga behind but equally excited to get to New Zealand! Our flight out of RAR was as simple as we remembered, arriving just 45 minutes before our flight left, how many international airports allow you to do that?

Our final days were filled with doing more of the same: diving, sitting on the beach, walking to find some food, sitting on the beach with our food, walking back to our house, swimming, maybe sitting on the beach watching the stars, Bed. (and repeat)

Sad to have left our spacious A frame house behind as we're staying in a little double room in Auckland, the bathroom is a couple minutes walk down the hallway and the swimming is 4k away... Still, we're in the center of the city and have a good view of the shoppers on Queen Street.

We've both done a little bit of work, and what we've been calling 'research', this entails going to all the galleries, zoos and other tourist attractions just in case we find work there :) Our surprising little gem being the Museum of Transport and Technology (www.motat.co.nz), absolutely brilliant and not just for the geeky.

[flickr]photo:5501620437[/flickr]

The next part of out trip includes a train journey to Wellington on the Overlander (http://www.seat61.com/Overlander.htm), very exciting :) Bit of an explore there, then who knows! At least until April...

Other interesting and exciting news includes two girls in a lift in Auckland wanted a photo with me as they were ex students and recognised me from the other side of the world, crazy!

Thanks Stevie P for my Spork! (http://goo.gl/q1mhq) I'm taking it everywhere, it's amazing :) Thanks other Huish guys for my very generous leaving present, my tripod has gotten a lot of use already (http://goo.gl/FqNrG)