On 19th July, we finally got out of the airports and airplanes and arrived in New Zealand. Thankfully our luggage made it too, despite all the hiccups we’d had. A quick trip to pick up our hire car and off we went to our friends Vicky and Russ, where we were staying for the next 5 days.

Kate first met Vicky at Rhodes University in South Africa in 2000. She and her family live in a lovely suburb called Milford, near the beach.

Rangitoto island is the youngest and largest of Auckland’s 48 dormant volcanoes.

Another university friend, Tam, also lives in Auckland with her family and she popped over straight away to join in the reunion.

Over the next few days, we spent time catching up, doing some sightseeing and attempting to get over the jet lag. Still haven’t quite managed the latter but we’ve had an amazing time here in Auckland.

On Saturday Tam came with us to the zero-waste farmers market at Matakana village. We enjoyed a lovely morning mooching about the stalls by the river side and the kids enjoyed spotting eels in the river!

Sylvie loved the fact that they provided a very reasonably priced dog sitting service…

In the afternoon, Vicky and her family joined us at the Sculptureum Experience. This is made up of three sculpture gardens and six art galleries – it’s a private collection of over 800 works of art.

On our last day in Auckland we headed to Browns Bay for a stroll along the beach and a spot of shopping. The kids enjoyed the park too! Then we headed to Tam’s house for a braai (bbq) and a catch up with her family.

Now it’s time to pack up our (many) bags and head to bed before continuing our journey south tomorrow morning.