Day 1 NZ - 1/1/2011

A 4am start on New Years Day is not such a good idea at the time but it has helped us adjust to local time pretty well. After a long day we were pretty much ready for bed at about 8pm (6pm Melbourne time). Despite that we pushed ourselves to stay up until about 10pm. It seems to have worked well. (The return journey we expect to be diabolical with a 6.30am NZ time flight - oh well. We might try and change the time.)

An uneventful flight accross saw us arrive at about 1.30pm NZ time and have a relatively quick process through Customs. I ticked the 'hiking boots' box which meant we couldn't just go straight through. Oh well. Now with hire car, we set off to find our motel near Auckland city. As Rob (brother) said, they don't want you to find Auckland as the signs weren't very clear and we found ourselves in Sandringham - not the Melbourne one - which is not all that close to the city. A careful look at the better map and we turned around and headed for the motel. A nice simple room so that's all good.

We have checked out the Sky Tower (which is a bit like the tower in Sydney) by paying our $56 to get up there. The amazing view makes you wonder why people actually pay to jump off it!

A nice, cheap and early dinner at a small noodle bar in the centre of town fed us adequately ready to do a quick shop at Woolies for some supplies and then return to the motel ready for bed.

Off to Coromandel tomorrow - looking forward to it.