Arrival in Auckland, NZ. By Leanne.

So, we left L.A at a little after 9:30 pm on Sunday 8th October...and after a 12 hour flight, arrived in Auckland, New Zealand at 6:30 am on Tuesday 10th October...YES...2 DAYS LATER!! It turns out we crossed the international date line and completely lost a whole day of our lives! Never mind, we were just glad to get through the fairly rigorous border security (they are sooo funny about you bringing in any food or drink, even stuff they gave you on the plane!). We arrived at the Auckland International YHA at around 9:30 am and decided we had to stay up for the whole day, in order to keep our body clocks in tune with New Zealand...So, we went into town and by about 10:30 am, we were tucking into a lamb, gravy dinner from the local food court.

..It was the best brekkie we had had for a long time, we were well sick of the fast food that we were surrounded by in the USA, so this was great!

Now, that was a great start, but we spent the next few days feeling awful. We were clearly travel sick and very tired and did not do a whole lot apart from rest, eat, sleep and generally chill out. Afer a few days of recoperation, we went out and saw some of Auckland. We went to the museum, which has some fantastic Mauori culture and went to the harbour and saw the Auckland Harbour Bridge as well as visiting the Sky tower (the highest tower in the southern hemisphere)...We went to the cinema a couple of times (it was really cheap!)...oh, and I had a $10 haircut - that's like 3 pound 50p !! After 6 days in Auckland, a good rest and the rest of our trip in NZ planned and booked...we headed off on our trip down through the North Island...