New Zealand

All of NZ

Sunset Over the Oysters

Posted by MrFogg
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Ahhh what a view and what a drive from Thames down to Coromandel. Tonight we wombled into the ah hem, town (well one street with about 20 shops) and had a glorious meal at the Success Cafe (fantastic service and food). And tonight we are watching this beautiful sunset over the oyster and mussel beds whilst sipping a local Pinot Noir called Mercury Bay (lovely).

Tomorrow we head South East to Pauanui (pronounced POW an OO EE) where we will stop at the Pauanui Pines Lodge. Unfortunately due to late tides and the fact it’s Bank Holiday weekend (personally I’d have thought my Tour Geek would have researched this however given she took us to Venice on the main Bank Holiday for Italians sat in a traffic queue for 5 hours, why am I surprised, you get the service you pay for) we won’t get to use the hot water beach (booo).

Hats orf to ya Mrs Fogg, blinding job as always.

Wonderful Sunset After a Day of Rain from here.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

The Thames

Posted by MrFogg
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Car hire sorted, nice big automatic RAV4, plenty of luggage space, blacked out windows and tonneau cover. All insured and we is off for the 113km drive via the scenic highway, with lush vegetation and wonderful roads.

Lunch, so do we stop at a world famous fish and chip restaurant or drive on to a pokey little cafe in Pipiroa called worryingly “The Pipiroa Country Kitchen, Purveyors of wickedly good country fare”, Mrs Fogg decided it would be cool to stop here oh boy!

Burger, yuck, no salad, no fries, Mrs Fogg had a toasty not nice sarnie and two drinks all for £12, bargain. The best bit, this hand written sign hanging in the loo, top ten recommendation, hell no. The sign reads hanging below a toilet smelly thing “Do not take it home, for public smell good!” Alrighty then.

On to Thames and the Cotswold Cottage, after visiting a gold mine and panning for gold.

Good Thames from here.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

Baa Baa Auckland

Posted by MrFogg
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Early rise, breakfast at Gloria Jean’s again and then off to find our hire car.

Auckland is a pretty city with very diverse cultures but as Mrs Fogg says, very small in city sizes. Chatting with Mrs Pastie online last night (Ginny Kiwi bird) she found Mrs Fogg’s comment amusing stating that to New Zealander’s this is the largest city they have, oh well tiny towns here we come. To be honest we love the small backwater places, more interesting (and less chance of museums too).

The picture is of the Auckland skyline, which is up there with HK and Boston, very beautiful.

looking forward to the next few weeks, narrow roads and nutter US drivers having to come to terms with left hand drive, km/h and roundabouts (which in isolation is enough to befuddle, but altogether, oh boy).

Last Brekky in Auckland here.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

Devonport

Posted by MrsFogg
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Recipe for a good day:

Great sleep – check, must have slept at least 8 or 9 hours yesterday

Great company – check. Mr Fogg was on full form, nutty as hell and bouncy! And only with two coffees too!

Great weather – check. Twenty four degrees, deep blue sky and no clouds.

Nice location – check. Auckland is tiny but cute with incredibly friendly people.

So it was a choice today of going to the museum and the planetarium or doing something that did not involve trying to drag Mr Fogg around historic things. No museum then……

Off instead on a ferry ten minutes across the bay to a tiny island where Devonport is. It is a small village dating back to mid 1800s and before that was a Maori settlement (see that Mr Fogg, got some history in there too). There is a long dead volcano on top called Mt Victoria which was converted into an underground fort to repel Russian attacks and apparently the island is riddled with old military tunnels.

The best thing about Devonport is that you go to buy fish and chips ( the fish here has a choice of three but we opted for Hoki) and then go sit and eat them out of the paper on the beach. So we did. The portions were huge, the fish great and the view across the bay back to Auckland spectacular.

We went and annoyed the local Tourist office ( Mrs Helpful clearly decided the pair of us were mad after chatting to us for 20 mins and smiled indulgently at us after a while), before catching the ferry back and bagging seats right at the front of the ship.

Great day, tired feet. I’ve loads of brochures of things to do next and can feel something historic around the corner…..watch out Mr Fogg, might sneak a museum into the itinerary yet!

Last night in Auckland before we go collect the hire car in the morning.

[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]

Campgrounds of Auckland

Posted by MrFogg
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Ok so it isn’t a campground but one of the many “anti capitalist protest camps” setup around the world that few seem to care about and sweet FA happens on the back of. The difference here is that it’s a warm climate unlike the ne’er dowels in London who have foolishly sat in the freezing cold, here it seems more like a happy campground. I can tell you we have camped in much worse places (Georgia with the tent burning incident and Scarborough with the “no potty for the kiddies so we’ll use a saucepan”). Still whatever floats your boat (obviously you won’t have any smart phones or laptops to talk to the world on, or free wifi to access the web since that would just be buying into “the man” wouldn’t it).

Mr Fogg Rant over, Grrrr (oh was I supposed to warn about my ranting first, dam).

Sipping a Latte in Gloria Jeans Coffee House here.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

I’m Home

Posted by MrFogg
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Nuff said really, forget all this ponce and circumstance of giving some a key to the city, the good peeps of Auckland obviously heard I was coming over and decided that a key was not enough and I needed my own building.

Yey Me!

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

My Precious

Posted by MrFogg
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Auckland Skywalk City houses a rotating restaurant with glass elevators so you can watch the ground disappear beneath you and in the basement they pay homage to Peter Jacksons WETA studio (the one that made those little Lord of the Rinky Dinks movies). Not bad for a guy who started with his first feature called Bad Taste (cracking little Alien movie too).

Wandering around we bumped into a fish eating monster with bad breath and hair stood next to Gollum (gonna get a slap for that).

Since we only ate 4 hours ago we decided to have steak and champagne in the Skywalk tower served by a Harry Potter lookilikee (poor kid), whilst watching people free fall off the tower (on a line of course), or for the princely sum of 140NZD (about 75 in UK monopoly money), you can put on a harness and walk around the top of the tower without any handrails, personally think I’d rather use the dosh on the fizzy falling down water.

And now that our room is ready its back to the hotel for a shower and a desperate change of clothes, considering we have been in transit since Saturday and today is Tuesday.

The hotel is not exactly a backpackers place of worship (having seen a few of those this am) however it has seen better days. That said we do have a view of the sea and all the usual amenities.

And now two days to see what Auckland has to offer before we collect the hire car and drive to Thames on Thursday.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

Kia Ora – We is Here

Posted by MrFogg
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Wow what a fantastic journey from London via Lala land on Air NZ. Excellent plane, fantastic service, nothing was too much trouble. Can defo recommend Air NZ, simply brilliant.

Through customs, smooth, out to the shuttle bus and into the city, so beautiful and clean.

And here we are at the Quadrant Hotel and Mrs Foggy is happy with a mountain of brochures (geek).

Next stop several hundred miles of trekking.

Downside Up from here.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]

LaLa Land

Posted by MrFogg
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11 hours on a plane, very comfy and unusual seats and oodles of drinks and grub. Virgin take note, premium economy give you PROPER champagne and you don’t even need to get up for the drinks, you order them from your TV and they are delivered to your seat with a smile (granted they are very nice boys).

And now a 2 hour wait in what can only be described as a dirty Heathrow lounge with 3 women who give you an orange card but don’t tell you were to go or what to do! It’s 7.30pm Sun 22 Jan in LaLa Land time or 3.30am Monday 23 Jan UK time and I have no idea what pose Mrs Fogg is doing or why.

Next stop Auckland.

We have been PROCESSED from here.

[Posted from my super cool iPhone]