Thank you NZ and goodbye to the Land of the Long White Cloud!

Well after our Rotavegas experience we headed off excitedly to familiar and homely territory in Tauranga, Joss and Mikes place (Anna's Mother and Step Father). We had a lovely evening of wine, food and good conversation (not necessarily in that order) and we really felt at home (again!). We then headed north to Auckland where we had arranged to stay with close friends and neighbours of Tony and Anna's (Jen and Ernie) for our final few days in NZ whilst we sorted our lives out, i.e. arranged where we were going next and sell the van (our little house!).

We spent a short while there and managed to sell the van really quickly. We only lost 150 bucks on the sale of the van and the money it cost us to do a few repairs and what have you. All in all it cost us about 3 quid a day to own (petrol not included), which we thought was pretty good! We were very sad to see her go, but also releived that it only took a day to sell her.
This is my favourite photo of her.....

We even missed her for a good while, she was a cracking little van!

Again, Tony had arranged for a car for us which was kindly lent to us by his parents (Bob and Sylvia) so we had our freedom for the remaining few days, which were spent back in Piha at Dan and Jessie's where it all began three months previous. We were so looking forward to going back there and seeing the family (Dipi was especially looking forward to getting her hands on little Jackson, no surprise there! Move away from the baby!).


It's difficult to summarise and do justice to New Zealand and the people we met. Without wanting to sound too much like an Oscar Winner, we would like to say a BIG, BIG THANK YOU to everyone mentioned above, all you guys made a huge impact on us and without you, your generosity, hospitality and advice we would have been just another couple of back packers. You have a wonderful country full of magic and beauty, which we enjoyed massively (or "fully" as Dan would say). We had a fantastic time and we have many wonderful memories........