Auckland

Day 1: I arrived late that evening and caught up with Danielle. I also met Mark and Charlotte, who were staying in my room before starting their own Kiwi Experience passes the following day. Most people start from Auckland.

Day 2: I took a walk around the city, checking out the Sky-tower, the Harbour Bridge and also taking a stroll along the rest of the Harbour. The sun even came out for the day -a rarity for this time of year in New Zealand.

That evening, Sam and Ali arrived from Taupo and we all headed to Eden Park for a Rugby match between Auckland Blues & Queensland Reds. Harrison had also arrived so we travelled up there with him and another guy called Ed.

I'm not a huge Rugby fan but the game was ok and saw Auckland get a bit of a pasting (something they are used to recently apparently). Coming away from the game, I had to get Harrison to run a few of the rules by me again as I'm not fully clued up on them all. Being a Queensland fan, he was basking in the glory of victory, especially since myself and the Canadians had got Auckland blue face-paint on prior to going to the match. I assured him that I would have chosen red had it been available.

When we got back into Auckland, we had a pretty big night on the Beers and Jagerbombs in the hostel bar and all ended up getting quite wasted. One of Danielle's friends even took on the challenge of eating a bowl of Dog food so he could win a bus-pass for the whole north island. It looked disgusting and him and his opponent were wretching from the outset. He managed to win the prize though. Not the sort of competition for me.

At the end of the night, I said goodbye to Sam, Ali and Danielle, who would be heading to Thailand in the next couple of days. Really cool girls and I'd had a good laugh travelling up the north island with them.

For me, it's time to start heading back down south.