Days 6,7,8: Where does the time go to...

I write this with my body quite unsure of what time, or indeed day, it is. We flew from LA at 9.30 on Monday and landed at 5am in Auckland. Unfortunately the place we are staying wasn't open when we arrived but luckily the girlfriend of the owner was headed out for an early morning run and let us in to the common area. So rather than heading straight for bed we ended up watching the England-Austrailia match on TV.

Anyways, back to LA. It really is a place devoid of class, culture and glamour - strange given that it is billed as being so glamorous. Plus, they really need to sort out their public transport. To save a few pennies we took the metro to the airport - although we made it on time, we literally would have missed the flight if we had been five minutes later!!!! Suffice to say we are not to sad to say goodbye to LA, but still grateful for the experience and certainly the chance to join worshippers at Grace Church will be a real highlight for the whole trip.

Day 7 literally flew by. Due to the international timeline we skipped straight from Monday to Wednesday. Very strange but the flight over was really good. New Zealand Airlines are definitely a step up from Virgin. Despite not getting an exit row for Ben's legs he still had enough room (just) to have a comfortable 13 hour flight over.

Auckland is a breath of fresh air after LA. Everything smells better, looks better and feels better. After catching a couple of hours of sleep when we finally got into our room (someone cancelled yesterday so we could get in at 8, rather than 11!) we showered and found a nice cafe for Breakfast - lovely Bacon, eggs, hash browns etc. mmmmmmmm!

After a day wandering around Sunny (but not too hot) Auckland we have concluded it is very, very lovely. Highly recommended to everyone. The bay is really clean and seems to have that cafe culture that many cities in the UK seem keen to embrace but tend to fall short. We also saw the PwC offices in Auckland - right on the waterfront - Ben thinks the view is probably ever so slightly nicer than at the Manchester offices!

Anyways, we've got two nights at our hostel then we are planning to hire a campervan and head up to Bay of Islands then maybe down to Rotorua to see (or rather smell) the sights!

Eights day down, seventy-two to go!!!!