It's nice to be back in a first world country once more. It was a surprise to step off the plane at Auckland into a clean, orderly service-oriented culture again (we'd totally forgotten what this was like). Chile in general was pretty well developed but this introduction to New Zealand blew the socks off us. Even the bus stop at the airport was equipped with a GPS (global positioning system) device, to tell us when the next bus would be. At this halfway mark of our journey the change was nice.

Almost from the get-go, we had a good feeling about how our stay here would go. The 8 hour shift in timezones left us a bit dazed for the first day, but we didn't let that stop us. Barely able to keep ourselves awake at 6pm, we got roped into a table quiz along with a sound English guy, Ian (who was also feeling the effects afer arriving from Canada). This kept us going for another few hours and surprise, surprise... team "Too Tired To Think" ended up bagging the top prize of a $50 bar tab along with a travel voucher. You can't ask for a better omen than that on arrival in a new continent.

Besides the nice friendly people in NZ, one of this country's greatest assets is the scenery (anyone that has seen "Lord of the Rings" will know what I'm talking about). The short distances and cheap rental cars make it easy to get around (plus they drive on the left-hand side of the road like in Ireland).We took a car out for a few days to see some of the North Island.

The flora and fauna that we saw along the way was quite different to that back in Europe. After awhile it becomes apparent that they've got their own unique ecosystem going on here. Lot's of things we couldn't recognise or identify and some of the pine trees were so symmetrical that they looked unnatural. On our route we stopped off to see one of the oldest native kauri trees, which is estimated to be about 2000 years old and has a trunk width of about 12 metres. This huge tree's so famous they even have a name for it; "Tane Mahuta"!

The drive we had along the east cost towards the Bay of Islands was particularly enjoyable and we were rewarded with stunning scence after stunning scene. We had to stop and park the car a few times to get up closer to some of the deserted beaches and gorgeous hills. This continued all the way to the Bay of Islands where one of our dreams came true...

We finally swam with dolphins! Such splendid creatures, so welcoming and friendly. They played around the boat for awhile so we had the chance to take loads of pictures. Next, we got in the water and saw them right in front of our faces. Their curious eyes and friendly smiles were adorable. The more noise made, the more attention they gave us. So there we were clapping our hands underwater and singing away so that they would stay longer. And they did stay for a bit; until they'd had enough of us and swam off. Probably about time though as the water was too cold to be hanging around in all day.

Before we had to give the car back, we managed to make a couple of quick stops to some towns in the interior (Rotarua and Taupo). Then we quickly headed south by train to the capital, Wellington. This is only a hop, skip and a jump away from the South Island, which is where we're going to be finishing up our tour of NZ. Not before some more adventure though of course!