Day 177 - Auckland

Happy Valentines to everyone for yesterday...

I'm back in Auckland now after 2 days with John and Joan. They live in a retirement village outside of Orewa called Hibiscus Village. It's quite a posh place, and you can see the sea from the balcony (just). On valentines day they took me on a drive around the area and all the beaches, and then we went for lunch at the RFA (urm, returned forces association I think), which was amusing. It was a scorcher of a day so in the afternoon I went down to the swimming pool and lounged around in the hot tub (it's a hard life). It was a short visit - Joan and John are going into hospital today, and at 10.30 I'll be meeting Sarah who's giving me a lift back to Coromadel. I think I'm going to have a healthy diet of vegetables for a week... I must have been fed about a tonne of food and drank a gallon of tea in these 2 days!

Anyway, below is a picture of John and Joan (for gran). I'll hopefully visit them again before I leave.

Day 175 - Auckland

Back in Auckland, back in the library internet bit...

I've hitched a lift back here so I can come and see John and Jean (Grandma's friend and his wife) - I'm catching the bus to Orewa in a bit. Looking forward to being by the sea for a few days, and seeing Grans old boyf (teehee). Will definately take some pictures!

On thursday I'm getting a lift back to the buddhist centre (left my backpack there), and from there I'm going to work my way down the bay of plenty, do a bit of sun bathing and whale spotting.

Oh, and I've finally decided when I'm planning on coming back - I've just sorted out my flights and I've booked to fly to Fiji on the 5th May and from Fiji to LA on 21st and LA home on the 23rd, so I'll be back in 3 months (if this is too long I can just rearrange my flights again). V. exciting - in 3 months I'll get to see plenty of NZ!