Auckland

Wow it is so strange to go from one country to another, I felt like I was at the end of my holiday and should be going home. In Australia I had planned and booked my trip up the east coast and it was very organised. Plus there are a lot of people traveling up (or down) and you meet them again and again at the next hostel. Then on my last week there I was on the diving course and spent three days on the boat with every minute planned out for me. So it was so strange to arrive in Auckland and start from scratch again. I've spent three days here just vegging about really, getting used to the idea that I'm in a new country (I'm not used to this traveling thing at all, I now realise). I've been reading my travel guide and looking at the brochures in the tourist centres. I've been to the Maritime Museum and I've bought a new camera. Mine got sand in it on Fraser Island and I couldn't get it working again, so as it was probably coming up for five years old, I decided that it would be more economical to replace it. I don't put pictures on the blog site because I have to pay for internet access and it is really frustrating watching the little green bar creeping across the screen when you are paying for it.

Tomorrow I am getting a bus to Whangarei (yes a lot of places here have names like that but some are also very Scottish like Hamilton for example). When I'm there I will do my advanced open water diving course at a place called Poor Knights which is one of the world's top dive locations. I am so excited. Then after that I am thinking of going to a place called Bay of Islands where you can dive to see the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior, isn't that fantastic. I think I have the diving bug now. I forgot to say that I have seen sharks (small reef sharks are not dangerous), turtles and jelly fish up close and of course coral and fish feeding on coral. I've even been stung by jellyfish but not the dangerous ones, its hard to avoid them when you come up to the surface but its no worse than a mozzie bite. I went to a place in Cairns called Reef Teach which is a two hour lecture on the coral and fish to help you understand what you are seeing and know what's dangerous and what's not. It was excellent and it was included as part of the diving course.

Here all the signs, advertising, labels on packets and everything are in two languages (English and Maori), the Maori people are much more integrated in the community and you see them working everywhere. At the airport, they are really strict about you bringing in any biohazards, the sniffer dogs are trained to find foodstuffs. They even checked my walking boots to make sure they were clean.