Introduction - We don't want to go home!

We don't want to go home!

Introduction

We had planned on being away for 2 months on our round the world trip, but in what was to be our last week in New Zealand we just could not leave. We had fallen in love with this spectacular and awe inspiring country. Every view took our breath away, every bend in the road brought another gut wrenching view, every meal or drink out left us wanting to come back again. Immensely friendly, full of helpful tips and guidance, warm and giving - that was how we found all the people and the country of New Zealand. They also served the best coffee in the world! Just go and try a long black!

Frantic phone calls to the agencies who source work for me and to our family elicited the same response, Britain in in despair. The credit crunch is biting hard, shops are closing down all over the place and, the final decisive factor, the weather was the worst it had been in years. What did we have to go home for? Nothing. We decided to stay, if we could. Our plans for what would have been our final days in NZ were to spend a week sailing in the Bay of Islands (many thanks to Fairwind Charters of Opua) and 3 nights in Auckland before flying onto San Francisco. We contacted the travel agents and Qantas to check out if our plans could be changed by 5 weeks. Qantas were superb, no problem they said, just give them the dates and they would check and sort it out for flights. That left only our hotel booking in San Francisco and our Alcatraz tour booking (made before we left the UK).

We spent an anxious week sailing around the Bay of Islands with intermittent mobile phone signal and limited access to the internet and land line telephones, but on our last day of sailing we got the confirmation we were hoping for - we could change our hotel booking for a nominal cost (due to season change). It was decided, we were staying another 5 weeks! The only problem - we had nothing planned, only a vague idea of what we wanted to do.

From the Bay of Islands we headed back to Auckland, and the Crowne Plaza booked on my ICH points, for what was to have been our last 3 nights in NZ, but was now our starting point for the next 5 weeks and 3 days. My o/h went off to a pre-booked trip on the Lion of New Zealand, Sir Peter Blakes Whitbread Round the World sailing yacht, to have a front line view of the Loius Vouiton racing in Auckland harbour (with Sail NZ). I spent the day washing clothes and starting to think about our next 5 week itinerary.

I drew up a rough itinerary for revisiting South Island and North Island and took on board comments of my o/h, slow things down, spend more time in a place, and have shorter travelling distances so we could have the time to see more. Very sensible. We also had some places that were a must as we either had not had enough time there the first time around (Queenstown, Paihia, Northland, the geothermal area and Picton) or we just had not had time to visit them at all (Abel Tasman National Park). When my o/h came back from the yachting he had also been told of other must sees by sailing companions - the Coromandel and White Island.

With my o/h's new suggestions and his comments on the state of my current plans, with challenges about still trying to do too much, we eventually settled on our plan. All we had to do was decide on travel arrangements and where we were going to stay - and it was still the holiday season so accommodation was going to be difficult to find and would be at a premium.

Once we had our new itinerary we took ourselves off the the Sky Tower for a celebratory dinner in the rotating restaurant, with a window side table to marvel at the stunning night time views (we had pre-booked on our first day in Auckland before we went to the Bay of Islands as it is very popular). We got to spend a day together seeing Auckland as well, and then sorted out our luggage for the trip to come, which involved buying another suitcase and leaving all our colder weather clothes behind in the Crowne Plaza until we returned for our last night in Auckland.





New Zealand, Auckland, Bay of Islands