Sweet as brew

We left Australia a little sad as we had such a great time there. The time at Nicole and Dan's place has been amazing as well - a huge THANK YOU for having us! The weather perked up for us which was lucky. We had 4/5 days of 30 degree heat and bright sunshine which meant we could take a trip to sunshine coast and mooloolaba to enjoy the beaches. Also we visited the big pineapple and ginger factory courtesy of our lovely chafeur Stacey. Two other days were spent simply enjoying the sun and relaxing by the pool, drinking beer, swimming with Nicole and Dan's son Tristan and generally enjoying ourselves. The other two days were in Brisbane central where we visited the museum, which had a large dinosaur, deep sea and animal exhibition on, which we adored. We got to see many bats, spiders, lizards, fish and birds in taxidermy which we had seen in real life and were thus able to find their proper names :-)

We had a great time with Al's good friends Nicole and Dan and the biggest thank you goes out to them for having us for 10nights! It was so good of them and they were very generous in their offerings of food and drink (mainly beer from Dan's own personal tap). One eventful/disastrous night which will live fond in the memory is the fateful night of Nicole's chicken "pies". The pie maker stuck meaning the pies ended up being shoved in a bowl, mashed and served like a savoury Eton mess. The water overboiled on the potatoes and the microwave stopped working which meant the mash turned out more like lumpy chewing-gum porridge as Dan described it. The TV then stopped working and failed to record the beloved aussie show, Home and Away, and the kids wouldn't stop crying. We ended up eating about 10pm as the beer tap ran out of gas! We haven't laughed as much as that in one night for a long time!

It's not all bad leaving Oz however, as we ventured into New Zealand. We had a torturous time in Auckland airport where we had huge queues for passport control to then be grilled by the customs officer. We then got stopped for having prunes and walking boots, resulting in our bags being inspected and searched! It took us longer to get out of the airport than it did to fly from Australia! Not all is bad, we sneaked in a $6.90 large domios pizza and headed to the last night of the Chinese New Year Lantern festival which was lovely. The live music, circus acts, market food and lanterns reminded us of being back in Asia and bought back some fond memories. Next day was spent exploring Auckland's Harbour, cafes, sky tower and doing some shopping. On the day we left Al even managed to sneak in a bungy jump off Auckland Harbour bridge! He screamed like a little girl but still stands by the fact that this was for comic effect on the dvd.....

We spent only 2 nights in Auckland because we had a volunteering placement lined up further north in "Mahurangi Bay" a beautiful area about 1 hours drive away. My gosh is it stunning - we had used up all our superlatives in the drive alone. We met Alistair who is our host for the week and his dad David. They are both lovely and have interesting upbringings incorporating England, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand. We have got to know them over wine and games including Boggle and Countdown (or as the aussies/kiwis imaginatively call it 'letters and numbers'). The house (or batch as the kiwi's call it) sits atop a huge salt water fishing bay, has giant gardens and its own access to a private beach with use of kayaks, dingies, fishing rods and more. We do have to earn our keep though. We have, in two days, spent 12 hours weeding, digging, painting, moving boulders, rebuilding the jetty and chopping trees - all in the bright hot sunshine. We basically have to work 4 hours per day for food and accommodation and the hours we work over our time is flexible as long as we work the required amount. It is actually a good deal as the choice of foods is vast and we have a large supply of meats, fruits and veg to keep us stocked up. We are also doing Alistair a favour with jobs he would otherwise be unable to do alone. The scenery is spectacular and the sunsets from our bedroom looking out to the bay is magnificent (we told you we used a lot of superlatives) and we are enjoying our time here. Another 5 nights will be spent here before heading down south to queenstown and we will update then hopefully.

Lots of love
Alnsoph x