To New Zealand!

Our hostel room

The next few days we spent either by the coast or in an electronics store buying me a laptop. Turns out they are a lot cheaper in America than England. Toby, who had been the only consistent person in our room of 6 beds all week, left on Monday morning for a 9 hour bus ride to Los Angeles before catching a flight back to his home country of New Zealand. This had been quite convenient for us because we received some helpful advice for when we eventually arrived at our final destination. He was almost certainly the most relaxed person I had ever met, so here's hoping the rest of the Kiwi's follow suit! We've had a number of other people come and go in the room while we've been there. Some of the more notable ones include 'the crazy angry old lady' who came into the room at 4 in the morning and clambered very noisily into bed and yet moaned when we tried to get ready to leave at 10am. There was also a French guy, who was living in Mexico, but had to leave the country for a day while his lawyer tried to sort him out a work visa since he had been working illegally for over a year. Suited me though since he bought me a beer and we had a conversation about how tough life was in Mexico City. 

Our last day in San Francisco didn't make us particularly sad about leaving, it was pouring with rain and just generally miserable; it didn't make for a good walk down to the train station with our big bags on. Our bags that had somehow gained 2kgs in weight in just a week, slightly worrying! We saw a spectacular sunrise on the plane in-between Monty Python movies. 

We were picked up very kindly at the airport by Chris (related to Holly) at some ungodly hour (6am), and taken back to their house around 45 minutes north of Auckland. The house had a great setting with a harbour as good as in their back garden! We spent the rest of that day getting sorted and wandering around absolutely shattered but determined not to go to bed until a reasonable time to combat the jet lag.

This persistence paid off as the next day we felt fine and good to go. Chris's son and daughter Connor and Greer showed us around the area via really cheap buses so we got a feel for where we were.
Orewa ended up being our final destination and was our favorite; we returned the next day on our own. There was a really nice beach and a few decent restaurants overlooking it. The weather is still warm, could do with just getting rid of some of the wind.