New Zealand - act 1

Landed in Auckland and was met by a very nice young couple who whisked us off to pick up our accommodation for the next week. We decided to hire a 2 person camper van (it was a Mercedes!!) and it had its own toilet and shower.
It was a baptism of fire as we trundled through the Auckland highways with random obnoxious Kiwi drivers tooting their horns at us and making naughty gestures (and that was before we left the rental place car park!)
Then it started to rain ......... as if we hadn't seen enough in Cairns already ...!!
We followed our new found kiwi friends home where they introduced us to the Hell Pizza >> https://www.hell.co.nz and i had dessert pizza for the very first time!

Tuesday we visited Piha beach a very picturesque coastline, famous for its surf and this is the place where Tim and Neil Finn from Crowded house saved Eddy Vedders (Pearl Jam) life! I climbed Lion Rock ....grrrrrr. After this we went to Kelly Tarltons, www.kellytarltons.co.nz, an aquarium/antartic experience, with numerous fish/inverts/penguins to see. Whilst we were there we took a dive in the main tank, which could be viewed from underneath via perspex tunnels. In the tank there were numerous fish including blue mao mao, snapper, trevelly, moray ells, turtles and stingrays. It was a pretty wierd experience being on the other side of the glass for a change!
Before i came to this side of the world i thought i would be eating healthy, drinking healthy and exercising to lose my ever expanding waistline .... However, this has not been the case ..... I was introduced to a restaurant called Lone Star ...... can anyone say "steaks the size of my head"??? - not that i have a big head or anything :p
Since being on this trip away, i consider myself a 'backpacker', as i have a backpack. Since coming to NZ and hiring a campervan i have become a 'camper' (and a happy one at that!), however, we all have to cheat now and then, and after stuffing my face with huge steaks and prawns i couldn't fit into the camper van, and had to spend a night in a inner city hotel (The Copthorne Hotel - Kingsize bed, statalite TV .... and the piece de resistance .... a bath!!).