The journey so far!

15 December. We have arrived in Auckland somewhat spaced out from lack of sleep. The flat beds were amazing and made the journey so much more comfy. From Liz's perspective they made the turbulence more comfortable!! Liz's intro to security in Auckland was not so comfortable.  I narrowly escaped a fine of 200 pounds. Not surprisingly given the significance of agriculture in NZ 'biosecurity' is very tight. A declaration had to be completed and one question was along the lines of 'Have you wellington boots, hiking boots or any other items with mud on them?' to which I answered no. I had scrubbed my hiking boots before packing so I knew they were clean.   All luggage was scanned by biosecurity on arrival to look for hidden bananas, legs of ham etc. My bag was taken off by an officious women and informed me that there were boots in the luggage and out they came! She was pretty furious with me. The boots should have been declared mud or no mud. My defence of the question being ambiguous was not met with any mercy. Having admired my spotless boots she let me off with a caution.I blame Robert for the whole sorry story. Made even more unfair as his hiking boots were not spotted by 'Eagle eye'.   We landed on Wednesday to a nice day here in Aukland and had a nice walk around the harbour.  The struggle was to keep awake which wasn't helped by the proscecco and the chianti with my pizza at lunch!   Auckland is a nice city with lovely open spaces full of beautiful flowers - foxgloves, lillies, wisteria, gladioli - but it is December. The two don't go together. Xmas tress are up and some decorations which given it was 25 degrees was really weird.   16 December - it is raining to-day. In fact this is the first day of rain for a month, and the forecast is showing rain for the next 5 days! Today we went to the national museum which was brilliant. Wonderfully laid out. Even has a room to sit and feel the sensation of a volcano erupting. Volcanos are everywhere in NZ. Hopefully they will stay asleep until we get back to the UK. 17 Dec We're now of to rotorua where there are some volcanoes to see ( and smell!).