Sorry, can't seem to turn this around! Taken at the beautiful secret waterfall near Piha beach.

Us at Murawai beach!


Lee and Neil's wedding... Jan 3rd 2009!


Lee and 'Rosie' in a photo shoot for the NZ AA magazine... 'me and my classic car' feature!


Oooh Heno... two moths amothin' late in the night time...

One of the lovely beings who made our stay in Auckland so amazing! This is Kiki the bubbahead of Nimbus :) Meoooow

Rosie the Cortina... man this thing rocks!

Lee, Hugh, Brenda and Rob at Lee and Neil's, Cornwallis, Huia.

Here's a link for anyone who wants to read about how Tribewanted was set up- from National Geographic magazine:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/travel/fiji/tribe-wanted.html

Our Fijian Tribal Experience awaits!! This was one of the original ads used to lure people into the project... it worked for us :)

More NZ pics

New Zealand

Surfers at Piha...Lee bumped into several of her ex-pupils coming out of the surf as we ate fish and chips on the beach.

Gannet colony (greedy, seagull-like creatures while dive into the sea at 80mph!) at Murawai.

Well, (West) Auckland was a brilliant and unexpected highlight. We hadn't expected to spend any time there on our way to Vorovoro, but Zee's ex-Haze mate Lee (!) and her lovely new husband (no, she did not have an old one ;)) Neil and her parents Brenda and Rob made us SO welcome...dropping everything to give us some wonderful tours and treating us to some amazing NZ food. The area is so close to the city (where one-third of the nearly 4m people in NZ live), but it's really rugged and green...like Scotland, but in technicolor and with a subtropical climate - and going surfing after school instead of deep-fried everything and Playstation - the people are so healthy and outdoorsy compared to in the UK! A lot of people in West Auckland are descendants of Scots and English, while the metropolitan area itself is host to the world's biggest Pacific Island community and a lot of Chinese and Koreans.

To anyone who slags off this part of the North Island...boooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

The way to KareKare, where part of The Piano was filmed and Crowded House recorded Together Alone.

NEXT STOP VOROVORO - see you all in 3 weeks?!! xo

Have a look at the website www.tribewanted.com - this is the link to the online community, which links to the island where we will be staying; it will hopefully make more sense.

Well, it's finally time for us to bid a fond farewell to Asia, which has been our home for the last 4 months or so, as we journey on to Fiji via New Zealand. We're going to be staying with a friend I taught with a few years ago- Lee. We had lots of fun together with her amazing English group and now we're going to be staying with her! After a brief interlude in Auckland, resting and stocking up on island essentials, we'll take our flight to Nadi (capital of Fiji), then to Labassa (smaller island), then a speed boat to Vorovoro (the island which will be our home for the next 18 days)!