14/05 Al packing a lot in

We continue our climb towards Puno and scenery is altogether different from the deserts and the coast. It is now more volcanic and the landscape is covered in Indian grass, almas and alpacas. There are a lot of road works and police checkpoints as an election is coming up and the present government are trying to spend money on improving services to get the crucial votes. Politics is no different wherever you are in the world.

I am pleased to see that there is a lot less plastic in the countryside and this may have something to do with the fact that we are no longer following the Pan American Highway. Before we reach Puno, we stop off to see the Sillustani funeral towers and it’s freezing, which apparently is unusual for this time of year.

Sillustani is about 13,500 ft above sea level and is only one of many sites in the Puno area that hold mysterious burial towers, called chullpas. We see the enigmatic chullpas, which were built by the Collas, an Aymara speaking tribe that dominated the Titicaca region before the Incas. Here they would bury the remains of Colla nobility, accompanied by their riches but grave robbers have long since removed their contents, even using dynamite, although the towers are still well preserved (some are over 36 feet tall).

The engineering involved in their construction is far more complex than anything the Incas ever built. Two of the towers are unfinished: one with a ramp still in place to raise blocks; the other with cut stones ready to place on a very large dome.

The towers were constructed in the general form of a woman’s uterus. The Collas believed it to be Mother Earth which created life and therefore the dead were mummified in a foetal position and placed into the tower in the same position as when they entered the world. The doors of the tombs faced east since that is the direction from which the Sun is born.

We pass a number of small villages coming into Puno and all the houses have ornaments of bulls on their roofs coupled with a Christian cross and the bulls are a pagan symbol to ward off bad luck.

We arrive at our hotel in Puno and the weather is notably cooler. The city was eastablished in 1668 and is located on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

12/05 - 13/05 Plastic Peru

After breakfast and a quick look at some Inca ruins near the resort, we begin our 7 hour journey along the Pan American Highway to Arequipa. The highway goes along the coast for the most part and it’s quite stunning. It’s a barren desert to the one side and then a rugged coastline to the other. The beaches are littered with small fishermen’s huts and they make a living off the sea and drying seaweed.

Unfortunately, there are also a number of petroleum plants along the way and, of course, plastic which is thrown out of the windows of truckers as the average Peruvian does not own a car and does not travel. We also come across green irrigated valleys where rice is grown and we stop off in Camana for lunch.

We arrive at our hotel in Arequipa early evening and after having dinner in a restaurant that used to be a colonial home, we head to bed. Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru, with a population of 904,931 it is the second most populous city of the country. Arequipa lies in the Andes mountains, at an altitude of 2,380 meters (7,800 feet) above sea level; the snow-capped volcano El Misti overlooks the city.

The city has many colonial-era Spanish buildings built of sillar, a pearly white volcanic rock, from which it gets the nickname La Ciudad Blanca ("The White City"). Reportedly, it first acquired this nickname in the colonial era, because most of its inhabitants were Creole of peninsular (Spanish) descent. The historic centre of Arequipa was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, in recognition of its architecture and historic integrity.

The next day we have a walking tour of the city and this includes a trip to the local market. Peru grows an astonishing 3,000 varieties of potatoes and the market has some to prove it. The highlight is a visit to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. It is a cloistered convent located in Arequipa, Peru and was built in 1580 and was enlarged in the 17th century. The over 20,000-square-metre monastery is predominantly of the Mudéjar style, and is characterised by the vividly painted walls. There are approximately 20 nuns currently living in the northern corner of the complex; the rest of the monastery is open to the public.

The founder of the monastery was a rich widow, Maria de Guzman. The tradition of the time indicated that the second son or daughter of a family would enter religious service, and the convent accepted only women from high-class Spanish families. Each nun at Santa Catalina had between one and four servants or slaves, and the nuns invited musicians to perform in the convent, gave parties and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. Each family paid a dowry at their daughter's entrance to the convent, and the dowry owed to gain the highest status, indicated by wearing a black veil, was 2,400 silver coins, equivalent to US$50,000 today. The nuns were also required to bring 25 listed items, including a statue, a painting, a lamp and clothes. The wealthiest nuns may have brought fine English china and silk curtains and rugs. Although it was possible for poorer nuns to enter the convent without paying a dowry, it can be seen from the cells that most of the nuns were very wealthy.

We also visit the museum and see an exhibition about the Ice Maiden, which is a frozen body of an Inca girl of about 12 years old and she was scarified to the gods sometime between 1450 and 1480. She was found in 1995 during an ascent of Mt. Ampato (20,700 ft) inside the crater a bundle that had fallen from an Inca site on the summit. Owing to melting caused by volcanic ash from the nearby erupting volcano of Sabancaya, most of the Inca burial site had collapsed down a gully that led into the crater.

Arequipa is a lovely town and I will be sad to leave it.

10/05 – 11/05 Piscoed in Peru

Our departure at 4am wasn’t a pleasant one, especially since I had been woken up at 1.30am by some drunken idiot trying to get into my room. The NZ lot had had the same problem the night before but the guy repeated the deed completely sober the next day! I don’t think it was the same guy, but there’s no accounting for intelligence.

We pass a lot of people scavenging through bins as we leave Lima and as the sun begins to rise, it highlights grey sand beaches and an extraordinary amount of litter adorning the countryside and the roadside. They are mining a lot of the sand from the beaches and I think this has had a large impact on the state of them and it is possible that they were nice at some point. Apparently, a lot of natural gas is also being piped through this region and then exported out to Mexico. We drive through a lot of dusty towns full of stray dogs (but they all look well looked after), more plastic but the people are all dressed very colourfully. Our guide tells us that there is an African community living here and they are descended from the slaves that the Spanish first brought over in the 16^th century.

Our next stop is the Ballastas on the Paracas peninsula to take a trip to the islands by speedboat to see the sea lions, cormorants, Peruvian ‘bobbies’ and penguins. The islands are reached from the town of Pisco, which was founded in 1640 by the Spanish but the town suffered extensive damage and loss of life in the 2007 earthquake. I have never seen so many birds before and think this is where Hitchcock must have got his inspiration from (R – you would have hated it!). As you can imagine, the place honks and apparently they collect 10,000 tons of guano annually and then sell it for $1 per kilo (some lucky sods come and stay on the island for a month to collect the Peruvian poo and in my mind, this has to rate as one of the crappiest jobs in world)

The sun comes out and it’s quite warm and we continue our journey to the small oasis town of Ica to take a buggy ride over the dunes (again, littered with plastic) and to do some ‘sand’ boarding down the dunes – it’s great fun. After lunch, we visit a small Pisco factory and sample of their produce, including one that is 46% proof. It is Peruvian liquor that is distilled from grapes and was brought to Peru by the Spanish settlers in the 16^th century.

Our next stop is just outside the town of Nazca to see the sunset over two of the Nazca lines and once we check into our hotel, we head off to the local planetarium to see a documentary on the Nazca lines and the German woman who dedicated her life to solving them, Maria Reiche. It’s all very interesting but most of us are exhausted by this point and after a quick dinner, it’s off to bed.

Tuesday starts off with a light aircraft flight over the Nazca lines and it makes me feel very ill because of the sharp turns and small space. Still, the lines are fascinating (although the cynic in me thinks they may be more modern!) The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert of Peru. They have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 200 BCE and 700 CE. The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds (97 m), spiders (46 m), monkeys (90 m), fish, sharks or orcas (65 m), llamas, and lizards.

It takes me a while to regain my composure in time for our 3.5 hour drive to Puerto on the Pan American Highway via the Chauchilla cemetery. For many years the Chauchilla cemetery was looted by treasure hunters, who destroyed the place completely, taking away all the treasures the mummies kept in their tombs for centuries. Grave robbers just left behind the corpses, which can be seen today all over the ground. In addition to skulls and bones, you can see several tombs centuries’ old, as well as long human hairs, ceramic fragments and others remains scattered on the dessert surface. It is the only archaeological site in Peru, in which ancient mummies are seen in their original graves, along with ancient artefacts, dating back to 1000 AD. Sadly, it is not being looked after properly and the mummies are open to the elements and will probably all disintegrate over the couple of decades or so.

We continue our journey along the litter lined Pan American Highway to our overnight stop of Puerto Inca, a beach resort. Along the way we pass villages were people are drying out seaweed and this area is also rich in copper and gold. We have a pleasant night sitting around the fire, watching the stars and drinking beers and myself and the Kiwis stay up until 1.30am and drink too much Pisco....

08/05 – 09/05 Deepest, darkest Peru

My flight to Miami from LA is uneventful, although I won’t be flying American Airlines in a hurry as I don’t think they have updated their ‘planes since the 1950s. Miami airport is huge and full of disgruntled people as AA have cancelled most of their flights into Europe due to the second volcanic eruption in Iceland.

I soon become disgruntled myself because my flight to Peru is delayed by two hours and when we land, we sit on the tarmac for a further hour because air traffic control were not expecting us. My evening gets worse when my driver from Intrepid (from here on in to be called ‘Insipid’) says that I’m in a different hotel from the rest of the group and someone will call me tomorrow morning to let me know what time we are meeting.

I’m pretty fed up by now but head to bed and await a call the next morning. The call doesn’t come and I have to get a taxi to the other hotel where I eventually meet the rest of the group and we go on a walking tour of the colonial part of Lima. The group is small: me, a retired Australian couple, two brothers and a sister from NZ and the group leader.

Lima is very polluted and overcast but there are some pretty buildings in the colonial part and we visit the beautiful Franciscan Monastery and Museum, founded in the XVI century. Lima is situated right at the coast, 133 m above sea level. On 18 January 1535 the emperor Francisco Pizarro founded the city with the name Ciudad de los Reyes. The "City of Kings and Vice kings" apart from Mexico was one of the most important cities on the American colonies only a few decades after its foundation. In 1551 some Benedictian monks joined the Universidad San Marcos in founding South America's first university.

This Franciscan monastery is located in Lima's centre. After being destroyed by an earthquake in 1646, it was replaced by a smaller complex. Inside some interesting paintings as well as a tremendous library containing 15,000 books and old manuscripts dating back to the 15th century but they housed in direct sunlight and not temperature controlled and I fear will all be ruined in the next 10 years or so. The placed is covered with tiles from Seville the catacombs were used in colonial times to house the bodies of Lima's dead (estimated at 25,000)

I have an early night as we are leaving at 4am tomorrow for Paracas (a 4 hour drive) and to v visit the Ballestas Islands, before heading for our hotel in Nazca (a further 3 hour drive)

07/05 Leaving Las Vegas

Fortunately for me, the Dutch guy from my tour was driving back to LA today and I elect to get a lift with him instead of getting my ridiculously early flight and although it meant that I didn’t have time to see a little bit of LA, it meant that I could have a tiny all American road trip instead. The road from Vegas to LA is straight, long and the landscape is peppered with Joshua Trees, some shopping centres and not much else. The terrain is also green and the closer you get to LA, the landscape changes completely to snow capped mountains and then smog. There were an extraordinary number of blown out tires on the road, broken down vehicles and cop cars as they are Nazi-like in their approach to speeding (but not to car safety it would seem)

The traffic coming in LA was horrendous (on the way from Vegas, the traffic was all coming the other way) and we eventually found the Radisson hotel near LAX which was my hotel for the ‘night’. I met up with my friend’s brother and his wife for a quick drink in the hotel bar and it was nice to catch up with them and I have an early night as I really do need to get up at 4am tomorrow for my flight to Lima via Miami.

02/05 – 06/05 Is that the real Caesar’s Palace?

R dropped me off at the airport and the flight to LA goes surprisingly quickly despite a cock up with my seat as I was told that I had an emergency exit one but it’s a normal ‘sit with your knees around your head whilst we allocate the seats with leg room to the vertically challenged’ seat. I manage to move to the bulk head before takeoff and at least that gives me some more legroom. A black mark for Air New Zealand!

LAX is a confusing airport and once I have got through the vigorous passport control (digital finger print scanning and unflattering webcam photos) and transfer to the domestic terminal, it is nearly time to catch my connecting flight to Las Vegas.

The turbulence coming into LV airport is almost enough to make me want to become religious and I fear that I am about to become a genuine CSI Las Vegas case story. Still, I make it through and get a shuttle to the hotel (once I’ve walked past the numerous slot machines that appear just as you step off the ‘plane into the airport: I guess there’s no time to waste when you have a gambling habit)

My room is positively palatial and I wander off to take some photos and grab some food. On my way out of my room I come across a couple getting married in the hotel grounds and despite it being ‘the happiest day of their lives’, the bride looks a bit glum. Maybe getting married in an Elvis suit wasn’t quite what she had in mind for her big day. Las Vegas is, well, everything that you would expect: it’s an assault on the senses from all directions and its brash, loud, ostentatious, dazzling, bigger and ‘better’ than anything you’ve ever seen coupled with large dollops of insincerity, debauchery, excess and I have to confess, a little excitement and curiosity. I find a shopping centre near the hotel and it reminds me of The Valaggio in Doha, Qatar (or ‘The Vag’, as my brother likes to call it): it has blue skies painted on the ceiling and a Venetian-style gondola in the middle of it but I don’t hang around for long and get an early night as I am meeting my tour group at 7.30am tomorrow.

There are 11 of us in the group and 6 of us are Brits and the rest of made up of Poles, Dutch and Koreans. They are a nice bunch and our leader is American/Pilipino and is very easy going. Our first stop is the Hoover Dam and it’s an impressive engineering feat. It was completed in 1935 and is currently the world’s 34^th largest hydroelectric generating station and the 17 turbine-generators generate a maximum of 2,074 megawatts of hydroelectric power.

We get our kicks in a burger bar in Seligman, Arizona on the historic Route 66 which prides itself on its wacky sense of humour (‘home of the cheeseburger with cheese’, ‘dead chicken’ and ‘prices are subject to change according to customer’s attitude’) and it was established in 1953 and the original owner was ‘cherished’ by tourists for the antics that he pulled on them whilst they were trying to order their food.

The journey thus far had taken us through large expanses of greenery and juniper trees as there has been a lot of rain recently (and snow as we learn when we later reach the Grand Canyon). We have lunch in a small town called Williams and then set up camp in Tusayan, which is located 20 minutes from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Our camp site is basic and since I am not a camping sort of girl, I am pleased that I only have to spend one night in a tent. We head off to the South Rim to see the sun setting over the Canyon and to say that it is an ‘awesome’ sight is somewhat of an understatement.

It was formed by the Colorado River and averages 91 m in width, 30 m in depth and flows an average speed of 6.4 km per hour. The Canyon itself covers an area of 4,921 sq. km is 306 km long and is populated by 5 Native American tribes (the Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai, Paiute and the Hualapai). A few more facts: it is a chasm 446 km long and up to 29 km wide and took 3-6 million years to form.

We watch the incredible differing shades of light alter over the Canyon as the sun sets and because the South Rim has an elevation of 2,134 m, the temperature drops considerably once the sun has set. This is our indication to go back to the camp site for dinner and beers. I wish I could say that we had beers around the campfire whilst watching the stars but we were not allowed to have a fire. The temperature during the night was enough to freeze a brass minkey and at one stage I was tempted to set fire to myself in order to keep warm as my ‘summer’ sleeping bag that I had bought in NZ was not really doing the trick. Nevertheless, I just about survived the night and a hot shower and some breakfast in the morning soon reinstated the blood supply to my extremities before the frost bite set in.

After a little financial deliberation, I decided to do the optional helicopter ride over the Canyon with the rest of the group as it is difficult to appreciate the scale and enormity of the Canyon from the Rim. As it happens, it was the right decision and 50 minutes later aboard our ‘Maverick’ helicopter, I had taken enough photographs to publish a book as I was fortunate enough to have a seat in the front. I was quite surprised to see snow on the highest points of the mountain and apparently they had had snow as little as three days ago (actually, I don’t know why I was surprised given that I had nearly frozen to death the night before).

It was sad to say good bye to the Canyon but we had to continue to our next natural wonder, Monument Valley, situated in the Navajo Indian Reservation, which also straddles the two states of Utah and Arizona. Of course, the Native Americans do not like to be called Indians and according to our guide, Tim (not his real name), they prefer to be called Dinè, as this is the tribe that dominates this area.

Monument Valley is a Navajo Nation tribal park, straddling the border of North Eastern Arizona and South Eastern Utah of the Colorado Plateau. It preserves the Navajo way of life and some of the most striking and recognizable landscapes of sandstone buttes, mesas and spires in the entire South West.

Tim gave us a guided tour of the Valley and after watching the sun set whilst listening to some melodies on Tim’s flute, we went in search of our hogan and dinner. Unfortunately, a cock up with the preparation of dinner meant that we had to drive around for nearly another hour and listen to some more flute tunes before we tucked in to some traditional NA food (this was just like a big taco and didn’t seem very traditional to me) and a nice cup of tea as all alcohol is banned in the Reservation as there has been a major problem with alcoholism. Next we had what I hate the most about visiting indigenous peoples: the mandatory dancing & singing show and dragging in members of the group to participate to make them look even more like idiots than the people running the show. Yes, you guessed it: we had a pow wow around the camp fire lead by a NA (but it cracked me up to see him later when he had changed from his colourful headdress and satin costume into an ACDC t-shirt and jeans!) And to think I had my reservations about it all.

Our sleeping arrangements were much better and we slept in a traditional hogan, which is essentially a mud hut. Actually, there is no essentially about it: it is a mud hut but it was a warm and dry mud hut and I was grateful not to have to experience the arctic conditions of the night before.

It was an early start to the morning to see the sun rise over the Valley and another drive around the sites, with some more commentary from Tim (‘Mission Impossible was filmed there’, ‘John Wayne walked there’ etc etc) but luckily we were not subjected to any more flute playing.

After a quick breakfast, we set off on the road towards Lake Powell and the Carl Hayden Visitors Centre. Lake Powell is America’s second largest manmade lake , spans from Utah to Arizona and has 2,000 miles of shore line. Our route dipped in and out of the states of Utah and Arizona and differing time zones (all very confusing) and we reached our last night’s accommodation in Paria Plateau, Utah in the late afternoon. This was another camp site but we had the bunk house and the entire place was clean and comfortable. Some people went for a horse trek whilst the rest of us took advantage of the hot showers and a few sun downers on the veranda of the bunkhouse.

We are allowed a bit of a lie in on the final day of the tour which is just as well as some of us played drinking games until the early hours and are feeling a bit jaded but after some breakfast and a shower, we begin to feel human again and we go for a short hike to see some rock formations shaped like toadstools.

We proceeded back to Vegas via Colorado City, Hurricane and Mesquite and arrive late afternoon. A few of us meet for dinner and see the sights along The Strip: including a fake Eiffel Tower and a casino which is a replica of Paris, France (why?!) and I lose $20 on the blackjack and decide to call it a night as I have to be up at 4am for my flight back to LA in the morning.

I was surprised how much I liked the small part of America that I saw and found the Americans to be very friendly and helpful (this considering the recent threats to security in Neu Jork) but the blatant excess and disregard for the environment really got to me: huge gas guzzling cars, huge food guzzling people, wasting of water and electricity (the fountains along The Strip give a display every half an hour to music and the ‘show’ lasts about 15 minutes each time), massive portions of food. Ultimately: consumption, consumption and more consumption!

City of Sales 25/04 – 02/05

I leave Wellington on Sunday morning on the 7.25 am on the ‘Overlander’ train to Auckland and the journey takes 12 hours taking in 681 km, 352 bridges and 14 tunnels. The train is much smaller than the Transalpine and is reasonably full, which unfortunately includes a small whiney Italian child and a man with BO (luckily the latter doesn’t stay on the train for very long but the former does)

It’s also Anzac Day and I hear the guy sitting behind me telling his girlfriend that there has been a helicopter crash outside Wellington killing three service men on their way to the Anzac parade (it’s widely reported in the press the next day, all very sad and bitterly ironic)

Our first leg of the journey takes us through the Tararua Ranges, created by the same uplifting process that formed the Southern Alps: it stretches 100 km from the sprawling Manawatu Plain to the Rimutakas in the south and forms the backbone of the North Island.

Before we stop at Taihape, we are told to look out for ‘Mad Kevin’, an elderly gentleman who stands by the side of the tracks on a daily basis and waves a red flag at the train. He is not described by the purser as ‘mad’ but I am supposing that a daily flag waving routine is bound to send the sanest of people around the bend (or should that be track?). Taihape is famous for its annual gum boot throwing contest and displays a proud statue in the centre of the town to prove it. It is also home to a sheep dog contest which, ironically, starts off with a barking competition.

We now enter the National Park and get a glimpse of the North Island volcanoes of Mt Taranaki (2,518 m), Mt Tongariro (1,967 m), Mt Ngauruhoe (2,287 m) and Mt Ruapehu (2,979 m). Mt Ngauruhoe has erupted 45 times in the 20^th century , most recently in 1977 and Mt Ruapehu is nearly half a million years old, has the highest peak and is the only one with glaciers.

This leads on to the Raurimu Spiral, built in 1898, and is a feat of civil engineering that allows the train to conquer the 132 metre height difference between the Whanganui River valley and the Volcanic Plateau. The train travels 6.8 km that, in a straight line, is just 2 km and it takes us a matter of minutes to reach the plateau.

We pass the Waikato River and it’s the longest river in NZ, running for 425 km and we also pass the graveyard of the Maori kings and queens situated on a very steep hill and very close to the train line. I am sure that this is not what they had in mind for their resting in peace.

After witnessing a beautiful sunset, we arrive into Auckland at 19.25 and the train trip has gone surprisingly quickly, all this despite a 40 minute stop for lunch in Ohakune (although the cafe was closed due to Anzac Day). R is there to meet me and we head off to her lovely 1920s Californian bungalow style home , home cooked meals, some sparkling wine and her colossal cats, Murphy and Zorro (her goddaughter, G, is also staying before heading back to med school in Hamilton)

R kindly takes me for a trip around Auckland the next day: Auckland is nestled between two harbours and 48 volcanic cones and by the 19^th century, with European settlement in full swing, it was already a great trading port and a place of international significance. We have a wander along Mt Eden and have a look at a panoramic view of the city, its harbours (Manukau) and the Gulf, including the Hauraki Gulf Islands. You can also see One Tree Hill from there and on closer inspection, it shows evidence of earlier Maori occupancy.

I was going to spend a few days in Rotorua but I have decided not to on the account that I am a little weary with being on the move all the time and I need to save a few pennies, so it will be nice to be in one place for a bit (and R’s home is a lovely place to spend some downtime). Besides, I need to conserve my energy for my ‘cowboys and indians’ camping trip to Arizona next week!

The weather forecast for the week is mixed but the heavy rains come intermittently on Tuesday but this is the day that we have planned to visit to the art galleries and it holds off long enough for us to walk into the CBD (Auckland has an average of 245 days of sunshine annually). Moreover, there has been drought for a while, so the rain is welcome (although there have been heavy downpours and floods in the South Island near Te Anau and 793 mm fell in Fiordland National Park where I was two weeks ago)

Auckland is full of bespoke clothes shops and I ‘look but don’t touch’ in some of the lovely shops along the Ponsonby Road which was known as ‘The Cappuccino Mile’ in the 80s. The architecture of Auckland is very attractive as the houses are either San Franciscan bay villas or bungalow style and the old Settlers’ cottages all have beautiful balconies with ornate trellises (perfect for sitting on for those sparkling sundowners!) Unfortunately, the Auckland Art Gallery is closed for a major renovation project but we see some of the smaller galleries and I resist the temptation to purchase anything.

The next day we head for a drive to the ‘Wild West’ coast, through the Waitakere Ranges with its 17,000 hectares of forest and more 250 km of walking trails, where the Tasman Sea’s surf pounds onto the black volcanic Whatipu beach and it’s a sight to behold. We mooch along the beach and it’s an unusually still day (R is convinced that a tsumani is on its way and when we drive back to Auckland we notice that it is tsunami area with warning signs for potential tsunamis). The beach stretches on for miles and one of the beaches there is Karekare, made famous by the film ‘The Piano’. We follow the track to the caves and in the 1920s, they used to hold dance parties in the largest one and apparently of the wooden dance floor is still buried under the sand floor of the cave.

Thursday is a beautiful and unusually warm day for this time of year and we walk into town to visit the Auckland Museum. It is NZ’s first museum, established in 1852, and is one of the most famous heritage buildings in Auckland and home to the world’s largest collection of Maori taonga (treasures), including rare carvings and one of the last great Maori war canoe used in battle. I inadvertently bump into the lovely Dutch couple that were on my Ayer’s Rock tour and they arrived in New Zealand yesterday – it’s a small world.

The Auckland Museum sits in the Auckland Domain on the edge of one of Auckland’s oldest volcanic cones, Pukekawa. It is thought to have erupted between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago and the early Maori cleared the slopes to create food gardens and later generations built terraces for homes, storage pits and garden sites. It was later drained by the European settlers and turned into playing fields and the present day fernery.

The Auckland Volcanic Field has about 48 volcanoes within an area of 360 square kilometres, from Pupuke in the north to Wiri in the south but it is unlikely that any of Auckland’s existing volcanoes will become active again, however, new volcanoes could be created at any time.

Again, Friday is another sunny day and we decide to go on a dolphin and whale watching safari - they boast over 90% dolphin and 70% whale sighting success but just not today! Sadly, we do not see any Big Nicks or dolphins and it’s more a case of big nicking. Still, it’s a lovely day and we sit on the deck of the boat and take in the beautiful surroundings of Hauraki Gulf and some of its islands of Waiheke and the Coromandel Peninsula. Luckily I don’t feel sea sick at all as it’s much calmer than the sea around Kaikoura and although they don’t give any refunds, we are presented with a chance to go on another trip which is valid for a lifetime, so I’ll take up the offer next time I’m in Auckland!

My penultimate day is spent driving up the North East Coast to the ‘world famous’ Matakana Famers’ Market (along with the town’s gourmet shops and boutique cinema) which is held every Saturday and has the most wonderful locally produced fresh delicacies. The area around Warkworth has a conservation park full of massive, native kauri trees and around Matakana is wine country, with close to 20 wineries offering a range of red and white varieties. It is also a gastronomic treat, growing everything from limes to persimmons, chestnuts to olives and venison to oysters.

The rain is intermittent but it doesn’t dampened our spirits (in fact the cheese lady was telling me that they desperately need the rain, so it has been most welcome in this area) and shopping ability and we then head to the 7km long Omaha beach, as I have seen a photo of some Maori statutes that I would like to see. Unfortunately, they are modern ones and I don’t find the one of the picture that I have seen in the Lonely Planet but we do find a smaller one and it is nice to have a quick walk on the beach before the showers catch up with us.

After a quick stop at Morris & James Pottery (the pottery is crafted from the iron-rich clays sourced from the banks of the Matakana River) for a pot of tea and some cake, we head back into Auckland via the coastal road and over the famous Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Tomorrow I am off to the States and my tour of the Grand Canyon and whilst I will be sad to leave NZ and the wonderful hospitality of all my Kiwi friends, I am also looking forward to the next chapter in my travels (I also only have one month left before I have to head back to Londres. Yikes)