old news	august 2004 news update 28 august 2004 well, it looks like we made it! currently we are at my godparents in woking, having just flown in from new york... which unfortunately means our international trip is over. we left auckland on 17 aug to cross the dateline and repeat 17 aug again - only this time in the northern hemisphere and in california. we were stopping off in san jose, california, to see richard and kristen. it was fab to catch up: chill out, relax, get some sunshine and feel like we're on holiday. in fact we did very little little apart from bargin shop at discount stores... and oh... maybe another day of wine tasting around healdsburg at the top end of the sonoma valley. (well there's been a definite theme to our travels!) it would have been very easy to stay on with the jacksons, however we had just one more stop on our travels: new york city. and that's where we've been for the past few days. the weather has been great and we've just wandered around, soaking up the atmosphere and trying to see as much as we could. don't think we did too badly: central park, empire state building, macy's, fifth avenue, world trade centre, broadway, times square and a fantastic dusk ferry ride to staten island with fab views of the statue of liberty and lower manhattan. there's so much more to see and nyc has been great - yet another place we'd like to come back to. and so now we're back in the uk. still not sure abut what we're doing next but we can't get back into our house until mid-october. till then we're off to bath for john and emma's wedding, which will be fantastic. and then swansea and then... well... if you'd like to be bored/delighted/intrigued etc with our travel tales in person, then let us know - happy to pop around for tea/coffee or longer. also jobless so need gainful employment too if you have any ideas? update 17 august 2004 hope all is good where you are? have you missed us? it feels like we've been away for ages - well out of contact anyway. it seems really amazing that we last wrote as we were leaving sydney, and now we're writing again - just as we leave auckland and nz. and where to start without just reeling off our itinerary? i guess we need to say that unfortunately, as we didn't save enough money and spent too long in melbourne, our travel round nz was automatically limited. so we chose to do a fixed itinerary tour with the magic bus and yha, spending 13 nights travelling round. in some respects it seems like we've constantly been on a bus, never in one place for more than one or two nights, but we have seen lots. so here goes..... we started off in christchurch for a couple of days, acclimatising to the cold. hats, gloves and scarfs. managed to take the gondala for spectacular views and stillness above christchurch. but it was just the first of many great views we've seen. we then had an early start on Sunday to catch the tranz alpine railway to greymouth on the west coast - one of the world's great railway journeys. it was at greymouth that simon then started his 'great nz beer tour' with a brewery tour and tasting at monteith's. proper flavoured lager beer, but still served too cold. tried explaining to an aussie what 'warm' beer meant. i think he thought it was like drinking tepid tea!! since then simon has done his best to sample most of the local brews as we've passed through places: speights in dunedin, linwood in napier (microbrew), steinlarger and tui in auckland. he is still looking forward to the first night back at the vic in beeston though! thankfully with no hangovers, our magic adventure started in earnest the following day, heading towards the franz josef glacier and then onto makaroa, queenstown, dunedin, kaikora. then across the ditch to wellington, napier and the north island. on the way we've seen glaciers, snow, waterfalls, mountains, rain, snow-capped mountains, sunshine, fjords, flat plains, people throwing themselves of bridges (no - we didn't), lotr locations aplenty etc etc etc and caught up with gethin's younger brother eddie who now runs a bar in Queenstown. highlights would be monteith's brewery tour and beer, milford sound and the southern alps, chocolate at dunedin, napier for it's art deco buildings and the bay of islands for completely different coastal sailing scenery. so now unfortunately we're leaving nz but would love to come back. it's onto the next part of our adventures with a week in san fransico with richard and kristen. can't wait to see them both and catch up, before heading off for a final few days in new york.