Auckland and Samoa

It's been ages since my last post, apologies for that.


At the start of July I had my first visitor from England. Tyra came out for a couple of weeks.


We met up in Auckland. It was my first visit to the largest city in NZ. I was a bit underwhelmed after Wellington. Everything felt very spread out and we never really found anywhere that felt like the heart of the city. We did the major tourist sites and after a couple of days were ready to move on.

Auckland Skytower

View of the city centre from the skytower

We took a day trip up to Northlands. We headed up to Waitangi, the site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between English colonists and Maori iwi (tribes). 

Inside the marae at Waitangi

As it's the middle of winter here in the southern hemisphere, we'd decided to spend a few days in Samoa and get a bit of sunshine during our trip. We started out with a few days of relaxation at the Le Vasa resort.

View from our bungalow

We didn't travel far!

After a couple of days on the coast, we moved to the capital, Apia. Although it's a tiny town, it was still a bit of a culture shock after the resort. We pottered around the sites in town and went to visit the baha'i temple, which is the base of the religion in the pacific.

Baha'i temple

We flew back in to Wellington, where we spent a couple of days sightseeing in the city and took a drive around the Wairapa region.