The flight from Sydney to Auckland was smooth and very consumer friendly – good service and good food – needless to say it wasn’t actually Qantas, but Jetstream.  Phil and Jen (pronounced Fell and Gin) were there to meet us and we drove to their lovely house on North Shore in Castor Bay, where gin and tonics were produced (how well they know us!) and Phil got busy with his barbeque and smoking machine in order to produce a very tasty dinner of whole smoked chicken with roasted vegetables accompanied by a couple of bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.

Friday morning we went for a walk with black Labrador, Mia, along the beach and then stopped for a brunch.  Dan and Phil had eggs Florentine with smoked salmon, Jen had poached eggs and I thought I was being quite healthy with bacon, sausage and mushroom omelette – it was enormous!  It must have been made with at least 4 eggs, 2 rashers of bacon, 2 sausages and 3 large mushrooms.  Luckily we weren’t travelling far in the afternoon – only going out on a catamaran 40 miles into Auckland Bay to spot dolphins and whales!  It was an absolutely idyllic afternoon – 5 hours in total during which we saw hundreds of common dolphins and a couple of whales.  We were planning to eat at the harbour in Auckland, but Phil tempted us with fresh fish from the fish market, so we didn’t take long to decide, rushed to the market and bought green lipped mussels, snapper and salmon.  When we got home we discovered that their daughter, Laura’s, boyfriend, Rainier, had brought along his own catch of the day – snapper – which was even fresher than the ones we had bought, so we commandeered them instead.  Jen prepared mussels in a Thai sauce and Phil cooked the snapper – it was exquisite!  Again a couple of white wines were sunk.

Saturday we packed up a picnic and headed to Pakiri – a vast area of natural parkland which Phil and a partner have bought, stopping en route for a cup of coffee at Matakana.  We had a picnic under the shade of a tree with ‘lashings of ginger beer’ and relaxed whilst Phil busied himself knocking in stakes and walking his bounds.  We then visited Jen’s friends, Jodie and Martin, who owned a weekend property nearby.  After a very English cup of tea and cake we headed off to the beach for a swim.  It was paradise – a mile of white sand and we were the only ones on it.  Martin tried to teach Dan to body surf (ie without a board), but Dan was handicapped by an oversized keel!  Dinner was barbecued steak and sausages, washed down with NZ red wine – bliss!

Sunday was a relaxing day – coffee with their friends who we had met in the UK, then back for a lunch of snapper in a bun.  Jen’s friend Kay arrived in the afternoon and Phil cooked up a wonder on the Barbie – boned leg of lamb, accompanied by Jen’s roasted veg and couscous.  It was a fantastic end to our stay.  Kay dropped us off at the car hire office on Monday and the next leg of our adventure was about to begin