Auckland

Left Los Angeles at 8pm Friday night for a ten hour flight. Arrived in Auckland at 8am on Sunday morning. (Seem to have lost Saturday 9th January along the way?!) Wasn’t on the tarmac 10 minutes when my phone rang, Jim Bonnar letting us know where we should meet. Made it through customs – despite Jenn’s crazy bouncy ball!



And grabbed a bunch of flowers for our hosts before heading into the 20+ degrees of sunshine. We were greeted with a gorgeous wee girl ‘are you Laura and Jenn’ ( no idea how she possibly recognised us haha), and then she proceeded to show us into a car, the driver was frantically shaking his head as Jenn and myself pointed for him to open the boot. Surely this man didn’t want us to keep our rucksacks on our laps??! But it turned out he just didn’t want us in his car period, fair enough considering he was a complete stranger and Jim’s car was a few yards in front...

We hopped in and off we drove to Mcdonalds for a quick drink. Vanilla Milkshake for me please. No, we do chocolate, strawberry and lime... yes LIME milkshake. After a quick ‘eww’ from Jenn and I, we ordered two LIME milkshakes. I do worry about us sometimes haha. And might I add this was a good choice.

We got a quick wash at the Bonnars and our amazing tour guide, known as Catlain, walked us to the Botanical Gardens via her primary school. This old building has reached the grand age of 7 years!!!! Quite miraculous it’s still standing really.

The gardens are beautiful, Catlain took us to the childrens area, and had an amazing time digging up bugs, crawling under tunnels in the dirt and hatching out of a huge egg...




gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘born again christian’! We spent an hour playing before we were due back for lunch. Which was a delicious salad, Jenn tried her first pickled onion. I’m completely amazed! She didn’t finish it, but I’m trying not to take it to heart. Those of you who know about my relationships with pickles will understand where i’m coming from. And we chilled out for the afternoon.

Later on we took a trip to the supermarket for BBQ food, sorry if that’s a little insensitive to our Scottish friends that are still trudging through 6 inches of snow in welly boots. A drive up to the look out point was next, this hill offers a view of ¾ of the gorgeous city of Auckland.

Both Jenn and I attempted to be awake for the sevice in St Andrews Bo’ness this morning, but our jet lagged boddies were having none of it! In bed by around 11pm (10am back home), and now awake to the familiar soothing pitter patter of rain on the bedroom window. But it’s now the back of 4 in the morning, and my eyes are threatening to close again. I’ll be off, but just glad I had an hour awake to fill you in on our adventures in Auckland. Looking forward to another day here before heading to a Scripture Union camp for older teenagers on Ponui Island, Tuesday morning.

Before I sign off just want to thank everyone for their prayers. The trip so far has been unbelievably smooth, planes on time, food delicious and host family incredibly welcoming. We officially love New Zealand.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

Loads of love and blessings,

Laura xXx

P.s. I’m imagining internet will be limited, if not nonexistent from the Island for the next week, so please don’t be concerned if the blog is quiet... enjoy the peace and we’ll be back with a vengeance in a week.