Day 70. Cebu via Singapore and Manilla. Mr Mintowt I presume.

Draw a line between Auckland and The Philippines and it looks like a straightforward journey. Take the circuitous route via the Southernmost tip of South-East Asia and things become a little more complicated.

After the relative calm of New Zealand and meticulously organised consumers' paradise that is Singapore airport, Manilla was a shock to the system. A humid, chaotic, teeming mass of people, all talking at once, rushing to somewhere else and seemingly carrying all their worldly possessions.

And that was before we'd even left the airport.

We had to take a short taxi ride to the domestic terminal, which was when the real mayhem started. It quickly became apparent that there is absolutely no Highway Code, so it's every Jeepney driving loony for himself. Quite exciting really, especially as we only had about 5 minutes spare to make the check-in for our connecting flight.



Cebu, which is The Philippines second city, is only marginally less hectic, so it was a relief to find Jan's big, daft grinning face waiting for us at the baggage reclaim. Big hugs all round for him and Marlou, and we were off to the hotel to talk long into the night about our trip and what's been happening back home.

Jan is sporting yet another ludicrously vulgar time-piece. What a ridiculous bloke he is.

Note to self: Must learn how to spell Manila.

Day 69. Titirangi. Moving on...

Time to bid a tearful farewell to NZ so spent most of the day sorting our bags out and dusting off the malaria tablets.



Did manage to squeeze one last beach in before the off, this time with Kaya for company. Weather not great though, so the bikinis and speedos will have to wait until we reach the Philippines.

Felt like the end of a huge adventure when Steve dropped us at the airport for our early morning flight. So many amazing memories from the past 2 months; the scenery, the people, the wildlife and of course, the pies have all surpassed expectations (well, maybe not the people - we KNEW Paul, Matt, Steve, Dorota et al were going to be stupendous company).

Thanks again to Stuey and Keith for helping us post our photo's.

Keep it up boys, you're a pair of superstars.

Day 68. Titirangi. Sand, Santa and some superior scoff.

Took Zoli to the beach at Karekare in the morning. This was the beach used to such spectacular effect in the film 'The Piano' a while back - Harvey Keitel playing a credible, if slightly chubby Maori if I remember rightly.

Zoli strangely unimpressed with the big waves and dramatic cliffs. Far more interested in drawing Fire Engines in the sand with a stick (bit of a Fire Engine obsessive is young Zoli).



Spent most of the afternoon sending Christmas E-cards to our entire hotmail address book (check your inbox)

Steve has just launched a website selling the funky little animated greetings cards he's been designing for the past few months. Rather good they are too - or at least we think they are - why not check the doublephat.com link on our Blog homepage to see if you agree.

Fortunately for us, Steve's other passion is cooking, and he rustled up some stupendous tucker in the evening. In true Polish style, this was washed down with a bottle of Vodka. Can't remember too much of what happened after that, but seem to recall quite a bit of nonsense being talked.

Day 67. Titirangi. At home with the Girdlestones.

Said goodbye to the boys this morning and headed out to Titirangi to stay with my old flatmate and mucker Steve who moved to NZ from Poland 3 years ago with his missus, the very lovely Dorota.



It rained steadily but our day was brightened by Kaya and Zoli, 2 regular little rays of sunshine who presented us on arrival with their latest artworks; a fishing boat for me, and a fire engine for Wend. I then encouraged Kaya to try her hand at some portraiture, and she captured Wend perfectly - the bright green teeth a feature I'd never fully appreciated until I saw it on canvas.



The house is lush. Perched on a hill overlooking a small Bay, its the kind of place most of us would be glad to spend a couple of weeks in on our summer holidays. But to live here? well, that's just ridiculous. Jammy buggers.

Day 66. Auckland. A bit of shopping and a lot more wine.

The rain returned with a vengance today, so plans for another boat trip were quickly binned. This gave us the opportunity to do some boring but important things, like confirm our flights to Singapore, buy some batteries and a replacement torch bulb.

Sorry, just read that back, and suspect it may be the most tedious paragraph in Blogdom.

The afternoon was better. Walked up to K Road, which I guess, is Auckland's Greenwich Village; lots of lively little cafes, scruffy ethnic eateries and interesting junk shops selling vintage clothing and...er, junk. Tempted to buy quite a bit of stuff, but realising we we're already fairly well off for junk, managed to put the wallets away unscathed.



In the evening Matt and Paul threw a little drinks bash. Most of the crowd from Sunday's BBQ came, as well as a few of their work colleagues and some random old friends. This included (and Bella, I hope you're reading this) a nice bloke called Ashley, your Google client, who reckons you should've paid me at least a hundred and fifty grand for that little freelance job I did last summer.

He sends his regards. Small world.

Day 65. Auckland. Guns and Poses

Took the ferry across the Harbour so Matt and Paul could show us around their old stomping ground Devonport.

A lovely, tree-lined neighbourhood right on the waterfront, it's now a place where only the very well heeled can afford to invest (along with a sizable Brit community who've cashed in their chips back home realising you get a lot more brick for your buck in NZ).

Devonport was central to New Zealand's strategic plans for confounding a Russian armed invasion in the late 1800's. So convinced was the government that an attack was imminent, that they constructed a huge battery containing several cannons on the Northern heads and strung a collosal iron chain right across the Harbour.



Quite why they thought the Ruskies would be so fixated with invading a far flung land with little in the way of valuable mineral resources is unclear, and of course, there never was any conflict, but to this day they remain endearingly proud of their gun emplacements.

And anyway, their efforts weren't totally in vain, because these derelict battlements provide superb views and photo backdrops for us tourists.

Day 64. Auckland. A silver lining.

After 50 fun filled days it was time to hand back the van. Wend was distraught, inconsolable, a broken woman.

Well, she was for about 15 minutes anyway, until she saw the newly purchased double bed in the guestroom at Matt and Paul's swanky downtown Auckland apartment. Paul is an old work buddy of Wend's who moved to NZ 5 years ago to be with Matt who he met while travelling. Matt's an ex-Uni lecturer who now teaches English to foreign language students, while Paul organises programmes and events for adults with disabilities.



Anyway, a quick tour of their flat and a swift glass of Sav and we were off to climb Mount Eden to get a 360 of the City and find our bearings for the next few days.

Later, we enjoyed some quality nosh at a BBQ thrown by Helen, a colleague and good friend of Pauls. Quite an eclectic, multi-national gathering made for a very pleasant evening. We were particularly pleased to meet Helen's mum, June, who won a Silver medal for New Zealand in the 1950 Empire Games.



She kindly posed for photographs in the running vest she'd worn all those years ago and let us hold up the medal so we could pretend it was us who'd taken on the world in the 80yd hurdles.

June celebrated her 80th birthday this summer, which makes her the same age as my Dad. They're both as fit as fiddles but I know who my money would be on in a 100 metre dash.



Sorry Dad.

Day 63. Paihia. Flounder boy.

A quiet day but decidedly nutty night. We'd had a couple of drinks yesterday with our neighbours on the site - Anna, a Dubliner who enjoys alcohol, swearing and giggling, and Uwe, a German hippy businessman who works as a self-employed jeweller for 8 months and travels for the rest of each year.

The four of us clicked immediately, and bless the pair of them, they threw a little party for our last night in the van.

The slight problem was that once Anna and Uwe had bought all the food and booze, they hadn't bothered waiting for the Smiths before getting started. So by the time we returned to the campsite at 6, they were already trousered.

It was dead funny.



Uwe was comedy drunk, hiccuping continuously and telling us at least 14 times how he liked to prepare his potatoes. Anna found everything anyone said totally hilarious. And the pair of them were stumbling and falling about each time they got up for a pee.

Luckily, Uwe had already prepared most of the food before getting on the pop, so we could enjoy his marinaded lamb and fried potatoes while watching their Laurel and Hardy double act.

Once the music and 'singing' got into top gear we began attracting other campers to the shindig, and met a top bloke by the name of Stephan, who said he was originally from Switzerland and missed a good old knees up. He became quite sentimental for a while, telling us how badly behaved he used to be and regretting his newly found NZ sensible streak. Funny what a few beers does to people.

The party peaked when Uwe took an amorous shine to Anna, stripped down to his socks and underhosen, and announced that he was going into the Ocean to "Catch Anna a Flounder".



No-one tried to stop him as he waded into the cold, water, but she must have been impressed because 10 minutes later they were getting the lips on each other. It was a beautiful moment. Love was in the air, so we left them to it and hit the sack.