Auckland - reality looms

And so finally, here we are. Just over a week ago, we arrived in Auckland, and stayed one night before heading off to a beachside apartment at Pauanui, on the Coromandel Peninsula. New Year's week featured sea swims, walks up Mount Pauanui, a fair bit of lying around in the sun and the attendant rounds of barbeques, beers and so on. Absolutely superb. Although it doesn't really do it justice, here's the view from our bedroom. The beach is just over that grassy patch. The Kiwi took loads of photos, so there'll be some coming up on Facebook or Flickr or wherever we end up putting them. My brother kindly sorted us out with a Flickr account for Christmas, so we'll give that a whirl I think.

I came back yesterday, in order to attend a stag do in Auckland (much fun), the Kiwi's back today attending the hen version. Tomorrow, we officially begin non-holiday life in New Zealand, starting with NZ mobile phones and graduating to things like flats, cars and jobs. Currently we're staying with friends, which is a bit of a godsend and very much appreciated, but we're both longing for a time when we can put clothes away without knowing we have to repack them in a week's time.

We've even been looking enviously at some pretty fine barbeques, too... but one step at a time, I think. This is where it gets interesting; the sooner we're both in paid employment, the sooner we can actually relax and get on with building our life together.

In other news, dinner out last night turned out to be quite good despite being a stag event, so I took the opportunity of kicking off my other blog, Eating Auckland. Best culinary find so far is a superb hot sauce by the name of Kaitaia Fire - powerfully hot but possessing a deep smoky, citrussy flavour all of its own. I can confidently say this will be the first thing in our new fridge, at such as time as we have one of our own.