The Journey down to Wellington

This is the big one! You cannot spend a year in NZ and not visit the South Island! We have talked about this holiday ever since touching down in Auckland and now it has come. Obviously it has been fairly manic up until this point. I have worked my final clinical week at Papakura and will miss the staff, patients and community a tremendous amount. I feel that I have been stretched in many ways but also really thrived so thank you to all at Rosehill.
We packed and left Auckland Friday 1st Feb 8:45pm. Our first stop was at Turangi (about 4 hours south of Auckland) where we enjoyed a small family room at "extreme backpackers"! It was perfect and Harry and Matilda thought it was brilliant fun to all be sleeping in the same room!
The next morning we jetted down to Waikanae which is about 1 hour North of Wellington. We stayed with Andrew, Helen and their 2 daughters Philippa and Katy (?second cousins on Rosie's side of the family). The company, food and place were all lovely. We especially enjoyed a trip out to Otaki gorge(which was the setting for some of the scenes around hobbiton in the "Lord of the Rings"). We all enjoyed swimming in the river and the "wobbly bridge".