Piha beach, west Auckland.

A 5kg turkey bought from a butcher in Auckland, NZ.

Jason “Psycho” Suttie punches Peter Sampson in the gut on the way to a loss at K1 Oceania Round 3 at Trusts Stadium, Auckland, NZ on November 18th 2006.

We took our first trip in the van last night, to a suburb of Auckland to go to our first ever K1 kickboxing and mixed marshall arts event. The Oceania division of K1 features fighters from Australia, New Zealand, and other South Pacific nations. There were eight fights in all, most pitting an Australian representative versus a New Zealand representative. The crowd was excited as the Kiwis took most of the fights, including the main event.

Got to go, we are leaving to go camping.

Today we purchased a 1990 Toyota Lite Ace. We had been looking for a van for quite a while, and finally found some friends of a friend who were selling theirs. It is just what we were looking for, and comes complete with a sound system, a fold down bed in the back, curtains, and lots of camping gear. Her name is Zeelandia and she has driven 260,000km through New Zealand.

A 1990 van with over two-hundred-thousand kilometers may sound old to you, but in the world of backpacker vans (the market we were looking in) this van is actually quite new and in very good shape. Now that we have a van, we can begin to explore the North Island outside of Auckland. There are lots of campgrounds and holliday parks around New Zealand where we can park and set up camp.

This is a short video made by Will Wallace, some guy from Auckland. The video shows him running through the city. Watch and you can get an idea of the places we see here every day as we walk around.

I recognize lots of the places in the video, and most are within a few blocks of our apartment. At time 1:07-1:14 of the video, he is inbetween our apartment building and another building (the one that houses the internet cafes). The area is a small stone courtyard with fountains and stairs.