Maz also went out on a goat hunt with the locals into the hills on a goat hunt. Every xmas the village hunts one of the wild mountain goats to sell on the mainland to pay for their xmas meal. It was quite a savage affair, whith the kids coming along to hurl rocks at the captured goat. It was quite a haul that day as they also speared some fish on the walk back to the village.

After Naviti we movd down the Yasawa group of islands to spend Christmas in Wayasewa , a slightly bigger island (it has two villages instead of just the one). This is closer to the mainland and so had water supplies, and was generally a lot nicer. We spent xmas day on the far side of the island in the main village. We visited church first of all for a 1 hour fijian sermon, then joined a fijian family for their christmas lunch, which was a massive feast cooked in the Lovo underground oven followed by a few cups of Kava to wash it down. Christmas is a big time for families (including aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) to get together so all of the boats to the Yasawas were packed and the population of the islands doubles or triples.

After lunch we went swimming behind the 'sand bridge' - a drift of sand from that joins together Waya and Wayasewa islands that you can walk across at low tide (and provides a natural barrier to the pacific waves). One of the guys at the resort had a kite board so we watched him zipping around and jumping over the sand bridge. After that we took a walk up the hill behind the village to see the panoramic views. It certainly made a change from xmas at home - white sand instead of white snow!



We eventually arrived in Auckland a few days ago - it's taken a while to acclimatise to the cold weather (though it's actually pretty mild for this time of year). We've been busy trying to organise ourselves - getting a car, camping equipment, mobiles, visas etc so it's been a bit stressfull and we've been hampered by the fact that everything is shut on Sundays and public holidays (which includes 1st & 2nd Jan). We're hoping to leave tomorrow, but with no car and no tent still it'll prove difficult!

New years was pretty cool though - we went down to the harbour with our fijian duty-free rum and watched the fireworks set off from the top of the skytower. We also found time to take a harbour cruise today which was the first sightseeing we've done here. It's a pretty harbour, but the cruise just gave us the initial impression that Aucklands like a 'little sydney', with many of the same features just in smaller proportions. The nightlife has been a little lacking so far but that could be because many kiwis go away to holiday destinations for the xmas period.

We were lucky to get a tour of the americas cup boats and team hq's where we saw all the competition yachts up in dry dock and shrouded in fabric so the competition can't see the hull designs. Apparently competition yachts from 5 or 10 years ago have been converted for public charter, but I think on our backpacker budget we'll be sticking to the passenger ferry.



Unfortunately due to the time spent getting a car, problems sorting out visas (will probably have to get to Christchurch a few days early to barter with immigration officials.... ...again) we've only got about 14 days left to actually do our road trip across the north island, which is hardly any time at all, but we will be able to do weekend trips from Christchurch. So, we're looking forward to finally seeing something of NZ! </William> <!--10:54 PM-->