I flew into Auckland on 9th March with dramatic views of the New Zealand coast as we arrived.

For the first couple of nights I stayed with Martin Weekes and his family. I was in the sixth form with Martin at Ashcombe School and also at Aston University. I hadn’t seen him since we left university. We went out for meal with his family and were joined by his brother David and his wife. (I went on my first “grown up” holiday with Martin and David to Majorca in 1984).

Like myself, Martin decided to splash out on new car for his 50th birthday present to himself. However, he did it in style.

Unfortunately the weather turned for the worse for my two days in Auckland.

However, I did get to visit the excellent War Memorial Museum.

and the even better MOTAT – Museum of Transport and Technology (www.motat.org.nz). It has some excellent working steam exhibits.

A special section on Sir Edmund Hillary’s (National Hero of New Zealand) 1956-8 Antarctic expedition – including a rather unusual Massey Ferguson 135.

I was amused to see that a lot of the technology displayed in the museum was from my lifetime, such as rotary dial phones! The museum has an aviation collection at a separate site which is reached using one of the city’s old trams.

On 11th March, I met up with my 13 fellow travellers for the 19 day Trails of New Zealand tour (www.exodustravels.com). The following day we set off to an excellent start with our first trip having to be cancelled due to the poor weather. We went for a walk up the volcano on Rangitoto Island, just across from Auckland harbour. The weather was so bad, I didn’t take any photos on the way up. As we were catching the ferry home the weather started to clear and we were just about able to see what we had climbed.

We departed Auckland, by tour bus, on 13th March hoping for better weather.