Back in Straya: chilling out in beautiful Brisbane :)

If I've been away for a while, the descent into London always puts a smile on my face - I am home. 

I had the same feeling when I flew into Brisbane from Auckland; I was back in Australia, I was home :) Even the smallest thing like a quick trip to Coles made me happy that first day - everything was back to being familiar, the weather was beautiful and I felt a sense of belonging. I love it here!

Auckland adventures

'Have you got a map of the city I could take please?' I ask a friendly looking member of staff in the Auckland bus terminal.

'No, sorry...where do you need to go?'

'131 Beach Road. The Station Backpackers.' I then stand and listen to her well-meaning but rather jumbled directions, knowing I will have to ask someone else immediately after exiting the building. The way she's describing it, my hostel is located approximately five hundred thousand miles away, so I ask whether it's best to get a taxi.

'Hmm...maybe,' she replies. 'Let me just show you how far we're talking.' She rummages around for a minute before FINDING A MAP and placing it down on the counter in front of me. I look at her in disbelief.

Mount Maunganui - home come January?

Cape Town, Brazil, New York, Barcelona...there's no shortage of places I've travelled through that have struck me as the perfect place to live. But that was before I'd been to The Mount. In addition to being utterly perfect, it's also the most realistic of the five - Cape Town is too dangerous, there would be visa complications and limitations with New York and Brazil, and my Spanish is so pitifully bad that I've removed it from my resume altogether - adiós Barcelona.

Tutukaka Coast

Oh, the joys of having not just your own room but a luxury hotel room on your travels! I was upgraded on arrival to a $169/night room with a view of the marina which was a nice surprise (and worth almost double what I'd actually paid for, sweet as).* Throw in a 32" plasma with Sky TV, a monster DVD collection and a king size bed and there you have it - a very happy Jen who didn't leave the room until 4pm the next day. What, would you?

Bay of Islands - a slice of paradise?

'Oh wow, you're staying with us for quite a while!'

Translation: 'What the heck are you going to do here for that long, you crazy fool?'

Action: Slash stay by half. And I'm glad I did because there's not an awful lot going on in Paihia, the little beach town where most people base themselves to explore the Bay of Islands. Day 1 of 2 was thrown into disarray by my third and final attempt to swim with dolphins - turns out they'd cancelled the morning trip and not bothered to tell me, and when I got onto the boat for the arvo session they told us there's only a 50% chance of swimming with dolphins normally, and because the swell was so big (6ft waves) there was practically no chance. Ruuubbish. I got outta there, got a full refund (woohoo) and did a couple of walks instead, one 6km return coastal trail to Opua: