First port of call our South Island adventure was Nelson. Very nice place and the weather was great...for the first day...then it poured down...
We stayed in Te Puna Wai Lodge - quite possibly the nicest B & B I've ever been in...the attention to detail was unbelievable and we seriously had the best view in the house!
For the second day we toured round some vineyards and then headed to Split Apple Rock via kayak...can you guess why its called Split Apple Rock?
After leaving the beautiful North Island, we headed by Air NZ to the South Island. You've got to love Air NZ - so helpful - BA could learn a lot from these guys...
The views from the air were amazing. The plan was to start in Nelson and then gradually head down the South Island criss-crossing the country East to West and North to South.
So, after the wedding we headed back to DeBretts for a couple of nights in Auckland. Was good to be back, but we didn't have the Suite this time which was a shame...
The day started off pretty wet and miserable and we just thought we were going to have to make the most of it. Towards lunchtime though, it started to clear up and by the time of the ceremony, the weather was beautiful! We had the most amazing day - the scenery was unbelieveable. Castaways were so helpful and our photographer - Chris Dillon - did an amazing job of capturing the day...
Special thanks to our MC and DJ too - David Seel, he really pulled the day together and it would have been very different without him.
So, we finally arrived at the wedding venue - Castaways in Waiuku. One can only descrive the setting as breathtaking - individual studios and villas built into the hill side with a very dramatic black sand beach and amazing shoreline - the scene is set for a wonderful day tomorrow!
So we arrived in Auckland lunchtime on Sunday - I must say we weren't too jet-lagged. The Singapore layover basically makes it feel like two night flights so your body is pretty well adjusted bythe time you arrive in Auckland...its still a bl**dy long way though!!
DeBretts is wonderful - a really modern, clean and chic hotel. The majority of our friends and family were congregating at DeBretts and so it was great to catch up with them...
We had a few things to sort out - marriage licence, photographer, etc but not too much (aside from a minibus the day before we had to leave to go to our venue)...
