I'm back home.

YAY!

The holiday was fantastic, but damn, it's good to be home.

Ok, yesterday we travelled from Taupo to Napier in Hawkes Bay. Before we left Taupo we went to a place called Huka Falls, where we saw an amazing display of the power of water. A river was channelled through a narrow rock passage, and the force of the flow was thus increased. Imagine the flow of water down a 100-foot wide river suddenly channelled into a 20-foot wide rock channel. Suddenly the peaceful river becomes a force of destruction as it rushes through the channel before exiting the other end into a larger area again. However, the force of the water has cut out a hole in the ground and so the exit has become like a waterfall, but not one you want to stand under. :blink:

I'm going to put up a video (soon) that I took of it with my digital camera, but it's about 4 Mb. Download times will be:

56k modem - 25 mins
128k ADSL - 5 mins
Broadband - much faster

So we drove to Napier, and went around a few wineries so that Mel could do some wine tasting. After that we went back to the backpackers and then went for a walk to a pool and spa bath place, where we had a nice relaxing spa. Ah, that was the life....

Then we wandered around town for a bit to find somewhere to eat. Then it was bedtime. I was knackered. I think 10 days of driving were catching up with me. So instead of waking up at 7:30am, as usual for the past 10 days, we slept in until 8:30. Woohoo! Hehehe. I think it made the world of difference though, 'cause I wasn't so knackered today.

We did some more wine tasting before heading back to Wellington.

Hawkes Bay was a really nice place, and being only 4 hours from Wellington, I can potentially see some future weekend visits to stay there and see more of what it has to offer.

So now I'm back home in Wellington. Over the next few days I'm going to add more information to each of my 'daily entries', to give more details about the holiday and what I experienced, felt, saw, etc.

It's good to be back.

5:46pm

We're at Lake Taupo now. What a day...

We woke up, had breakfast (I didn't bother with the spa, deciding I wasn't interested in carting around wet shorts), and then went for a walk through a nearby park. Amazing. The park was built around mud pools and steam vents. So much of it! And they're wrong - you don't get used to the smell, it just starts to make you feel sick. Revolting. The smell is caused by escaping sulphur gases from the area, and we were walking through areas where the sulphur gases just waft over you. What I DID get used to was just not breathing when you're walking through the sulphur gases.

So after the walk, we went for a drive to the lakeside (Lake Rotorua), where we found a Maori 'Marae' (sacred meeting place, pronounced 'ma-rye') and walked around it taking photos. I'm sure if any Maoris spotted us as Mel stood on their statues and posed for photos, we would have been boiled alive in one of the hot pools and eaten! Or just thrown out of the Marae... Either way, I'm glad no one saw us.

Then we went to an authentic Maori village on the edge of town, which was populated by Maoris who look after the hot pools and geysers that the village is built around. Amazing shit, and I can honestly say that there's no way I'd be living in a place like that!

Small houses and craft shops built next door to gas vents and pools of hot water or mud. Every morning and evening they have communal baths in hot water provided by the hot water pools. The bathing water is provided by a large pool that is about 100 degrees celsius, heated from under the earth. Uh huh. They have it trickling into their outdoor baths, so that when they've finished with it, they pull out the plug and empty it, and then put the plug back in and by the time they're ready to use the baths again, the trickling water has filled them up again - and cooled the water temperature down somewhat. What I found disconcerting was that the plugs were cloths, because anything else corroded too quickly in the water. And they bathe in this?! Sheesh.

We're walking around this place, and there's a newly erected barrier around a section of the footpath. A large sulphur vent had opened up and collapsed a section of the ground - including the footpath. There was a hole where everything disappeared into it, and where thick plumes of sulphur came out of. Again, how do you live in an area where you could fall into a newly opened hole and be boiled alive?

People don't go digging in Rotorua, as there's too much risk of opening up a gas vent or a hot mud pool. Riiight...

So after wandering around the village for a while, joining a guided tour and watching an authentic Maori concert, we headed off to Taupo. It took us less than an hour to get here, and on the way we booked a massage for both of us for 4pm. We arrived around 2pm, and just relaxed in our room until we went off to have a massage. Now we're relaxing again. We haven't seen anything of Taupo, but it's nice to relax.

4:30pm

We arrived in Rotorua today, where active volcanoes provide the tourist attraction. Isn't it funny that a city is built around an industry that takes advantage of volcanoes about to blow. Or maybe that's just my overactive imagination...

There are geysers here, and hot mud pools, and thermal springs, and steam coming from rocks in the centre of the city park, and oh, so much more. I'm sure nothing's going to happen before I leave tomorrow, but I'm also sure one day, someone will be looking at the glowing stream of lava exploding out of the city park and thinking, 'I just KNEW I should have gone to Brisbane instead...'

We rode a luge today. It wasn't very fast, and the luge-mobiles (my nickname for them) were like little motorised go-karts, except they didn't have a motor. They had a system that focused entirely on the handlebars. If you pushed the handlebars forward, that put the luge-mobile into Park. If you pulled the handlebars towards you, it went into Neutral, and allowed you to let gravity and momentum take you down the hill. If you realised you're going far faster than any person should be going, you can pull the handlebars even closer to you, and that uses the Brake. So riding the luge is a mixture of falling down a hill and laughing while doing so, and pushing and pulling handlebars.

Now you know what the luge is.



To get up the hill to get to the luge, we went up gondolas. It reminded me of Queenstown, and was my second adventure in my life on gondolas. I realised today that it's not much of an adventure at all... Nice view though.

After a few rides of the luge we went back down on the gondolas again. Same view, still nice... no surprises there.

On the way into Rotorua we phoned ahead and booked a Maori tour thing, that had them pick us up from the backpackers, take us out into the bush and eat us. Oh, I mean, take us out into the bush and show us an authentic Maori village as if it was a couple hundred years ago. Then they'd eat us. Oops, sorry, got that wrong. No, then they'd cook up an authentic Maori Hangi (cook the food in the ground) and feed us authentic Maori food. Not like the McDonald's we had for lunch. However, there were Maori behind the counter serving us the burgers and fries... does that make it authentic Maori McDonald's? Something to think about....

Getting back to the story... the Maori tour we booked. On the phone they told us it would be $35 per person. Fine. However, when we went to pay for it at the backpackers, they told us it was $75 per person. I said we were told $35 on the phone. So the girl rang the tour people and then told us it was $35 if you lived in Rotorua (and you had to show ID with a Rotorua address), but $75 if you didn't. Here's the conversation from that point...

Me: So it's $35 if I live here?

Her: *nods*

Me: And it's $75 if I don't live here?

Her: *nods*

Me: But it's the same tour?

Her: *nods*

Me: That's crazy!

Her: Shall I go ahead and book it for you? *smiles politely*

Me: Hell no!

So Mel and I cancelled it, which was a shame, as we were really looking forward to the 3-hour authentic Maori food and history tour. I was pretty darn annoyed about their stupid 'take advantage of the tourists' practices, that's for sure.

The annoyance left me though, as Mel and I relaxed in a hot spa and pool at the backpackers we're staying at, and our $60 room opens out onto the pool itself. Awesome. The room is huge! It fits a double bed and a single bed in it, with plenty of room to move around. It's got a cupboard, a huge ensuite bathroom, and a separate kitchen/dining room. I'd have to rate this one the best so far. I'll go through my memories of all the backpacker places at the end of the journey and give them all ratings out of 10, based on my experiences with each of them.

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9:55pm

Just got back from an internet cafe where I checked my emails. Finally had enough time to go through my work emails briefly, looking for anything of personal importance. There were 416 emails there. That's what happens when you're away for a week... While checking out emails I also checked out some massage places for Mel and I to get a massage at while we're in Lake Taupo. On our way there tomorrow, she'll phone them (all 7 of them) to find out who offers the most reasonable rates.

Off to bed now. I have an early morning hot water spa to wake up to. *grin*

I'm knackered. As usual, I'll start at the beginning.

Went on the boat trip this morning, which was awesome. We followed the coastline around for a bit and saw heaps of amazing cliff faces and beaches and stuff - took heaps of photos. There was a cave formed by the water, which was about 15 metres deep, and probably the same high. Got photos of that too, as we went inside it while in the boat - it wasn't that far in though, but still pretty cool. It was about 2.5 hours out on the boat before we came back into Whitianga.

We bought some lunch stuff from a supermarket, and then went for a drive to 'Hot Water Beach', where people could dig a hole in the beach and then sit in the warm water that came welling to the surface. There were hot springs that went into the water, so if you dug a hole you could sit in your own little hot water spa. And there were a LOT of people doing it. So many, that when we got there, there just wasn't any room left to dig our own hole. So we played around a bit and took some photos and then went elsewhere.

Elsewhere was Cooks Beach, where Captain James Cook landed in 1766 (or somewhere around that time). It was an awesome beach - one of the best I've ever been on. I walked out quite a distance as it was so shallow. It was really nice.

After that we were on our way back to the backpackers and I took a wrong turn and ended up at the best lookout I've ever been to. The view was just incredible. Spectacular even!

It's 6:33pm. I'm now going to go through the photos so far for this trip and work out which ones to insert into this journal for the best one or few photos for each day so far. I hope you enjoy them half as much as I've enjoyed taking them. ;-)

We went to an underwater world attraction for the morning, where I got pissed off 'cause I discovered the camera batteries had gotten loose and caused all the settings I'd fine tuned to revert back to default. So most of the photos from the underwater world will be Mel's.

Getting out of Auckland wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There were signs pointing the way to the motorway, which was JUST what I needed. The drive from Auckland to Coromandel Peninsula was relatively boring, but once we got onto the peninsula and followed the coast around, everything became suddenly beautiful. The coastline was incredible, and it was awesome following it around. I got some good photos along the way. There was one point we saw a cave across a small bay, so we stopped and went for a walk to look at the cave. The cave wasn't worth the walk, as it only went in a few feet, but the walk was a nice distraction from the driving. We stopped for fish and chips in Coromandel Town, which was nice, and while there we booked a Whitianga glass-bottomed boat tour for tomorrow. Then we continued on to Whitianga, where we're staying for the next couple of days.

The backpackers is excellent - probably the best one we've stayed at so far. There's a bunch of oldish ladies, in their 40s through to their 70's here tonight, and they were having a great time. It's 11:16pm now, and thank God they've gone out to party somewhere else, 'cause they were making a helluva racket.

More later.

11:36pm

Just got in from having some drinks. Ok, I had 2 butterscotch and bailleys, 2 bourbon and cokes, 1 beer, 2 glasses of water. And that was after 2 beers and 2 cocktails before dinner. I'm surprised I'm still standing, but I'm even more surprised that I seem to be able to drink 'so much' without actually getting that drunk. I'm pleasantly happy right now.

Woke up this morning, uploaded yesterday's journal update via the internet, had breakfast, and then set out for Auckland. Bought a map on the way, to make things easy with finding our way into Auckland city centre. Worked like a charm. Found the backpackers without a problem, then had to organise parking for a 24-hour period. Sheesh. Parking in the middle of a city of 1.4 million people is bloody expensive.

So after we checked in and unpacked (we seem to be packing and unpacking on a daily basis!) we wandered around the city centre for a while, having lunch and going to the Sky City Tower. Then Mel went off to do some souvenir shopping, while I caught up with a girl I've been chatting to online. We spent an hour and a half over coffee, then I met up with Mel again and we went to Computerland Auckland.

The plan was to have some drinks with a few of the guys there, but only Doug was there today, so it was just him and us. That was cool. That was when I had the drinks. Then he went home and Mel and I had dinner, and then went to a nightclub afterwards, from which we've just gotten back from.

Time for bed now.

My mistake - it's not a seaside town, but it's a riverside town that's close to the sea.

Anyway, today was a relaxing day, with us deciding not to go to the Bay of Islands and instead just chill out around here. Turned out to be a reasonably good idea, seeing as how it's been raining most of the day. We spent the morning in town, looking at a couple of sights and having lunch close to the marina. We went to a clock museum, which was quite fascinating. There were a few other things we could have done here, but because of the rain, we came back to the backpackers instead, and watched a couple of movies on the laptop for the afternoon. Then we went shopping, and got lost a few times before finally making it back here!

After dinner we're going to go out for drinks at an Irish pub and celebrate St Patrick's Day (which is today). We'll have a few drinks, then come back home.

Tomorrow we're heading off early to Auckland. I'm going to have to buy a map of Auckland, so that I hopefully choose the right exits off the motorway and into the city to where we're staying. Wish me luck!

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7:32pm

Almost about to go out to drinks. I've invited a couple of blonde girls - one from Sweden, the other from Denmark - I think they'll be joining us, but I'm not exactly sure yet.

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11pm

Got back from drinks. What an interesting time! Halfway through the evening there was what seemed to be a Scottish bagpipes band coming up the street, bagpipes blazing. We thought there was going to be some kind of intercultural or clan war, between the Irish celebrating St Patrick's Day and the Scottish newcomers. Cameras were out, people were wondering. It was cool! But they were warmly welcomed; I'm not sure if they were Scottish or Irish, but they stayed for a while and played and drank, and then wandered off playing their pipes. It was a local band out for the night - bagpipers, drummers, etc etc. There was an Irish lady with us, and she wasn't sure if they were Irish or Scottish, but it didn't really matter...

Speaking of ladies with us, there were the two girls I invited, plus another one of their friends from Finland. I've got photos to prove I was out with 4 beautiful women!!

Ok, off to bed now. I'll try and upload this to the journal in the morning. Because of the lack of time available, or facilities, I'll just upload the photos at the end of it all, when I get back to Wellington - or if I get some decent time before then.

Darnit! I got bitten by another spider last night while I was asleep. Now there's two options that occurred here. It either wasn't a white-tailed spider, because it hasn't come up all horrible with a white pulsating centre (instead it's just slightly swollen and itchy), or it WAS a white-tailed spider, but the Reiki I did on it today prevented the poison from taking hold. Either way, it's just slightly swollen and itchy at the moment.

Anyway, we went caving this morning. It was excellent! We went for a drive into the hills to get to it, and that was fun. We got a couple quick geography lessons about the land and the fault lines and the limestone rock that formed the foundation of the earth, and all the rock formations we saw were because of the fault line having pushed up the rocks and it was layered because of storms and washouts over thousands of years and... Well, we finally got to the location and walked down this hill dodging sheep shit along the way. After putting on helmets and receiving instructions, we headed underground.

We took a few photos of rock formations and glow worms that could be seen in the lights, and heard about what life was like underground. It was all very fascinating. Then we all jumped into a large raft and, with lights off, silently made our way through the watery caves, our eyes adjusting to the darkness and the glow worms becoming more obvious. I tried a couple of long-exposure photos to try and get the glowing worms, but I couldn't get a long enough exposure or keep it still for long enough (an 8-second exposure didn't seem to be long enough...), so I'll use Mel's photos, which seemed to turn out ok.

We then made our way back outside, and had a cup of tea and biscuits while we watched the guide crush snails in his hands and feed the slugs to an eel in a stream. 'Alan, do you want to come and feed the eel?' Oh joy. NOT. I couldn't think of much worse at that moment than crushing snails and removing bits of crushed shell and feeding the poor little sluggy thing to the eel. I don't like killing or causing the death of anything (except spiders), so I watched while a couple of the others crushed snails and fed them to the eel that literally sucked them from their fingers.

It was all good fun, and by the time we'd come out of the caves, the sun was out - the first sun we'd seen since we'd left Wellington on Day One!

After getting dropped back near our car we then drove to Whangarei via Hamilton and Auckland. We stopped for lunch in Hamilton and then got lost for a few minutes trying to find our way out of the city. We got to Auckland around 4:30pm, just in time for peak hour traffic. Luckily the same highway took us straight through the city, and by about 5:30pm we were on the other side heading to Whangarei.

Finally arriving at Whangarei at around 7:30p we discovered that this backpackers felt more like someone's house than a backpackers. The oldish guy had rules that had to be abided by (fair enough), and where other backpackers had features that were free (linen and towels) he charged for hiring them. Uh huh. But he seemed to have a good sense of humour, so that was cool.

Mel and I have showered now, and ready to go out and hit the town for some dinner. The old guy (Peter) said we can use his phone line later, so I'll be able to copy and paste these journal entries. Woohoo! I'll do that after dinner, if I can, or tomorrow morning.

Off now to have dinner. I think we're having some seafood - appropriate, since we're in a lovely seaside town.

Darnit! I got bitten by another spider last night while I was asleep. Now there's two options that occurred here. It either wasn't a white-tailed spider, because it hasn't come up all horrible with a white pulsating centre (instead it's just slightly swollen and itchy), or it WAS a white-tailed spider, but the Reiki I did on it today prevented the poison from taking hold. Either way, it's just slightly swollen and itchy at the moment.

Anyway, we went caving this morning. It was excellent! We went for a drive into the hills to get to it, and that was fun. We got a couple quick geography lessons about the land and the fault lines and the limestone rock that formed the foundation of the earth, and all the rock formations we saw were because of the fault line having pushed up the rocks and it was layered because of storms and washouts over thousands of years and... Well, we finally got to the location and walked down this hill dodging sheep shit along the way. After putting on helmets and receiving instructions, we headed underground.

We took a few photos of rock formations and glow worms that could be seen in the lights, and heard about what life was like underground. It was all very fascinating. Then we all jumped into a large raft and, with lights off, silently made our way through the watery caves, our eyes adjusting to the darkness and the glow worms becoming more obvious. I tried a couple of long-exposure photos to try and get the glowing worms, but I couldn't get a long enough exposure or keep it still for long enough (an 8-second exposure didn't seem to be long enough...), so I'll use Mel's photos, which seemed to turn out ok.

We then made our way back outside, and had a cup of tea and biscuits while we watched the guide crush snails in his hands and feed the slugs to an eel in a stream. 'Alan, do you want to come and feed the eel?' Oh joy. NOT. I couldn't think of much worse at that moment than crushing snails and removing bits of crushed shell and feeding the poor little sluggy thing to the eel. I don't like killing or causing the death of anything (except spiders), so I watched while a couple of the others crushed snails and fed them to the eel that literally sucked them from their fingers.

It was all good fun, and by the time we'd come out of the caves, the sun was out - the first sun we'd seen since we'd left Wellington on Day One!

After getting dropped back near our car we then drove to Whangarei via Hamilton and Auckland. We stopped for lunch in Hamilton and then got lost for a few minutes trying to find our way out of the city. We got to Auckland around 4:30pm, just in time for peak hour traffic. Luckily the same highway took us straight through the city, and by about 5:30pm we were on the other side heading to Whangarei.

Finally arriving at Whangarei at around 7:30p we discovered that this backpackers felt more like someone's house than a backpackers. The oldish guy had rules that had to be abided by (fair enough), and where other backpackers had features that were free (linen and towels) he charged for hiring them. Uh huh. But he seemed to have a good sense of humour, so that was cool.

Mel and I have showered now, and ready to go out and hit the town for some dinner. The old guy (Peter) said we can use his phone line later, so I'll be able to copy and paste these journal entries. Woohoo! I'll do that after dinner, if I can, or tomorrow morning.

Off now to have dinner. I think we're having some seafood - appropriate, since we're in a lovely seaside town.

Ok, we woke up around 7:45am, had breakfast in the kitchen of the backpackers, and then drove around New Plymouth for a while, looking at the beaches and stuff. We walked along a wharf at the 'Taranaki Marina' and then went out to Mt Egmont (also known as Mt Taranaki). It was supposed to be the highlight of the area, because it's a Mt Fuji lookalike (big Japanese Mountain near Tokyo), but yesterday and today had too much cloud cover, so we weren't able to see anything from probably about 200 metres up. We got to a reasonable level to sit and have a bite to eat and look out over New Plymouth, and take some photos. Along the way back to New Plymouth we stopped at a small reserve of some kind and sat by a nice little river.

After having lunch in New Plymouth we set off to our next stop of Waitomo Caves. We arrived around 5:30 and after putting our stuff in the room, just relaxed. This place is even better than where we were yesterday. I'd say this is about an 8/10, and yesterday's drops to 6/10 because I've got something else to compare it to. :-D

Unfortunately, my plan of going through the caves tonight didn't work out, as they only have day-tours. So we're booked in for a tour tomorrow at 10:15am, which means we're not going to get away from here before 2pm. We'll hopefully get to our next destination of Whangarei before 7pm. However, I'm not exactly sure about that, because we'll be going through Auckland during peak hour, which could be a nightmare. Ah well... it is an adventure after all... :-)

It's 7:20pm now - time to make dinner.

Mel arrived on Friday midnight , and after taking her for a drive through the city to show her Wellington's nightlife, we went home and 'caught up on gossip' before heading to bed.

Yesterday, got up too late to make breakfast so bummed around over toast and orange juice before heading off to pick up my friend Vicky and her friend Sally. We drove around the bays and had lunch at a cafe called the Chocolate Fish, which has a lovely view of the water. After lunch we continued the drive around the bays and then took Vicky and Sally back home, and then just came home ourselves and bummed around for the afternoon. Taking it easy was the order of the day.

Then we went out to dinner at a Sushi bar, where they have the sushi dishes on a conveyor belt going around the centre of the looong table. It's one of my favourite places - some of the food there is excellent. (As long as it's cooked, I like it.) Then we had a tea and hot chocolate at a restaurant before heading home and drinking vodka and lemonade, chatting and listening to music, ending up going to bed after 1am.

I was woken up at 5:30am by Eve, and then again at 6:20, and between 6:20 and 7:40 she was just insane. I didn't want to put her out of my room, because then she'd wake Mel, so I just tried to tolerate the scratching of items in my room, the leaping off the walls, the running around the room, the leaping from the bed (and attacking the ghosts that were obviously all around), the climbing of the curtains and the hanging upside down from the bottom of the ironing board. But when she decided that my face looked like a mouse and should be pounced upon, I knew it was time to get up. (I don't understand all those websites I've read about kittens that all say (those that talk about it) that the 'energetic time' lasts about 20 mins. With Eve it's more like hours instead of minutes. :wacko: )

So that's the details so far.

Mel arrived on Friday midnight , and after taking her for a drive through the city to show her Wellington's nightlife, we went home and 'caught up on gossip' before heading to bed.

Yesterday, got up too late to make breakfast so bummed around over toast and orange juice before heading off to pick up my friend Vicky and her friend Sally. We drove around the bays and had lunch at a cafe called the Chocolate Fish, which has a lovely view of the water. After lunch we continued the drive around the bays and then took Vicky and Sally back home, and then just came home ourselves and bummed around for the afternoon. Taking it easy was the order of the day.

Then we went out to dinner at a Sushi bar, where they have the sushi dishes on a conveyor belt going around the centre of the looong table. It's one of my favourite places - some of the food there is excellent. (As long as it's cooked, I like it.) Then we had a tea and hot chocolate at a restaurant before heading home and drinking vodka and lemonade, chatting and listening to music, ending up going to bed after 1am.

I was woken up at 5:30am by Eve, and then again at 6:20, and between 6:20 and 7:40 she was just insane. I didn't want to put her out of my room, because then she'd wake Mel, so I just tried to tolerate the scratching of items in my room, the leaping off the walls, the running around the room, the leaping from the bed (and attacking the ghosts that were obviously all around), the climbing of the curtains and the hanging upside down from the bottom of the ironing board. But when she decided that my face looked like a mouse and should be pounced upon, I knew it was time to get up. (I don't understand all those websites I've read about kittens that all say (those that talk about it) that the 'energetic time' lasts about 20 mins. With Eve it's more like hours instead of minutes. :wacko: )

So that's the details so far.

Mel arrived on Friday midnight , and after taking her for a drive through the city to show her Wellington's nightlife, we went home and 'caught up on gossip' before heading to bed.

Yesterday, got up too late to make breakfast so bummed around over toast and orange juice before heading off to pick up my friend Vicky and her friend Sally. We drove around the bays and had lunch at a cafe called the Chocolate Fish, which has a lovely view of the water. After lunch we continued the drive around the bays and then took Vicky and Sally back home, and then just came home ourselves and bummed around for the afternoon. Taking it easy was the order of the day.

Then we went out to dinner at a Sushi bar, where they have the sushi dishes on a conveyor belt going around the centre of the looong table. It's one of my favourite places - some of the food there is excellent. (As long as it's cooked, I like it.) Then we had a tea and hot chocolate at a restaurant before heading home and drinking vodka and lemonade, chatting and listening to music, ending up going to bed after 1am.

I was woken up at 5:30am by Eve, and then again at 6:20, and between 6:20 and 7:40 she was just insane. I didn't want to put her out of my room, because then she'd wake Mel, so I just tried to tolerate the scratching of items in my room, the leaping off the walls, the running around the room, the leaping from the bed (and attacking the ghosts that were obviously all around), the climbing of the curtains and the hanging upside down from the bottom of the ironing board. But when she decided that my face looked like a mouse and should be pounced upon, I knew it was time to get up. (I don't understand all those websites I've read about kittens that all say (those that talk about it) that the 'energetic time' lasts about 20 mins. With Eve it's more like hours instead of minutes. :wacko: )

So that's the details so far.

Yeh yeh, I know... it's been over 2 weeks since my last entry. But I've still been active on here, so hopefully you'll enjoy the total experience of my activity.

Today is my last day at work. Tomorrow I have a day off because of this: a week of graveyard finishes at 8am Saturday. If you go back to a normal shift, you start as normal on the Monday, therefore you effectively have only a one-day weekend. To compensate, they give you the first Friday off, so that you have a 3-day weekend following the completion of the graveyard shift. However, because I've applied for leave from Friday, I've therefore got Thursday off because of the graveyard rules. So today is my last day of work.



On Friday night, Mel is arriving from Australia. I think she's getting here around midnight or so. I suspect we won't be getting to sleep for a few hours, as we catch up and talk. Then I'm planning Saturday to be really relaxing and I'll show her around Wellington, and then we're heading off on Sunday morning for the 11-day roadtrip.

It's been 2 years since my last long holiday, so as the date has been approaching, there's been a gradual rise in the level of excitement I'm feeling. I suspect on Friday I'll be jumping up and down!

I'm supposed to be catching up with various friends tomorrow and Friday for lunch, coffee, dinner, whatever... Damn, I don't know if I'll have time! Hehehe. And I've got to clean the house out, which I was going to do this week when I had the chance (thinking I would be on graveyard and have the days free), but I'm yet to do that.

So much to do, so little time...

I'm going to try and update this journal every day (or thereabouts) while I'm on the trip, and post the best photo from the day. I'll put up all the best photos from the trip once I come back.