Furnace

Today, we touched down in Oz. The heat hits you like a wall of molten lava smacking into your body and incinerating you. It is that hot. However, I am getting ahead of myself.

So, yesterday after returning the tent to Jodi and checking our post (nothing, doh), as well as sorting our return flights with Quantas (eeep!) we had a tasty 'Farewell Auckland' dinner involving noodles and sweet potato, pickled ginger and salads, green tea and deep-fried bananas. Then, we retired early so as to have three hours sleep under our belts before we had to drag ourselves from the comforting pillows of the Mercure to find and board the AirBus to the airport.
At 3am then, we awoke and checked-out, wandering the deserted streets of Auckland, the Japanese-influence neons glowing and the street cleaners the only presence. We arrived at the airport, checked in, waited around for a while, got progressively hungrier. We spent some enjoyable time trying to spend our NZ dollar change, which totalled 9 dollars which equals practically nothing in real life, let alone airport prices.
Eventually, five hours after we woke up, we boarded the plane and set off. This plane was in a whole different class to the one we travelled out on - a vast, vast selection of movies, tv shows, radio, music videos, games - there was so much to do we were having serious decision issues trying to best fill the suddenly measly-looking four hour flight. We were served breakfast (thankfully, or my stomach may have eaten me in its protests) and occupied ourselves with the entertainment system.
Upon landing, checking-in, going through customs, being singled out and scanned AGAIN (just me, Alex is apparently not as suspicious looking as I am) and picking up the bags, we were in Oz! Officially! We wheeled the trolley out the doors and that brings me to the start of the blog, with the incinerating heat and all that.
It was amazing. NZ was by no means cold, but Oz has taken the idea of heat to an entirely different level. It reached 37 degrees today. The wind is no cooling breeze, but a baking hot swish of air that literally causes you to gasp for hydration.
We checked into the hotel (after issues with getting there as the driver got lost, and then, issues with checking in as their database was blanking us...) and then headed out. We walked to the Docks and admired the bizarre modern art sculptures (square cow stuck in a tree, anyone? Silver pipecleaners? Maybe some giant plastic white mushroomy things called 'Silence'?) then chose a cafe to provide lunch. We had half a generously loaded pizza each in the ingenious portion where they put a different topping on each quarter of the pizza. Then, stuffed once again, we returned to the hotel for water, naps and showers.
This evening, we headed out to the Suzuki Night Market, a phenomenon I discovered while trawling through Melbourne websites and so awesome it was definately worth the visit.
Imagine, a 2 or 3 acre space, most covered by a gigantic arching red warehouse, chairs spilling out and filling a makeshift square in front of a stage. Live music pumps out as thousands of people mill about, clutching cold juices and ice creams to keep cool in the insane heat, plates balanced in the crook of an elbow as people chose dinner from the myriad different international food stalls - Thai, Szechuan, Vietnamese, Indian, Malaysian, Spanish, French, English, American, Mexican, African - every country in existence appeared to be represented and the smells and sounds and colours were intoxicating. Along the other side of the warehouse, stalls upon stalls on bright clothes, jewellery, art, carvings stood arrayed. The smoke from the cooking hung in the rafters, the evening sun (still hot enough to feel like it is burning you instantly) shining through it...such as awesome market! We bought a giant carton of freshly squeezed cold mandarin juice and drank it as we perused the stalls. I bought an earring, Alex a cap and we both had a go at the lucky dip stall, each earning a bracelet.
Having enjoyed the sights and sounds, we sat in the park for a while and decided that we like Melbourne. We have planned (loosely) our itinery for tomorrow, so now we are just off to bed - we've been up almost 23 hours after all!

Last

Crikey! Today is the end of our NZ adventure! Sometime during the night tonight, we are to up and quit the hotel and trug along to the airport to catch our flight to Ozland. Wow, its so crazy!

The last few days have been relaxed, we took in the sales on Boxing Day (there is a reason NZ has no large presence on the international fashion scene) and enjoyed the sunshine on our balcony. We continued to stuff ourselves with leftovers and then made all the rest of the leftovers into sandwiches, so as to carry them easily when we checked-out of the Suites to go and check-in at the Mercure down the road. The Mercure has the biggest bed ever, rivalling King Henry VIII's mega-bed. A definate update in luxury from the tent! We went out of Auckland yesterday on the bus to Onehunga, and while there we visited the outlet stores and Alex found a new t-shirt and board shorts at uber cheap prices to replace the old battered ones that have accompanied him on this trip. Its amazing we navigated our way their and back, as the bus drivers for some odd reason refused point blank to actually talk to us when we asked if this was the right bus/correct stop/time to return. Luckily however, they did respond to the other couple on the bus, who had the same destination in mind, so we were able to listen in on their (detailed and friendly) directions and follow them when we got lost and confused.

Today, we plan to wind up any loose threads here in Auckland. We have to go and check our postbox and give them a forwarding address. We need to give notice on our internet plan with Vodafone. We need to sort and pack our stuff. We definately will be needing snackage for later. Other than that, we'll just give Auckland a last wander round, check out some of our favourite places and get ready to move on to the next big adventure awaiting us across the Tasman!

P.S. Hope you like the new Oz-stylee layout! Also, check out the new pics on Flickr from our Christmas fun.

Christmas

At 6am sharp on Christmas Eve, we awoke to the dulcet tones of the mobile alarm and the goose outside the tent and packed away our sleeping bags, tent and air mattress - never to see them again, with any luck!
We trumped into town with our packs, located our bus and boarded with no issue. We were on the way to our luxury Christmas delight!
The bus was busy, the driver repetitive with his rules and regs, but we made it through to Auckland and actually arrived 16 minutes early, at 3.30pm. The drive had three short stops for food/loo usage, although they were so fast they prevented me from re-tasting the Best Veggie Burger in the World, at Dino's Diner. Doh.
We checked into the Suites and had a moment to enjoy the space, the walls, the actual flat ceiling...as well as the immense view down to the sea and of the Sky Tower because we are on the 16th floor! It is so insanely high above the city!
After admiring our apartment, we headed to the supermarket to join the rush of people doing last minute grocery shopping and bought enough food to equip a Roman General with a private dinner party's worth of feasting food. Soo good! Once back, we decorated the apartment and got the Christmas music going. We bought ourselves pizza from Dominoes as our Christmas Eve feast - not for lack of food, but because we had been deprived of pizza for a month or more. Oh, it was good. We both ate our entire pizza and spent the rest of the evening laying about watching carols on tv and holding our stomachs.

Christmas morning dawned hot, sunshine and deep blue sky. We had pannettone, actual butter and Alex a bacon butty for breakfast, along with delicious chai lattes. Then, we ripped into our stockings. I had a giant bubble set, a silver tiara and bangles with tinkling bells. Alex had dominoes and a foam shooter and coloured airspray pens. We continued to open presents throughout the day and had an awesome time playing about. We had a shotting competition with the gun set Alex gave me  as kids toys go, this thing is practially a lethal weapon, shooting darts well accross the room and aiming at targets. I got a collapsible hula hoop and Alex was entranced by his rubix cube. We snacked on mince pies and then took a lunch break, enjoying antipasto and crudites platters, with oven-fresh bread, dips and iced tea. Yum. We used the airspray pens to tattoo ourselves (these have now faded to large, bruise coloured blotches...) and I built many different cars using my new click-together building blocks. We had a pavlova for tea and then watched the Madegascar Xmas Special and Happy Feet on tv.
We finished off the day (and our ability to walk without waddling) by having Christmas Dinner, baked gammon, roast kumara and potatoes, cranbarry sauce, veggies, vege chipolatas and stuffing - the works. So good. So stuffed afterwards. Settling ourselves in comfy chairs, we called home as the clock moved to Boxing Day.


Boxing Day, a cool 28 degrees after yesterdays heights above 30, has seen a continued trend in the 'Eat, eat and eat' theme. We are taking it easy before heading into town for a stroll among the crowds thronging the sales. We might even get to eat Christmas pudding tonight, as we just couldn't manage it yesterday!

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Have a fantastically wonderful Christmas, we will do a blog tomorrow as we are feeling far too fat from eating enough food to feed a small army.

Emily and Alex

Icecream

The last few days have been a bliss of warmth, sunshine and ice cream. The ducklings have grown bigger, but retain their yellow fuzz and come to visit us several times a day. In fact, today they managed to all seperate and get lost from their mother, so we and another gap yearer spent a while carting them about the get them back into a concerted group, to the suspected (but unconfirmed obviously) relief of their questing mother duck.
Yesterday, we headed into town, admiring the blooming roses that adorn the pathways. Our goal was exciting - to purchase presents for Christmas day! We went into the $2 Store we have long had our eye on for this purpose and seperated, each to fill their basket with no more or less than 10 presents for the other. As an acitivity, this was awesome fun and really boosted the whole Christmas mood, which is oddly hard to come by despite the glittering decorations in the campsite. Probably something to do with the 30 degree heat...
Anyways, after buying our gifts and both faithfully promising not to look at the other's bag, we got a subway sandwich each and had a mini picnic, before going to New World to buy the storable/non-fresh stuff we needed for our Christmas meals. Once we had picked all that up, which insures we'll have something to eat if we can't get to the supermarket in Auckland before it closes due to bus lateness or some horrible thing like that, we started on back to the campsite.
We were waylaid however, by the drawing of the competition. Let me explain. Over the last year, Hastings New World has been displaying a very shiny BMW in the foyer. This BMW was the prize in a draw that would occur on the 22nd Decemeber, and which you could enter every time you spent money in store. Given that we have been here a month, and bought all our food supplies from New World, we had collected quite a few of these prize draw entry slips. We had faithfully designated each and every one with our names and numbers, hoping for the Christmas miracle which would see this car (and its £22,000 retail value) land in our laps. (Well, not literally, that would probably result in us being squashed). The giant cement mixer that had been hired to spin the slips was standing in the carpark, the crowds had gathered and the policeman reached in to grab the winning slip...with bated breath we waited! Alas, we did not win, instead the car went to a serendipitous local, but nonetheless it was an entertaining moment.
Today, we have been sorting out all the stuff in the tent and repacking our bags, so that tomorrow morning we can be up, pack away the tent and sleeping bags, and gone on the trek into town in time to catch our very early bus at 7.30am. This bus will whisk us back up the motorway, to Auckland, where we can check into our hotel (a hotel! After a month in a tent! Sublime!) and then hot foot it to the supermarket to buy the rest of the fresh ingrediants needed for Xmas. Once we have lugged those back to the hotel (!), we shall settle in for the Christmas Eve movies, possibly garnished with a pizza.

In the last post, I believe I promised some tales of New Zealand that we had gathered for a time when news was low. Thus, let me tell you about the animals. When driving along, the last thing you expect to see on the side of the road, is a turkey. However, a turkey we did indeed see. Now, you know all this, I put it down in the blog when it occurred. However, since that moment, we also came accross a goat, a sheep, several chickens and even a horse, standing at the side of the road. No tethers, no concern for the cars, just calmly standing on the green between the road and the fence of their apparently unsecure fenced environment. We found it amusing that, having gone to such lengths to escape the fettering hands of their owners, they then turned about face and remained convieniently positioned nearby, awaiting recapture and, no doubt, dinnertime. Oddities.

Today, the 23rd, we would like to wish my Dad a very Happy Birthday! Have a great day in the snow! xxx

Wind

The tent was practically flat-topped early this morning, when the howling wind outside woke us both up. The wind has been whooshing about all day, battering the tent into weird and wonderful shapes. It is holding up beautifully considering the insane weather conditions it has been through.
We had our uninspiring bran flakes with sultanas for breakfast (cereal just tastes like cardboard here. English cereal must have additives. Tasty additives) then sunbathed for a while, despite the wind which is rather cooling.
I've been reading the Three Musketeers, which has absolutely fabulous language and phrasing. Very amusing.
After lunch, we played with the ducklings, sketched, worked on the pc...we are settling in to watch Stardust now, with the addition of cookies from the Cookie Monster. Now there is a NZ brand I am going to miss.

Now, I'm aware the last few posts have been less than enthralling, but we located a list we made while we were driving about the country of interesting things to put in the blog in the future. So, I shall aim to write about some of these in the next few days - I'd do it now, but Stardust is about to start and my cookie needs microwaving fro that freshly-baked goodness.

Sunbathing

The last two days have been hot hot heat and laser-like sun rays, fading green grass, ice cream and cake. We have spent the time lolling about the thirsty grass on the riverbank, reading magazines scavenged from other people and baking. Alex has gained a caramel tan, I have managed a faint tan as well, despite being smothered in factor 70, in the shade, complete with hat and sunglasses.
There are a good range of movies in the run up to Christmas, so we always have an evening activity. Tonight is Men in Black 2, which should be fun. Nearly all the Czech people have given up and left, only a few jobseekers remain - an Ozzie, some Americans and Germans.
Thus, from social study, I can tell you the only thing that makes a German man laugh these days is the point in Family Guy where a rooster appears and has a bar fight for a good five minutes. Possibly linked in to the bird/violence thing, is that German women all appeared to be terrified by ducklings, because they scream and run shouting German swear words everytime a hopeful duckling approaches them.

Cinema

Something very surreal just occurred. Santa, his sleigh and half a dozen fibre-glass, aerodynamic reindeer just zoomed past me. I was standing near our tent at the time. In the very warm evening sunshine. Holding a box of cake. Bizarre has a new picture in the dictionary.
Anyways, prior to this experience, we had awoken, decided that the day seemed warm, but had the potential to go very cold and very wet and set off into town regardless. We didn't even take raincoats. Thats how reckless we are.
We paced into the town, along the concrete pavements that glare the sunlight back up and probably work to tan the underside of your throat...we grabbed a subway and then headed to the cinema, to watch Avatar, out today!
After seeing five trailers (and wanting to watch every single film they advertised but now, remembering none of them) we saw Avatar. It was awesome. Even Alex could not complain about the graphics and the creativity behind the world of Pandora was amazing, the story grabbed your interest and its going onto my top ten list, a rare and mystical place for a movie to nest. However, there were four teenage girls behind us who did nothing but kick the chairs, talk (loudly) and snicker at everything. They don't know how close they came to total anhiliation. Luckily, Alex and I are very tolerant people.
We went to New World and at the urging of all parents, who seem to think that the first thing we would abandon in a monetary crisis would be food (so wrong, we both love the food), splashed out on some yummy goodness to keep us alive and well until we abandon Hastings for Auckland. We got the shopping home while having a debate about the merits of warfare vs. native populations and how Avatar was a possible metaphor for the current war in the Middle East. After our spout of intelligence, we were exhausted and lay out in the sunshine by the river, having dinner and cake, to the immense interest of the ducks, which circled us.
This is how I came to be sytanding by the tent, holding the box of cake to be returned to the tent, when Santa whipped on past to the accompaniment of Christmas jingles.

Cold

Obviously the teasing about the heat has gained some sort of negative karma - the temperature has dropped, last night was very cold! It has not got better throughout the day either, its still chilly and there was a sudden and unexpected thunderstorm after lunch. The sky darkened, thunder rolled and the rain came down, heavy as small rodents flung out of the sky and just as noisy.
We were concerned our tent would have been flattened, but it seems to have miraculously withstood the onslaught. I have spent the day reading a sci-fi book (the second of the three I found in the lounge) and Alex Mayaed away the day with some helpful online tutorials.
We have no nice foods at all left, just endless grim fish fillets and kumara to fill the hunger. We have one cookie left between us (who sells cookies in packets of nine? It is cruel and unneccessary) and nothing else but the tempting smells of the other campers cuisines, all who have for some reason started making Thai curries full of fresh ingrediants, no doubt with their paychecks...Czechs are obviously more employable than we are.
Anyway. 8 days to go and we can go back to Auckland, our hotel and the rest of our holiday!

Ketchup

Okay, so this post has nothing whatsoever to do with ketchup, but it sounds almost like 'Catch Up' which would have been my title today if it were not for the fact that it involves two words where I like to have just one.
So, after the excitement of Splash Planet, things have been a little quiet round here. We have, however had beautiful sunny hot weather nearly every day though, which definately gets the thumbs up from me!
We have, somehow, managed to occupy ourselves wiht very little issue the last few days. We spent Thursday reading and watching movies. We also had to say goodbye to Dion, who after returning from work with a roast chicken and a six-pack of beer was having a merry 'ole chat with Alex before being escorted off-site by the campsite owner due to his involvement with the police the other day. So we lost his company and now there are only Czech people, everywhere. I have no idea why every other person hanging about here waiting for a job offer is Czech, but so the matter stands. As we can't speak Czech (dang the English idea that their language will get them anywhere!) we all just mutter 'Hello' at each other and then get to ignoring.
Friday, I have asked Alex and searched my mind and I have no idea what we did. So that was obviously thrilling.
Saturday, we took a trip into town to do a very concentrated and highly-thought out shopping list of food to last us as long as possible over the next two weeks. We also meandered down to the 40% off sale at the Warehouse and purchased cookies, a Christmas tree and some tinsel. So cheap, it was unbelievable. We were very pleased however, especially as our four pound tree includes fibre optics!
Sunday, I awoke from a dream in which we were scrambling up a hill to get away from the tsunami about to destroy the campsite. During the day, Alex was building a Roman soldier in 3D while I practiced drawing. I also made lots of exciting lists and we both calculated how much we need to earn once we are back in England and touched up our CVs and wrote various cover letters, yada yada. Tres fun. Then, in the evening we watched the tv film premiere of 'Ratatouille' which was awesome, if weird and returned to our tinsel-bedecked tent and watched our tree change colour for a while before passing out to sleep.
Today, Monday, the sky is grey, the air is full of water and we are sitting inside. I have done some more sketching, Alex some more 3D work. I found some sci-fi books and 'The Three Musketeers' behind the bookshelf in the lounge and I have kidnapped them to read. All is good. We have fruitbread.

Wednesday

Ah, but the sleeping was good last night! The difference a block of velour-coated air makes to your back and head! In fact, it was so good that despite the early morning heat that smothered the tent, Alex did not wake up for two hours after I had woken up and I practically starved waiting for him to unfurl from his sleeping bag cocoon. I have, logically, analysed his sleeping style as being not unlike that of a duckling, thus his affiniation with the feathered natives.
After a beautiful breakfast of apple porridge, hot chocolate and nutella filled rolls (you can eat well on a budget!), we decided on a visit to SplashPlanet. Now, part of this campsites attraction is that it offers massive discounts on pre-bought tickets to SplashPlanet. It was a hot, sunny day, we thought, why not go to a swimming pool?
This was more than a swimming pool! There was a never-ending river, about five different slides and rides involving floats and tubes and loads of dry activities too. It was a water-theme park! So we arrived, full of excitement, changed into swimming gear and queued up for our first activity 'Formula Fun'. Obviously, this involved karting around a track in full on racing regalia. It was great, I had an electric blue vehicle, Alex was in a red one (ferrari, don't you know). We zoomed around the track, vying with the other four drivers on corners and skidding tyres on the straight. Alex overtook me on a hill, the sneaky boy and took the lead away from me!
After our dry car adventure, we decided to brace ourselves for the cool water of the pool, the sudden and unstoppable way - on a giant, double loop tube down a large twisty waterslide! We lugged our tube up the steps and boarded, then pushed off, into the unknown! Surfice to say, it was chilly at the other end, but a brilliant ride! We practically fell off the tube after one vertical turn.
We took the daylight skyride (an open tube high above the park) and then the dark skyride (literally pitch black. I almost did an unexpected loop the loop when I took a corner I couldn't see on the uber-slippery mat I was riding). Then, we swooshed into the Never-Ending River, grabbed a couple of thick foam floats and then did magic carpet impressions as we floated around the park's circumference on the fast-flowing water.
We did many repeats of the slides, exhausting ourselves with the steps up. Then we took a break to go and sit in the hot pools, although these were not nearly as hot as we were expecting (having been in the real thing) and rather noisy due to all the small kids. We vacated the hot pools in favour of the indoor slide, the 'Master Blaster' which was vertiginously twisting and all in the dark as well! I almost scooted over the edge when it opened out and the corner turned too vigerously.
We gathered our stuff from the lockers and dried off in the sunshine (about five minutes, done and dried) and then headed back to the campsite to rustle up some dinner. Just as we finished eating, Dion, the guy from the kitchen the other day, turned up and we had a lengthy conversation about New Zealand and so on. He is a native, from up in the Northland and so generous! He has given me a book on Maori language and offered Alex a bag of mince from the freezer so he doesn't starve on vege rations.
By the end of the convo, we were pretty hungry again, so we made some soup and toast and are just relaxing in the lounge now, trying to get some work done and do the research that we love so much. Hmm.
Maybe the beautiful cats will show up again, as they did last night. They are very vocal. Two are black with white whiskers, one plush with a plume for his tail, the other skinny with a chunk out of her ear. The other is giant, poofy, white and grey and aloof.
Lets hope the weather sticks - the forecast is for rain tomorrow (Doh) but the West coast has had (and I quote from the weather lady) 1119 lightning strikes today! Eeep! Also a note about the TV - has anyone at home seen the new Heinekin advert, with the walk-in wardrobes? Hilarious!!!

Tuesday

We were in shock when we awoke this morning. It was actually sunny and hot, for the second day in a row! That is two out of nine!
We embraced this gorgeous cloud-free weather by scrambling out of the tent and towards the kitchens for our hearty winter breakfast of porridge, which we may have added too much 'milk' (e.g. water and powdered milk) to and turned out more the consistency and colour of flu-induced mucus. Yum.
After such a grim fuelling, we headed out of the campsite and braved the world beyond, determined to go to town and explore. We wandered the streets of Hastings, which, despite its general lack of actual activities/anything at all to do is very pretty. Possibly the prettiest habitation in New Zealand. Many of the towns and cities are based along the main road in a long line, bungalows with lots of corrugated iron laying about. Hastings however is awash with sculptural fountains, ponds, green swathes of grass and many flower baskets rioting in colour.
We went intho the Warehouse and caved to the cheapness. We bought, after much price comparision and searching, the cheapest air bed in the store. Now, it works out at 40 pence a night for pure, squishy air-filled comfort. Bliss.
We also bought (on an amazing price) 50 multicoloured fairy lights and two red felt stockings with green felt trim and printed holly. They are amazing and cost us no more than, wait for it...three whole pounds! Bargainous! Ah, so happy with the stockings to decorate our Christmas hotel. We have a plan to raid the two-dollar shop for stocking fillers. It is going to be awesome!
Then, we had a subway sandwich (so many vege, meat for Alex, yet cheap!) Yes, we are obsessed with cheap. Still no jobs.
We went to New World, the supermarket of true brilliance in the Southern Hemisphere, and got some more food to keep us going. Then (long, arduous, hot walk), back at the campsite we cleared out the tent, blew up the airbed and stuffed it inside while feeling light headed from the air loss. Ah, so comfy. So worth it. I am actually looking forward to going to bed tonight.
We made dinner and sat outside to eat it, enjoying the heat and the sparrows. We're going to scope out the movie channel to see if anything good is on tonight.
In the meantime, plans continue for the future. We cannot continue the mega-trip we had planned without cash. So, we are thinking that breaking the trip down is the way to go. This obviously requires working in the inbetween times, so we have pretty much decided to embark on the next obvious stage availible to us - return home and work! Once there is money in the bank...onwards and upwards!

Monday

Today, it was sunny again, yay for us! We started out with our 'Very Berry' porridge and marvelled about the heat of the sun in December and the ability to eat porridge outside and not get pneumonia.
Then we settled in for some hardocre work, Alex on his maya project for his portfolio and I on reading my book, slowly.
We had olives and pasta and cheese for lunch which was highly enjoyable. I finished the second of the books in my omnibus selection which was galling. I just can't refrain! I attempted, by making tasty nutella toast for snackage and thawing the nutella out with hot water as we'd left it in the fridge. This was time consuming, thus not book reading time, thus good. It didn't make a blind bit of difference however, I finished the third and last book of the omnibus just before dinnertime, despite trying to distract myself. Doh. Now I have nothing to do. We made a tasty concoction for dinner and then headed back to the tent, one for a change of scene from the lounge and two, to enjoy the less laser-like rays of the evening sunshine.

We have spent a lot of time thinking about our options. Obviously, we have run aground as far as money goes. The jobs are not forthcoming. We are spending time researching and thinking of variously crazy slash practical ideas for the future. Who knows what will happen? Watch this space, I daresay the decision will have to be made shortly!

SUN

The sun came out! Today was warm! Sunny! We had to apply our brand new, super amazing factor 70 sunscreen! Yes, there is such a thing as factor 70! There is even 85, but the shop didn't stock it...

Ah Sun. How we have missed thee.

Sofa

I have so many aches from sleeping repeatedly on the ground. It is unbelieveably solid, despite the fact that there must be an underground river flowing through it by now.
We woke at 5am, to see the rain actually causing dents to appear in the top of the tent. Dragging ourselves through the rain to the kitchen, we made our porridge breakfast (we bought exciting flavoured satchets of porridge oats to enliven the monotonous regime of porridge) and chatted to the guy also in the kitchen cooking. Guess what he was making? He was cooking up a whole pan (read=20) of giant green-lipped mussels. For breakfast. Having been up since 2am at Cape Kidnappers, diving for them.
This guy eats more food than I can even comprehend eating in a week, let alone one sitting. The other day, he was making dinner. This involved five fried eggs, six lamb cutlets, three garlic breads and ten sausages. I am not even kidding. This morning, for breakfast, other than the mussels he had four sausage sandwiches and a french baguette filled with a whole cow. Okay, maybe that last was a little exageratted, but otherwise, yup, those are his eating habits. I do not know how 1) He has the time to cook and eat all this stuff, 2) How he has time in between cooking and eating this stuff to work enough to afford it all and 3) How anyone's stomuch can take that amount of food on a constant basis! He is also unfailingly generous and friendly, offering anyone around a share. This morning, Alex tried a fresh cooked, caught two hours previously mussel. I demurred, as it was a copped coloured squidge complete with rusty black breathing tubes and squelchy white stretchy bits attached to the shell. I like the shells, not the inhabitants! Apparently, it was really chewy and tasted of salt. Not surprising, really, but defiately not my preferred breakfast of choice!
Anyways, we hung out in the lounge again and Alex started up something new on the laptop for his portfolio. I read a magazine full of shiny pictures. We had some beans on toast for lunch and I bemoaned the Kiwi need to make everything sweet and their seeming hatred of hot foods.
We moved to the sofas and I started in on my book. We had music videos in the background. All the other backpackers were hanging about too, all reading and moping about the weather.
Then, amazingly, the sun came out and the rain stopped. Blue sky began to appear. We all gathered at the windows in sheer amazement. Then, fast as it had appeared, as if to give us false hope, it disappeared again. Its not raining (yet) but it is definately grey. Doh.
We had some exciting distraction in the form of the police showing up wanting to talk to the guy who cooks all the massive amounts of food - turns out he'd bashed osmeone attempting to rob his car on the head and the robber had complained to the police. But he was offskies anyways - he drove past and waved at me as I was returning to the lounge after a pasta-fetching mission form the tent!
A car race came on and absorbed Alex into its distracting circuits and crashes. I decided to do some mindless things on the laptop for a while, instead of consuming my book within one day. We had dinner, chocolate (amazing stuff with cherry flavoured jelly beans and bits of biscuit included in the chocolate) and watched Legally Blonde 2 on the tv with another couple. Now it is dark and it is time to re-greet to solid mattress of doom known to others as the ground. Joy.

Torchlight

Well, we survived yesterday. The rain eventually ceased, around 5 in the evening so we were able to dry out our tent and possessions and get to sleep without the fear of potential drowning.
Of course, such surcease could not last and it was flippin' well raining again when we woke up this morning. Grr. Also, for some unknown reason, the birds decided that our sixth morning in the tent was the morning for splattering the tent in guano. Yay.
Anyways, we awaited the rain to stop, in hope of a dry run to the kitchen for breakfast and miraculously, it did! So we gobbled our cereal bars and emailed a few more random contractors. Then we decided to take a walk to the PickNZ office in Hastings City and see if us showing ourselves to be real and not virtual abnmormalities might secure us a job.
Well. We trumped, for miles upon miles, upon the hard concrete pavements of the urban sprawl. We went through an industiral estate, down a main road and round about a flowery residential area. We finally located the office (usefully hidden from hopeful jobseekers behind a fence and car park) and sat down to wait our turn. There were six teenagers, who did not appear to speak English, being put on file by the very loud, very harrassed-looking women on the desk. Finally, she looked up and around the office, noticed that about five more people ahd come in and announced 'If any of you are here looking for vacancies, there are none.'
Doh. We trudged all that way for nada. 
We went round the circuit route and back in the main city where we salvaged our lost operation with subway for our late lunch (the whole debacle took three hours!!!) and I purchased a magazine and a book (honestly the heaviest book I have ever hefted. So did not think that one through before buying). Hopefully, these can keep me occupied long enough to let Alex work on his portfolio pieces successfully on the laptop. So, we forge ahead, using the spare time wisely...
Of course, we got back to the campsite and it appears the weather had decided to take a turn away from wet and more towards freezing. We made dinner and huddled with everyone else in the lounge, watching Glee, the awesome musical drama they have here and then AotearoHA!, a comedy sketch show. Somewhere, in the middle of all this hilarity, the heavens opened and the rain came down. Again.
We made a run for the tent, which does not appear to be leaking (!) and now we have to settle down for the night, with bucketloads of water bouncing off the top of our tent. I guess at least it will clean off the bird droppings.

Torrential

Okay. It is 8 in the morning. It has rained solidly for 15 hours, no pause. What is more, it has POURED. This is no drizzly, mizzly half-hearted rain. This is full on torrential monsoon type water descending from the sky.
Our tent just cannot take it anymore, the seams are so full of water that they have started leaking. We have wrapped all our possessions (gladly, not much as Val agreed to take some of the bulkier items back to the UK for us) in black plastic bags and retreated to the lounge again, to make serious friends with the sofas.

Time

We were lounging about on our second full day here in Hawkes Bay, watching the phone and obsessively checking our emails, while watching a bizarre film from reception that another bored camper couple had rented out and put on in the movie room. It was called Lonely Hearts and starred John Travolta and Salma Hayuk being a psychopath.
Anyways, it was during this odd film that we got a phone call from Val and Bren. They had successfully visisted the gardens in Hamilton, glow wormed it up in the caves in Waitomo and trekked round the volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park. Now they were in Napier and ready to rendevous once again. They arrived in the campsite and located our tent, where we introduced them to the 15 golden ducklings that like to hang around our tent. We had a brief lecture from a randomer about sadistic children attacking the ducklings, and to stay on our guard (!) and then off we went, to explore!
We directed them to the New World supermarket in Hastings, the best supermarket I have so far seen in NZ. It is so pretty, they really put effort into the displays. All the vegetables are in hessian sacks or baskets, there is a salad bar, a deli, a chocolatier, a bakery, everything, in fact that one could want from a supermarket. There is also the top notch cafe they have out the back where Alex and I ate the day before.
Alex and I offered to concoct dinner and so swept around the aisles picking up ingrediants for our special - ricotta and spinach stuffed baked cannelloni! Once we had procured these vitalities, we set off for Val and Bren's motel room and kitchen facilities where we mixed and stuffed and prepped and baked until dinner was served, all on matching plates (not plastic!) and round an actual table! Novelties all.
We were driven back to our little tent in the rain and retired to bed. The weather did not imporve, it was still raining the next morning. Val and Bren picked us up again and kindly offered to take us on a tour of the orchards in the hope that showing our faces to would-be employers may sway them into offering us jobs. Alas, no such luck. After visiting over seven different places and being point blank refused at all of them, we couldn't take the rejection any longer. We headed to Mission Bay Winery, the oldest in NZ, and very pretty and grand. There, we headed to the fancy restaurant and had some lovely lunch, surrounded by gilt mirrors and ruched red silk blinds. We took a stroll out onto the terrace, looking out over the vineyard and towards the sea and the sun actually started to peep out from behind the rainclouds!
Once back in Napier city, we wandered along the Marine Parade, dodging cyclists and admiring the view. We looked over some beautiful gardens and innovative water features, remembering the story of Pania of the Reef and generally enjoying the return of the sunshine. Then, it was decided that we go and play mini-golf, although whose idea this was I do not know!
I have never played before and the first hole was a perfect example of this. No beginner's luck for me, 6+ 'gentle taps' and the ball was obstinately refusing to go into the hole. However, things picked up, my ball getting closer and closer to the hole with each successive green, until I actually scored a hole-in-one! Round a corner as well! Skills! Alex scored his hole-in-one on the first green, showing off his golfing prowess and Val got one round a random boulder stuck in the centre of the green. Some of them are deceptively innocent looking, when really they are filled with slopes and tricky corner bits. Grr.
Back at the motel, we had a tasty tasty supper of cheese (proper cheese! Not pre-sliced!), olives, bread, anzac biscuits, caramel slice, wafers, ooh it was yummy. I ate too much.
Back at the campsite, Alex and I sat by the river for a while to see the sun go down. By morning, it had turned from a breathtakingly beautiful golden sky to a black rainy one. Doh.
I was mobbed by the ducklings as I got out of the tent this morning to brush my teeth. They have got to know us now and were jumping on my feet and squeaking at me. Alex brought the camera out and they charged him too, just as Val and Bren pulled up. Once ready, we set out to do an educational tour of the Art Deco buildings Napier is famous for. We admired the rather lovely gardens and the bizarre trees lining the streets which appeared to be decked out with little bells or dirigible plums.
Then, we dropped Bren off in town so she could attend a more detailed Art Deco tour around Napier and said our goodbyes until Oz, then the rest of us headed back to the campsite for lunch. We made some tasty packet macaroni (helped along by generous quantities of real cheese) and had some carrot cake, then set of for Te Mata peak, despite the lingering rainfall. However, by the time we got to the peak and whats more, had heaved ourselves up the vertical sides to the top, the sky had cleared, the sun was out and the view was incredible. We looked over craggy mountainous sides, smooth organised vineyards, beautiful manor houses, right down to the curved Bay, the golden sands and the blue waters of the sea. In the opposite direction, there were hundreds of hills, roughly popping out of the countryside and covered in an almost furry-looking grass.
We returned to the campsite and said our goodbyes, as this would be the last time we see Val in NZ. Sad times.
Alex and I tidied the tent and sat outside for a bit in the sunshine. Then, the sky went dark, the clouds turned purple and everything went very quiet. We decided to move to the tv lounge and 5 minutes after we had esconced ourselves on the sofas, the downpour came. The rain is so heavy, so relentless and it is just getting heavier and heavier. The wind picked up. We are concerned our tent will not be there when we go back, which we shall have to at 10pm tonight, when the tv lounge is locked up. Oh dear, and now the contingent of kids that arrived earlier are flooding (ahhh, flood possibility!) into the lounge too. This is not good!

Burger

So yesterday we awoke at 7am and in a super-efficient manner tidied our room, checked all was packed and headed out for muffinage. Shock! The bakery was closed, it was so early! So we went to the 24hr store and got some snacks for the bus trip, then returned to the bakery at 8am and grabbed hot chocolates and muffins. Yum. After enjoying this last vestige of civilisation, we checked out of our hostel and trumped up the hill in enough weight to portray training commandoes convincingly.
We boarded the bus is a frenzy of labelling and registering and settled in for the journey. The lowpoint of this was that, for the entire seven hour trip, I felt so queasy I submerged into a dozy heap in the corner of my seat. The highpoint was that Alex managed to both find and download a full copy of Zoo Tycoon onto our laptop so we can have our own zoos. A second high point was the lunch stop. The coach came to a holt outside Dino's Diner, near Taupo and magically my appetite returned the moment I was once again on land unconnected to wheels. I had what is quite possibly the best vege burger I have ever eaten, which is bizarre as the New Zealanders are not so kindly disposed towards vegetarianism.
We finally arrived in Hastings at about 5pm, and reloaded ourselves in the manner of pack animals in order to walk the 3 kms to the campsite.
Hastings appears 'nice' - white picket fences and gardens full of delicious smelling flowers, little white postboxes shaped like Alpine chalets and an evening humidity that was not unpleasant. We arrived at the campsite, bathed in evening sunshine and bedecked with glittery Christmas decorations. The tent was duly set up and proved to be big enough for the both of us and all our stuff, which is qutie the achievement for a canvas structure. Once set up, we had dinner (lack of saucepan and other edible food led us to eat the snacks bought that morning for the bus ride...lucky that) and then went to the TV lounge to charge the laptop and fire off emails off our superior employability now that we are right in the thick of the action, so to speak. Once it was dark, we retired to bed, tricky without a torch (mine broke early on in the trip) and tried to sleep, amazed at our situation which we had not even imagined two days ago.

The night passed, eventually. Without something spongy to sleep on, the ground is rather rock hard. We had such difficulty getting the pegs into the ground yesterday it was not unexpected, but still. Alex's sleeping bag was rather thin as well, so he ended up getting too cold to sleep and spendng the early hours of the morning building his zoo on the pc. We were both woken up abruptly this morning when some rabid Kiwi's obsessed with rugby started a loud conversation about the match of the day next to our tent. Grr.
We have partaken of our remaining food (cookies!) for breakfast, and are recharging the pc and answering emails, in the search for employment.
We walked back into Hastings in order to forage for food and came away full from the superb scrambled eggs and toast, as well as carrot cake. We also secured a brand new shiny saucepan and flipper-thing to cook our food in, and enough cereal bars to sustain us through many a working lunch. We are now fully prepared. We even have a bag of water, food and suitable clothes waiting in the tent, just on the offchance that someone calls at 5am with the promise of work and transport in the next 10 minutes. We'll be ready!!!

If, by chance, reading this is a vineyard owner or orchard contractor, then we are here in Hawke's Bay, we have a tent, we'll get a car if necessary, we have work visas, IRD's and NZ bank accounts, we'll work full time, 6 days a week, we are both eager and good workers and we can start immediately!

Karma

Whoot, today has been a bit crazy on the productivity side!
We met Val for muffins again, then zoomed back to the hotel to pick up Bren and all the lugguage. We took this round to the next street to pick up their rental car and packed it up and saw them off, despite their somewhat nervous acclimatisation to the wiles of an automatic.
Alex and I headed back to our hostel, where we booked a coach from Auckland to Hastings for tomorrow morning. Then, off into town to sort out loose ends and try and get some sort of plan in motion.
We popped up to the jobseekers office to speak to Jodi again about the backpackers she had suggested in Hastings. She phoned them for us, and when they were fully booked, continued to the next place...and the next. Things were not looking great until we stumbled upon a deal with the holiday park - one week for 135 dollars! This price was beyond amazing and we were ecstatic...until we realised - that was the price for a tent pitch, and we were there with no tent, sleeping bags, or any other type of camping equipment. In a swoop of amazingness, Jodi immediately offered to go home and pick up her tent, to give to us as she couldn't remember the last time she had used it. Added to this, she popped into the hostel lost propety room and snagged us two sleeping bags. We arranged to pick these up later and left, having sorted out accomodation in one fell swoop and restored our faith in the human race. We were both just in absolute shock mode that anyone could be that lovely! Jodi is a star, no doubt about it. We decided to get her a box of chocolates as a thank you and once that was sorted, we continued on with our chores. We went to check our mailboxes (sadly, nothing there). We popped into Vodafone and sorted out a NZ simcard for Alex's phone (mine dislikes foreign simcards...) so now we have an NZ number for employers to contacts us on. We then went to the warehouse to check on prices for Christmas decorations so we know what we can get for our hotel cheer!
After all this, we returned to pick up our new house (tent!) and waved goodbye to Jodi with profuse thank-yous. We came back to our hostel in order to pack up our stuff, which has multiplied and spread around the tiny room somehow. We had a tasty stew for dinner in the bustlingly tiny kitchen and then its showers and bed! All ready to embark on our new adventure tomorrow at some awfully early hour.
'Tis gooood!

Bloom

On Thursday, Alex and I met up with Val in the Hollywood bakery for another tasty muffiny breakfast. I mananged to figure out the offer on the muffins included hot chocolate instead of the exclusive coffee I had thought it to be offering, so now I am no longer bizarrely hyper for an hour after breakfast.
We returned to the Suites to pick up Bren and sort out what we should do. We decided at length to make a trip up the hills and dales of Auckland city and go to the Domain Gardens, there to see the Victorian Greenhouses (hot and cold) and generally enjoy the sunshine that was pouring out of the sky.
The buses were (unfortunately) not working in the morning, so we struck out, up the practically vertical hills. However, luckily we did not end up taking the exact route Alex and I took earlier in the season when we visited the Domain, so we did not have to repeat the gruelling experience of the walk to K'road. Instead, we deviated from the prescribed route and meandered through Albert Park, which was much more pleasant of a hill to wander upon.
Once we had arrived in the Domain, a wide sweeping space of lush green lawns and hyperactive school kids at sports day, we sauntered about admiring the goslings and ducklings and generally cute things ending in 'ing'.
We found a little cafe, much to our relief as we were all quite peckish by this point, having hiked our way up there. We all had toasted sandwiches on the terrace, overlooking the waterbird pond and fountain, with trees swaying in the breeze and the sun keeping things warm.
After lunch, we popped into the Wintergardens. The hothouse displayed a variety of rainforest plants, many of which Alex and I have seen in their natural setting in recent weeks. There was also a fernery, filled with the green smell of foliage and curling fronds. Last, the cold house. It was a riot of colour and scent in there, so beautiful. The gladioli sprung from the ground in every colour combonation imaginable, the orchids spilling out of their containers in bright masses, the roses blooming in large, gorgeous flowers. I went into a frenzy of macro photography and emerged, blinking into the sunlight about half an hour later.

 We swished onwards, leaving the park behind and moving onwards and upwards, past the musuem and through a delightful sensory garden filled with herbs and soft furry leaves.
The buses were back in action by this point, so we caught one back into town. Alex and I returned to our dorm for showers and a change of clothes and then we rejoined Val and Bren to take a stroll around the Quay and look at the yachts. After selecting which yachts we would individually own (making up somewhat of a fleet) we selected a place to dine, called 'Meccas'. Here, we sat in an enclosed outside area, a bit on the breezy side but with a lovely view across the viaduct basin. We snacked on tasty bread and dips while the conversational waiters popped by every so often to drop tidbits of information about the food in, as well as mercilessly pick on me at every occasion. I really don't know why I provide such entertainment for these people. Doh.
In the evening, we just relaxed at the Suites, watching tv while Val and Bren planned their route with random helpful asides from Alex or myself. Then, to bed! It was a long day, and the bed at our hostel resembles nothing so much as a medieval torture device and is thus rather tricky to catch a good nights sleep in.

Zoo

After a tasty blueberry muffin for breakfast in the flouro green Hollywood Bakery, we discussed what to spend the day doing. It was beautiful, clear blue skies and sunny weather, so we took a wander round the harbour front and debated about what to do.
We located a warehouse clearout concentrating on hats so I managed to finally purchase a hat to stop my poor head constantly burning in the sporadic sun. After trying on many variations (including a multi-coloured sombrero and some floppy cowboy style hats) I bought a plain cap that should work for outside work (should we ever secure any). Val secumbed to the lure of some sparkly scarves and a lighter bag.
After some subliminal brainwashing, we decided to go to Auckland Zoo and set about finding the right bus stop. We boarded, paid (for singles, no returns in NZ for some reason) and traversed up Queen St and K'Road and on towards Motions Rd.
The Zoo was awesome. We ambled happily around in the sunshine, looking at sealions gliding effortlessly through rainbow saturated water of their environment.

 We laughed at the antics of the acrobatic spider monkeys tumbling through the air and into a bush after a plastic bottle cap. We stared, struck at the epic amount of sound that the siamang can produce from its throat pouch. We strolled over a high boardwalk looking out over mock savannah at elegant and stately giraffes, rotund zebras and the odd fluffly ostrich.

We watched as an inquisitive emu snatched food from a startled baby and as wallabies leant backwards on their knees to bask in the shade.
We took a break for lunch and then continued round, looking at the uber-cute red panda curled up in its nesting box and the crazy flying fox bats crawling about the top of their aviary looking like aging rockers in baggy leather trousers. Then we took a tour round (and under) the meerkat enclosure, crawling through tiny subterranean tunnels in order to pop our heads up into plastic bubbles and so look the meerkats eye-to-eye.

We all succumbed to the delicious ice cream on offer and watched the tigers deciding whether to come into the open or not, as well as finding a beautiful lionness sleeping right up against the glass on her enclosure. We were the thickness of the pane of glass away from her, she was so big, with cushy solid paws and twitchy sides as she dreamt away the afternoon in the sunshine.
We were weary after the day exploring various creature features and went to catch the bus back into Auckland. I somehow got hiccups (usually I get the odd, random hiccup. I do not tend towards prolonged periods of hiccupping). I was mocked by a German lady to her baby and called 'Frau Hicksy'. Sad times, I say! Mocked! In German!
We rode back on the bus and relaxed in the Suites for a bit. Later in the evening, Alex's Aunt Bren arrived from Oz. We all sped out of the apartment and towards the Skytower round the corner. It was just before dusk and we headed into the base of the tower to buy tickets to take the elevator up to the top. In the foyer, was the biggest and most glittering Christmas tree, surrounded by fairy lights. With tickets clutched in our hands, we entered the elevator, got the spiel and zoomed upwards, the glass panel in the floor showing the speed at which the ground was leaving us.
After mild confusion about the platform access, we got to the top viewing deck. Auckland was spread out in front of us, like a toy city. We could see right over the skyscrapers and gridded road systems, over to the harbours with the white sails soaring up into the sunset sky. Lines of pale lilac, pink and peach strung out accross the clouds, lit up from beneath by the fading sunshine and city lights.
As darkness fell, the city lights came alive and the whole of Auckland glittered. It was much more Christmas-like than during the daytime. It was beautiful and a lovely experience. We enjoyed the Christmas decorations up the tower.
With hunger gnawing, we grabbed noodles from a 24hr shop on Queen St and snarfed them down before retiring to bed.

Rangitoto

We rose early in time to catch the wonderful coffee and muffin offer at the Hollywood bakery on the corner of Albert St. We zoomed off down the road to meet Val, as we were running a mysterious 5 minutes late. I had a delicious frothy mochaccino and a chocolate muffin of goodness to start the day. Ah, every day needs to start with a muffin.
After breakfast we mused as to what we should do for the day. The weather was a sort of mizzling grey and we walked down to the harbour to try and suss out the weather possibilities for the rest of the day and also the timetable of the ferries.
In a spurt of decision-making firmness, we bought tickets to Rangitoto, one of the three islands off the coast of Auckland. What makes it exciting is that Rangitoto is an active volcano and no-one lives there or runs businesses there (unsurprisingly really). So, we our hastily purchased packed lunch in hand, we boarded the ferry with a group of hyperactive school kids and set sail!
Our ship was called the 'Wanderer', particularly appropriate as this is the name of the main character in the book I just finished reading. (The Host, Stephanie Meyer, Very good). We bumped up and down on a few of the wilder waves and then the captain upped the knots to about 18 and it seemed as if we flew over the waves. The foam at the back of the ship was pure, blinding white and frothy. The sky turned ever more grey and mist-like however.
We reached Rangitoto jetty and the air was clear of the lurking mist but humid all the same. We disembarked and set off to find the walk trail to the summit. The whole island was covered in rainforest (to my surprise, the guidebook issued a strong staement declaring no life on the island at all) and pumice stone. The rock was so black, and the edges of the island covered in mangrove trees which twist and curl into the water lapping against the shore.
Upon finding the trail, we started off, aiming for the summit. Rangitoto is not especially high compared to some of the mountains we have tackled, but the incline definately started to wear you down as you climbed! The ground was uneven, moderating between copious quantities of loose pumice (slippery) and large rocky formation that had us scrambling upwards. There were occasionnally the addition of steps, but the jury is out on whether these are better or worse...
We finally gained the summit and it was definately worth it. We stood on the viewing platform and watched as the sky cleared over Auckland, distant across the water.

The sun streamed down and lit up the water into turquoise and you could see the thin ribbon of the start of the trail, and the ferries coming in and out of the jetty entrance.
We had lunch and then began the climb down again. We diverted off the path a few times to explore other, less frequented paths, such as the one to some lave tubes and caves. These were pitch black, dark holes off the path and into the undergrowth and beyond.
By the time we made it back down to the start again, we were tired and our feet were starting to feel weary of the constant slide of the pumice. However, the ferry denied us entry as it was a special Harbour Cruise ship, so we went and sat on a bench overlooking the water for a while. We walked around to a Kowhai Tree Grove, dense rainforest and loud chirping crickets surrounding us.
On our return, we found another ferry, but that denied us as well as it was a different company from our tickets. Doh.
Finally, our ferry turned up, just as the weather began to turn cold, windy and drizzling. We queued (still behind the crazy schoolkids!) on the cold jetty until they let us on board. The exhertions of the day seemed to settle on us then, and we went into quiet mode.
Back in Auckland, we popped to the supermarket to stock up on some essentials so Alex and I can cook a meal for everyone tomorrow. Then we went back to the Chifley Suites for tea and some 'X Files' before heading back out this evening for Mexican on the wharfside.
This was tasty, with a view out over the harbour and the evening sunlight streaming down. After gorging ourselves on burritoes, nachos and tacos, we strolled back to the Suites for some rest and relaxation. I have hot chocolate. All is good.

Kiwi

We awoke, tidied and re-packed, scoffed our remaining yoghurts and checked out of Base Hostel. Once the important business of returning the key was done on time, we headed to the jobseekers office for a consultation.
The results were unpromising. We were told that jobs at the moment are practically endangered, due to seasonal issues and many redundant Kiwis. Oh dear. We faced absolute dread as the possibility of not being physically able to work, and therefore, the realisation that the money was out hit us.
However, the nice lady, Jodi, phoned a hostel a Hawke's Bay on our behalf. The idea here is that the hostel owners in work-saturated districts use their position as a sort of go-between backpackers and contracters. Therefore, once we have a booking in a hostel, the owner will lead us into jobs as the contractors call each day needing workers and the owner can tell them how many willing people are ready to go. This is probably what we shall end up doing, as it allows us the slim chance of work, whereas nothing else seems to hold that option. It is still a gamble though, so we have left it for a day in the hopes that something better will come along or that there will be increased chances of the venture working in our favour.
In the meantime, we popped along to the bank and sorted out our very own New Zealand bank accounts. We are now practically pure Kiwi, as many natives keep informing us when they hear how long we have been in the country.
We spent some quality time in the library again, Alex finishing up his portfolio site and I freaking myself out with the accuracy of a palmistry book.
Then, we popped along to the Chifley Suites to harangue the receptionist once again - this time, for entrance to the upper realms, where Alex's mum, Val, had arrived a few hours previously. It was bizarre being back in an identikit copy of the room we occupied back in September, but cool as well and lovely to see Val. We had tea and a chat and then Alex and I embarked on a foraging mission for pizza.
Amazingly, we managed to get lost on the way to the pizza place and discovered a whole new road in Auckland, with mosaic walls and restaurants. Once we located Dominoes, we ordered our tasty pizzas, inhaling the scent emanating form the ovens and I resisted, with every ounce of self-control I could muster, adding chocolate fudge brownies to the list of pizza and garlic bread that we bought. It was hard!
We returned to the Chifley Suites and we all munched through the yummy pizza. It was soo good! Being without an oven is not an option for the future, natch.
We have made plans for tomorrow's meeting, as phones are proving to be tricky beasts here. Its muffins at dawn and more plans from there!

City

Our hostel is over about 6 floors of a giant straight up, straight down block on Queen St, the main shopping street of Auckland. As such, the little block rooms are surrounded on all sides by more little block rooms. The walls are very thin, like paper in fact. We have a couple of stereotypical American girls to one side, who seem to constantly be drying their hair. On another side, there is a couple who keep storming back to their room and then having massive rows, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone can hear them. A few doors down, there is a dorm of boys who enjoy staying up until the early hours swigging back beer. To contend with this, we have a fridge that appears to be auditioning for the opera, with its continual gurgles and droning. We also face right onto the street, which, come both Friday and Saturday nights, has been filled with noisy revellers and police sirens. But nevermind, for it is comfy enough and it keeps us out of the rain which is currently plaguing Auckland.
It is strange, being in a hostel with so many people after living in the car for two months. It is like one giant flatshare, with slow elevators to take us from floor to floor (stairs are for fire escape only). The huge communal kitchen is stuffed with bags of food, all labelled and stacked haphazardly about. The lounge is generally host to a few people, kicking back and reading leaflets. The computer room is always full and there is a dark room, filled with sofas and the odd person snoring where you can go and watch a movie.
So, Saturday, we went to the library and stayed there for most of the afternoon, until it shut at 4. We found a space to work in amongst all the students studying for their finals (End of term in a few days, muchos stress and panic seething through the air for those who have not yet finished their revision) and got stuck in, jobhunting and cv perfecting and all that jazz.
Back in our room we viewed the building just over from us which spent the day having a gigantic plastic santa and reindeer and presents attached to it, to the disruption of the traffic. For some odd reason, Santa's face is entirely swathed in fabric with a sign promising that 'All will be revealed' on Sunday at 1.30. Neither Alex nor I are exactly sure what they mean by this - Santa's face is pretty much generic merry man complete with white hair and beard. Alex has a theory that it is going to be Michal Jackson's face, in memory. We shall see, anyways, later this afternoon.
We had dinner (hooray for pasta) and splashed out on cheese to make it palatable. Now we have a fridge, the sky is the limit - you have no idea how much you miss cheese until you have no fridge. Once we had washed up, we wandered into the movie room with our hot milk and cookies (!) and grabbed a sofa for optimum viewing. The film appeared to be about 20 minutes in, I'm not sure what it was called, but it was highly entertaining, involving a rogue super computer's plan to replace everyone in the chain of command in America and reset the government, using explosive crystals and a sonic trumpet. Once this cinematic gem has finished, we headed to bed, in lieu of the hostel's adjoining bar plans of wrestling for a prize.
New Zealand appears a little more conservative than England in that the shops close early on a Saturday and most don't even open on a Sunday. So with the library only open for 4 hours today, we are not entirely sure what to do with ourselves. Santa's reveal will obviously be much more entertaining than we expected, as it is likely the only thing that will occur today other than the job hunting...

So, an edit for today's happenings. We went to the library again and worked for a bit. Later on, we saw Santas face, revealed to the masses - it is overtly cheery, and his tongue is poking out. It is actually a little disturbing, but never mind. We watched the epic Christmas window display at the big department store (to rival Harrods) It consists of mechanical puppet mice working to ake presents, put on a theatre show and generally have a fun and sparkly Christmas. We'll take some pictures to put up tomorrow.
We saved on food all day and treated ourselves to the cinema this evening to see New Moon. In Alex's expert opinion the CGI was both well done (the wolves) and beyond awful (the water).
We had pasta and cheese for dinner and it was taaasty! Now an early night to prepare for the morrow!

New

So, we knew this day had to come, eventually. We had prepared as best we could and packed and preened Newt up for his grand relinquishment, back to Spacestation Auckland.
We drove back to the Penrose Spacestation and, sadly, gave up the keys to the lady on reception. The end of an era has been reached.
The loss of Newt was felt deeply and immediately, as we then had to carry our very heavy, unwieldy bags up a hill to the train station. We caught the train back into Auckland city and then spent an hour or so trumping about looking at hostel deals and prices. After an almost-cave to the enchantments of the Chifley Suites, we found Base ACB in the center of town, right on the main street. We got ourselves a room for the next two nights and were allowed to leave our bags at reception while the room was cleaned. We went off to the food courts to snuffle up some lunch, having had only a cereal bar for breakfast.
In the bustle of a busy lunch hour food court (oddly situated on the upper floor instead of the usual basement) we found pizza. It was good. We stared at the Christmas decorations swathing every possible surface in mild amazement - we know its coming, but it doesn't seem Christmassy to be wandering around town sans coat, scarf and twenty other layers. I was in sandals!
Returning to the hostel, we got to our room (a small, oddly shaped room overlooking the main street, painted a sickly cream with red velour curtains and a very noisy fridge - but still almost four times the space we had in Newt!) and dumped our stuff inside. Tired already from lugging the bags about, we had some down time where Alex became unconcious and I checked my emails.
Later in the afternoon, we went into town to check our post! How exciting! After locating our temporary address, we both found the post - two unassuming plastic boxes shoved under the desk in the corner in supposed alphabetical order - and marvellously, we have both been granted IRD numbers, so we can now continue on in the steps necessary to 'Getting A Salary in New Zealand'.
We returned, once again, to Base and sorted out dinner. Yum. We had the tag end of our packet of noodles, rehydrated with powdered tomato soup. Luckily, we also had cookies waiting for us in our room, to be devoured for afters. While we ate we had an enjoyable conversation with Paul, a traveller from Belfast who had just arrived in NZ after a seven month stint in South America. So, after many questions about llamas and mummies in Peru, not to mention Aztecs, we allowed him on his way again and came back upstairs to munch on those cookies, along with hot milk from our powdered milk stores (we ran out of hot chocolate powder!) So, now we resemble small children being granted hot milk and cookies as a treat for being good. Doh.

Trees

Sooo, yesterday rained, it poured and it thundered. Thus, the weather prevented us from our planned activity. So, instead we visited the black sand beach by our campsite and watched, amused and horrified, as surfers threw themselves about on the very high waves in the rain and the cold. Crazy. It reminded me of the black sand beach in Kawhia - so, so soft and with  purple tint.
Anyway, luckily, today dawned bright and sunny so we set off to Tree Adventures!
After driving through the dense, dark pine forest we arrived and kitted up in harnesses and helmets. We were appointed a practice session leader and joined up with a group of giddy ladies on a hen party trip to learn the basics...and find out how to stay alive high above the ground!
Once we had passed the practice course, we were released on the rest. Being us, we had decided to do all nine of the courses, each getting harder and higher. The courses started out about 8m above the ground and the last one was about 20m up. They were composed of collections of zip wires, swinging logs, various formations of walking wires, swings into giant rope nets and tunnels.

By the time we got to course 8 (the hardest physical course, 9 being more about the psyche-out aspect) we were tired but confident in our ability to leap across the void onto precariously strung up bits of wood, to crawl through madly swinging tunnels of slatted wood and to zip accross large open spaces on tarzan swings or surfboards strung up on wires.

 However, this course opened up a whole new level of exhertion, starting with a climb over a slack rope net (hard), then an attempt at the monkey bars. Now, both of us are absolute ninjas where monkey bars are usually concerned, but these were rope bars, they were high above our platform (which was, in turn very high above the ground) and so we both ended up just dragging ourselves along it...only to find the next challenge, which was to cross the gap between platforms on a sloth rope.

 


To make things easier for myself (if only!) I managed to do this backwards, which was highly painful, uncomfy and nerve-wracking. I almost ended up stuck on it as I couldn't see the platform I was trying to stand on due to facing the wrong way. Doh. Alex managed it fine, we continued on to rope swings into a giant net.

 Once we had managed to complete the whole forest of activities, we ate a muffin each in reward. I have to stop paying people to put me into bizarre situations. Although, hanging upside down on a long zip wire careering through the forest? Worth it.
We drove on and through Auckland again, in preperation for our relinquishing of Newt back to the Spaceship HQ tomorrow, in Penrose. We have spent the evening clearing out the car, packing and tidying up. We're chucking out anything unneccessary, as well as trying to find a way to pack that somehow makes things lighter...

Down

Today, the driving was all down, back down towards Auckland again.
We did manage to see a sunset last night, a golden, molten metal sort of sundown whereby the cloud was turned into a drip of hot furnace metal above the clear, shimmery grey water of the harbour. However, in being lifted up to take a good picture, I managed to whack my head on the roof which was unexpectedly hanging over the balcony viewing point. Doh. Now I have a lump on my head.
This morning, we left the campsite, waving goodbye to guitar man who has sat and played the guitar, constantly since we arrived yesterday apart from the 8 hour gap he took to sleep.
We drove round the hilly roads of Northland, marvelling how they went from windy and steep to impossibly straight and flat within seconds of each other.
We drove into the Kauri Forest first, the oldest habitat on New Zealand's shores. We stopped to trek in and gawk at Tane Mahuna, the Lord of the Forest. He was amazing, aweinspiring int he true sense of the word. You have never seen a tree this big. He was over 2000 years old, and in Maori legend is the reason the Earth exists, as it was his doing that pushed apart the Mother (Earth) and the Father (Sky) and so allowing people to come into being between them. His trunk was 13.5m circumference, 75m tall. Absolutely gigantic, especially in comparison with the other rainforest species. So large, you whispered in his presence.
We continued on through the thick rainforest, following the seemingly deserted road. Eventually, we broke out into sunlight again, the canopy no longer covering us in green light and bird calls.
We had a small lecture on Ancient Greek Theology in the car, as Alex asked about it and that fired off my blather mode. When we surfaced from the mug of ancient religious talk, we were several klicks further down the 'Coastal Highway' (still no coast to be seen! Lies!) and very hungry. We had lunch overlooking the entire valley and stayed there for a while feeling on top of the world. We passed back near the town of metal animals and then spent some time exploring down random roads. We found a lovely reserve that reminded me strongly of a lake I have visted in France a few times and we parke dup in the forest campsite for awhile, looking out over the lake and enjoying the surroundings.
Once we had peaced out, we continued onwards and eventually came to stop at a lookout for dinner. Here, we were hijacked by 10 varied and curious chickens, all beautiful, all highly interested in our car and us and all desperate to steal our food. They followed us about and made funny noises to each other, then started a rallying cry for reinforcements from the other side of the hill. We made dinner with the last of our vegetables (we have timed the finishing of food rather too well!) and made a run for it. The chickens all chased us as the car drew level with road again.
We continued on, looking for a campsite for the night. After looking for one that appears to have vanished from existence since the writing of our map, we turned tail and went in the opposite direction for a bit, managing to find one, nicely situated in a park of pohutukawa trees. We have yet to pay for this site, as the owner cannot get his card machine to work and so just waved us on through, so whether we have to do some heinous chore tomorrow to pay him back or not, we are not sure. In the meantime, our car now has a view of baby rabbits frolicking under the trees, so it should be a peaceful night.

Clouded

We set off from our idyllic seaside spot this morning into the Northland pastures new, clouded over and drizzling. As we drove, it thankfully began to clear up a little, so we were not forced to listen to the dreary whine of the windscreen wipers scrape across the glass.
We drove back though Whangerai, onwards towards Whangerai Falls. Here, we stopped for elevenses (alas, no more butter, we had dry fruit bread!) and took a walk down into the rainforest to have a gander at the Falls. These were brilliant, a full 27m drop of water, curtaining a basalt lava flow from some good while ago. The basalt had formed into 6-sided columns under the eroding effect of the water and vibrant green moss grew over the whole, adding to the 'depth-of-the-rainforest' vibe. We continued onwards, through the thickly growing trees, their roots twisted and curled upwards and over the soil. Ferns twirled and exotic sounding birds chirped. It was like being in a room with a 'rainforest sounds' CD. The water, after being churned by the falls had turned an odd, milky blueish tone and was slowly creeping on over rocks and pebbles in the way. The odd duck turned up and we spent some time trying to capture the antics of a wagtail on camera. It was oddly disturbing, the river water, reminding me of descriptions of the river Styx in Greek mythology. Never a good sign to feel as if you are heading deeper into the Underworld...However, passing out from under the trees, we found ourselves in a Springtime meadow, complete with daisies, buttercups and dandelions as well as cow parsley and tall grasses. We walked on for a while, in the sunshine that was valiently attempting to break the cloud cover, then returned (uphill) to the car.
We drove on, leaving Whangerai and continuing Northwards. We stopped in Kawakawa to see the Hundertwasser toilets, a bizarre tourist attraction centred around an artist (Hundertwasser) who had lived in Kawakawa for the majority of his life and left a legacy of crazily decorated toilets. These were awesome, made up of broken tiles and handcrafted sculpture tiles, with inlaid bottles and pottery urn columns. It was very colourful and cool, the tiles melding into the ground in a curve and the whole thing vaguely reminiscent of Moroccan art work, with a twist.
We left Kawakawa with cookies in our hands (and soon our stomachs) and continued onwards. We reached Paihia, a destination we had long been looking forward to despite its tourist status focusing on cruise ships. Paihia was beautiful - long stretches of golden sand, calm inlets and islands covered in forest just out in the bay. These were the Porr Knights islands and are apparently excellent for diving. We parked up and took a wander round, exploring an arts market that happened to be showing its wares on the green in front of the ocean that day and also sitting for a while on the beach, enjoying the sunshine which had finally turned up.
Once the sunshine disappeared once again and the clouds came back in force, we left Paihia. The air in Northland is very humid, hot and sticky, which is at odds with its grey skies. We headed on to Hokianga, in the hopes that the weather might yet clear and we would be rewarded with good weather at one of the most spectacular sunset viewing areas in New Zealand. As such, we are parked up in Hokianga now, poised with a view over the entire harbour. Sunset is at about 8.15, so we have just had dinner and are settling down to do some constructive portfolio work before the possibility of a decent sunset occurs. The sky cannot seem to quite decide what it is doing, being oddly blue one moment and misty grey the next. Anything could happen. We shall see!

North

Well, we have been relentlessly moving on up North from Miranda. After some more quality time in the heated pool, we left Miranda Springs and started back along the Coastal Pacific Highway after reading that it was a 'Thing to do before you die' route.It was nice and all, but really? A must-see? Alex and my official stance on this particular route is that it is mostly propaganda anyways - it is nearly always away from the coastline, and it merely rambles through pleasant green countryside.Not to mention, I was pulled over by a completely scary-looking bunch of police officers, who wanted me to speak my full name aloud, before letting me go on my way. Alex and I were mystified by the whole thing until we turned the radio on and realised NZ has just passed a law for the police to do random drugs tests on drivers. So yeah, that box I spoke into? Not a dictaphone recording my name as evidence in some heinous crime, just a drugs detector! Nice to know NZ police think I look high. Humph.
We eventually came to the point where we had to go on through Auckland. We stopped in Manukau first and were bowled over by the amount of people and civilisation that awaited us there. We were actually in awe of the mall, just because we have been away from such things for a good long while. They had 'Sooshi' - fruit icecream rolled up in dried fruit and then fruit jelly added to it to look like, you guessed it, Sushi. It fascinated us. They had whole counters devoted to baked goods. We sniffed the baked goodness as it wafted around the foodcourt. They had skate shops and games shops which drew Alex towards them with unholy power. I was attracted, as if I was something metallic looking at a magnet, towards shops with shoe sales and sparkly things. It was quite fun, if a bizarre way of spending an hour.
We battled it through the busiest traffic we have ever come across in NZ, along the 3-lane motorway across Auckland's Harbour Bridge. We sighted the Skytower and it was like coming home, as it was the first thing we saw when we first arrived in NZ. Such an odd feeling!
Within 10kms of Auckland, the traffic had thinned right down again, no cars were to be seen apart from the odd truck. It was as we were drifting up into the Northland, that we saw the sign. 'SheepWorld' it blared out at us. We had to stop and see. It was mandatory, having seen the sign. That was when we saw them. We had parked in the carpark, we were about to go in and have a look at prices, we heard a 'baaa', we turned.

 
An entire field of flourescent, bright, radiant pink sheep stood on our right. Pink sheep! They were day-glo! They were spectacular.
We wandered around the shop for a bit, but decided to skip the park itself (despite their having alpacas) as the ticket was quite pricey and included events that had long since finished by the time we rocked up at about 2.30. But still. We saw pink sheep, and that was hilarious enough to entertain us for quite a while.
We carried on going, aiming for Whangerai, but eventually stopping at Mangawhai Heads Beach Reserve instead.
(Sidenote: I keep forgetting to add this - The Maori pronunciation of these words is very different to how we see them spelt. 'Wh' = 'F' sound, the 'g''s are soft and bouncy sounding and you pretty much slur it all together then make it sound musical. Go with it. As such, 'Whangerai' sounds more like 'Fang-er-AY'. Its fun to play with, although you mostly get odd looks if you do it in public).
We stayed at the Beach Reserve for the night, as it was an empty car park with pretty cool views. The carpark was crazy, it had some weird parking system that no-one could actually figure out, so everyone in it was parked ina different way, at odd angles. It was quite amusing, especially when one elderly couple in a massive campervan started audibly complaining outside our window this morning that they were unable to park correctly, because of where we were parked. I should point out at this time that the carpark was huge, and at this point occupied by only three cars, including us.
Northland is rainforest extradinaire and as such, it has been humid and drizzly since we arrived. Doh. We continue however, in the knowledge that we have but one week remaining and Northland is the last part to tick off on our roadtrip.
On our drive, we came across a rather disturbing and unusual aspect of this area. Near Warkworth, the whole country side is peppered with metallic sculptures of farmyard animals. This is patently uneccessary, as NZ has more than enough real-live farm animals to maintain. Despite this however, we have seen metal chickens, goats, sheep, alpacas, cows and one very scary, freakish goat/cow hybrid monstrosity that lurked out suddenly from its vantage point of a hill and caused us to fear what we would find aorund the bend in the road.
This morning, we set off for Whangerai, looking forward to what the guidebook painted as a pleasant little seaside town with many free distractions for tourists. However, driving through it, it was more of an industrial town, with confusing roundabouts. We went to Pak 'n' Save for muffins and abandoned the place, heading out to the coast to find a campsite. We have the need to feel a bit more grounded at the moment, less transitory. We have lucked out with a lovely green place, cheap and fully kitted out with kitchens and bathrooms. The sea is breaking on the bay not ten metres away from our car and we can see right around the headland, following the curve of the land.

We have, in a moment of foresightedness, planned our itinerary for the remaining days in Newt (*sob*) and shall therefore, hopefully, be able to take things easy and absorb the best of the Northland.

We've added a new batch of pictures to Flickr, so feel free to check those out!

Still

Ahhh. Today has been good! In a manner in which I'm sure no-one will sympathise, Alex and I were tired of moving on every day, always pushing on so as not to miss anything. So we took a holiday from our holiday, as it were.
Yesterday evening, we stayed in the hot mineral pool until it closed at 10. We were in it again this morning at 7. After much steam and thought on the subject, we decided it would really be best if we remained in the holiday park for a day longer. Time to recuperate from the road, we said. Time to relax from our constant travelling. Just one more day.
Sp, instead of packing up and leaving our glamorous campsite this morning, as we were meant to, we instead stayed. We soaked in the pool. We consumed breakfast (crazy 'Weet-Bix' made up of five different things...including puffed rice? It is like eating popcorn, ricecakes and weetabix all in one compact, rectangular cereal). We donned our sports wear (or what passes for it from our lugguge) and got rackets from reception, and spent the rest of the morning playing tennis. Once we had our eyes programmed to the yellow ball instead of a red one, we got some good rallies going, played out our own little Wimbledon. I won one set, Alex the other.
Having downed an energy drink to make it through the tiring rounds of tennis, we were both still raring to go. As such, we spent a good long while on the trampoline, to the amusement of random other park denizens, who wandered past, bemused at the activity.
After lunch (last nights left-overs) and fruit bread (a friendly sparrow came within an inch of my hand to steal mine. An inch!), we went back in the pool. Three times in under 12 hours is no bad thing...
We spent some quality time with the tv and watched Fraiser, while checking emails for job replies. Now we have an action plan, which will hopefully work out. No-one can commit to giving us jobs and all recommend asking the day before we want it instead of three weeks in advance. Yay for organisation.
Then, it was a return to the trampoline. This time, we took the camera in order to share some of our crazy flying-high moves.
We had dinner (a terrible combination of chilli beans, sweetcorn, potato, carrot and the evil ingredient - tuna) and copious amounts of chocolate afterwards to ward off the tuna.
Then we have been having our 'Work' hour, where we both work on something to put in our portfolio of skills and so hopefully attract employers towards us.
I'm reckoning the pool or the trampoline will probably see us again before the day is through...There you have the run-down of our day. Hope you all have a good day too! Let us know how its going! :)

Lost

After waking to an overcast day, we embarked on a roadtrip round the coastal highway route of the Coromandel Peninsula instead of heading down to the beach again.
Now, this was purportedly a trip to admire the gorgeous coastline and discover secluded beaches...what it in fact was, turned out to be a trip down a road where houses had been built on either side, thereby obscuring the view! Admittedly, the houses were multi-million dollar mansions, which mad eup for it slightly as we plotted ambitious designs on how to secure these houses for our very own.
Once we had finished our trip around the entire peninsula however, we were still only in the early afternoon - we get up way too early! We explored the 'Warehouse' shopping centre, pawing at all the Christmas decorations and checking prices to see if we'll be able to have any tinsel adorning our Kiwi Christmas. Its weird, being out South Hemisphere way for Christmas.
After reading books we hadn't bought sneakily in the back of the shop, we moved on, and found the 'Miranda Holiday Park'. Having shaken the sheets out this morning due to the uncomfy exfoliating effect of having over half the beach inside the car (I have no idea how we trugged that much sand up the cliff back to the car, but somehow, it got in), we decided more showers were in order to rid ourselves of the sandy hair syndrome.
Now, we are enjoying some serious creature comforts in our holiday park full of random tourists who appear to have settled here.
We have sofas, tv, a kitchen, tennis courts, pentanque and (get this) our own heated mineral pool, fresh from the hot springs down the road! Good stuff! We now need to use as much of this as possible, in order to have justified our spending of ten whole pounds each for the night. Excellent!

Coromandel

After a hair-raising drive along a clifftop road, we entered the Coromandel Peninsula through a gravelled road that allowed us to bypass the blockage we had thought would prevent us from seeing it.
Wow. It is truly beautiful here. The sea, that reaches out as far as you can see is an aquamarine/deep blue, calm and endless. Scattered amoungst the waves are clump-like islets covered in rainforest. The beachs and golden and sandy. There are pleasant boulders grouped up along the shore.
After parking, we tramped the hour walk to the Cathedral Bay beach we had heard was the best. Oh, was this walk beyond tiring. Good thing there was a beach at the end of it! Considering we have survived glaciers with no ill-effect, and done much else physically demanding in the course of our travels, this track caused the disquieting feeling of one's heart expanding and attempting to leap from your mouth. Exhausting.
The gorgeous beach made up for it, as did the sunshine, heat and shady pohukatawa trees climbing the cliff faces. We lay out on the sand, composed of tiny pink pieces of shell and golden speckles, and paddled in the (freezing) clear blue water of the bay.
Having returned to the spaceship, we cooked up another brilliant stew and are now sorting through job applications and all that jazz. Exciting stuff.

I forgot yesterday, to mention some of the people we have been coming across...
In the Pak 'n' Save carpark yesterday, we managed to attach an odd elderly man to us when he noticed our car had 'Spaceships' scrawled on the side. His innocent seeming remark - 'Been far in space then?' turned out to be the start of a UFO conspiracy conversation which Alex and I just nodded along to as he vehemently declaimed the government and 'the people in charge'. He went to the extent of fetching out corralating paperwork evidence from his car to show us. Slightly concerning, but after about 30 minutes or so of in depth alien space theory, he wandered off with his trolley and engaged some staff members in conversation instead.
Alex also came across someone who freaked him out utterly, at the campsite. The women at the front desk acted rather robotically and kept having heart palpitations and wandering off during the transaction!

Rumble

There are weird, painted lines along some of the roads here and often, in order to cross and turn right, you are forced to run over these lines. They make horrible, scary rumbling noises and the whole cars makes sounds as if it is about to collapse. It is unnerving.
What is also unnerving is that we have travelled all the way up the East Coast of North Island, to see the Coromandel Peninsula, only to discover that the single entry into the National Park has collapsed and the entire Peninsula is inaccessable. Doh.
We drove from Napier to Taupo after a disquieting run-in with some threatening looking locals who scared us by following our car around and making weird gestures at us. So we ran away. On wheels.
In Taupo, we revisited our lakeside parking spot and enjoyed a truly relaxing Sunday. You may be wandering, what have we done recently that is so stressful as to deserve a relaxing Sunday? It is a valid question, but in reply, we have done lots of driving. It was Sunday, traditional day of rest...Okay, obviously those are no-fly excuses. It was sunny, we were by a gorgeous lake, ice cream became involved, who were we to argue with the idea of staying put for a day? For the record, I had passionfruit and malaga, Alex had kiwifruit and boysenberry. All four were sumptious!
We walked round some of the lake, took about an hour. It was very hot and sunny, the water was sparkling and all of Taupo's boat-touting residents crawled out of the woodwork and started displaying their machines. Bizarrely, some of the streams feeding the lake are boiling hot and steam as they run into the lake.

We have been listening to the New Zealand radio stations for a while on the longer drives - they are hilarious. They are in no way as PC as English radios are, although sometimes they just go too far. They swear, they make illicit comments, they insult everyone and yet, they remain hysterically amusing. They have terrible competitions ('What are your King or Queen of?' - 'Sausages', 'Stripping', Deepest Voice' being some of the answers) and crazy headlines - 'Seven Year Old Reicarnated Buddhist Monk'. The Dj's are not in any way reserved, speak their minds and spend a lot of time phoning random people up for no apparent reason. They also have a serious need to mock females. Like I say though, fuuunnyyy!

Anyways, we are currently in a random place (Waihi) at a campsite for showers! Yay! We are trying to work out our next move, now the Coromandel has seemingly collapsed...