Summer House Kerikeri

Hallo liebe Daheimgebliebenen,

ich weiß, dass ihr sehr sehr lange auf diesen Eintrag warten musstet, ab** es war echt schwi**ig an diesem relativ abgelegenen Ort ins Int**net zu kommen. Ich bemühe mich, jetzt mehr zu schrieben!

Aus Auckland bin ich ja Gott sei Dank dann doch schnell rausgekommen, schon nach ein** Woche. Es hat ab** auch gut getan, endlich aus d** Großstadt rauszukommen und das wahre Neuseeland zu sehen. Die Busfahrt hi**hin war echt traumhaft, grüne Hügel ...

... a sight they were! It looked like a desert that had some how sprung a mountain range in its midst. I've never seen so much sand in my life and in fact I'm still finding it on my pockets a few weeks on! Our first conquest was a hill called 'Psycho hill!" No messing around on the small stuff for us it was straight to the tallest dune around. After a taxing climb up it we all lost our stomachs a little as we tried to peer over the edge and failed to see the slope. Just a ...

... that. Sophie can't wait for the horses, Luke can't wait for the motorbikes, and I'm looking forward to having beers by the fire. I hear it snowed again in Seattle today, I will do my best not to think smug thoughts. Though I understand we're missing out on some epic powder skiing. That's it for now, hopefully you're still awake. I'll post something again soon. Lots of love Ted

7/11/08-9/11/08 Waiting in Kerikeri * I thought through all the options of not staying Kerikeri - then I decided that 5 days of actually relaxing might be nice, I often say, when stressed "I've heard of boredom and I think I'd like it" so here was my chance to find out if this is true. * Typical Relaxing activities have included - Reading (luckily there is a cheap second hand book shop in town) - Jogging ...

... life in the US who trained in the hospital I was born in. A Physiotherapist (specializing in chronic pain) from the midlands, 36 and looking to move, traveling for 2 months. A Specialist in teaching kids with behavioral difficulties, who'd sold up and was traveling for a year and looking to change jobs but nervous at 52. And me. From this assorted group I found out about different ...

... for LA yesterday. The night turned into something of a riddle as a Demon energy drink indutry promotion night (featuring some divine promo girls) offered a 1,000 dollar free alcohol giveaway. Naturally, as any self respecting backpacker should, I was there ten minutes before kick-off just to ensure maximum value was obtained. The bar was surprisingly empty by the appointed hour but I got chatting to an Irish lad called Tommy and by 8pm when the free tab finally ended we were best ...

... a nice lady! Saved me a fare. I went into the rental office and they quoted me $200 to have a car til tomorrow. I thought that was rather steep, so went a phoned Hertz. They didn't even have any available (Thankfully as they were quoting $600!!!!) I took the car with Archibalds, as I didn't really have much choice, I needed to drive up the north coast today. She very kindly checked out the Air New Zealnd flights to Napier for me for tomorrow, they still had some, so looked ...

... and while a lot of people don't consider Kahawai a great table fish they obviously didn't grow up eating jackfish out of a swamp in northern Alberta. Our day soon came to a close, with around 9 fish dead or dying all told. Dominated. We cruised back into Opito bay under a bright red sunset and were off through the hills. Towing the boat through said hills was the first time we noticed our clutch was going. Yay 1100 dollars down the drain! Ah well, the day was amazing. So is New Zealand.

... by the time we actually managed to get to the big tree, it was nearly dark, we were 3 hours late for check-in, and really just wanted to get to where we were headed, so we continued at pace to Russell where we had two nights booked in a 5 Star lodge - Russell Cottages. We did see trees about 4m thick. The drive took us 9 hours inlcuding a half hour stop. Whew! The cottage was lovely and had all the trimmings. Sal got to use all her fru-fru bath bombs she'd ...

... and did some impressive acrobatics. We decided to go and camp at Ngawha Ginn Springs which was inland, but it had eight hot mineral pools there where we could have a long soak. The pools were lovely all different temperatures with differing minerals, the only downside was listening to some local lads talking about the best way to slaughter animals!!