Alcamo Hotel - Hamilton

... Oirish girls - from Galway - are super nice. They've been best friends since they were whipper snappers and couldn't be more unalike each other. But they are great auld craic and Naomi, Lizzy and I and a couple of other share stories of present and passed. I know I'm getting on well with them when I tell them I like a-ha - so they've passed some sort of test. Great day all round. On my iPod Keep on Runnin'

... 83 million yuan ($998,000). "The methods adopted by Zhang Yujun (to make the powder) are extremely dangerous and the outcome of his crime is grave," one of the three judges said. Geng was found guilty of adding 434 kg of melamine-laced powder to about 900 tons of fresh milk to artificially increase the protein content during quality tests. He sold the milk to Sanlu and some other dairy companies. Gao Junjie, who supplied the melamine-laced "protein powder", was handed down ...

We would spend the next few nights in a west coast surf town called Raglan, immortalized in The Endless Summer and known to have the world's longest lefthand surf break. The town had a great vibe (everything centers around surfing) and was thankfully still empty in anticipation of the coming holiday high season. I got some great surfing in on a rented board, while Mikeo got some beautiful photographs ...

... with 100% humidity, heat rash and jetlag without having a complete mental breakdown (reference: ohh you BIG size!!). We know how to do our laundry ANYWHERE (except maybe the Ganges.. that's just gross) and usually end up hanging it above our bed and being asphyxiated by our underwear in the middle of the night. We can pretty much do anything. And we do. Do anything. ....well.....mostly anything. Moving right along to the point of this entry... HOW TO HAVE A LONG DISTANCE ...

... around on precarious roads in a slightly more stable set of wheels. And I'd never have one in real life, and it's my holiday, so let me off. The Nissan in the South island felt like a real truck, and the fancy Mitsubishi I had in the North, for all its fun tiptronic gimmicks and the like, felt like I was driving a skittish kangaroo, so to be avoided fyi. Anyway, cars aside. I arrived in Queenstown and accidentally centred myself there for ...

It's beautiful here. A mix between Scotland and Ireland, you really feel like if you're anything but a farmer with a flock of sheep then you're the odd one out. Of course, Hamilton is one of the biggest cities but that isn't saying much. Driving along the highway all you see is rolling green hills so vibrant you are searching one-handed for your sunglasses to keep from being blinded. The sheep, and yes there are loads, are tiny white specks dotting nearly every hill ...

... close to where we'd been a few days earlier. They were staying at an outdoor centre there. We were glad the Blackwater Rafting Company have safety in mind and had cancelled their trips. The next day the rain had ceased and the surf was up so we went out in the morning and had a go, Rick on a bodyboard and me on a Mini-Mal surfboard. Finally I caught some waves without slicing my head open (Florianopolis, Brazil was in my memory so I was wary ...

... Which also turned out to be really heavy and cumbersome to carry. Luckily Wes, one of the instructors, carried mine down to the water for me - if only I could get someone to do that for me in future! Looking out, I thought the waves were pretty big. It was near high tide, and we waded out to shoulder deep water which was surprisingly not too cold. Because the boards were super-floaty it made avoiding being smashed by the waves ...

... seen yet. She might not even be here, I don't know. The area is beautiful too, there are trees everywhere and a creek running right through. There are picnic tables for studying and picnicking and stuff; I have yet to use one for writing but I will definitely make good use of them if the wind quiets down. I do like being in my own space, even if it's just a cheap room for two weeks. I spend a lot of time in my room writing and tagging pictures and watching Xena the Warrior Princess and ...

So our plan now is to tour the North Island until mid February when we'll get back to Auckland for Matt's and Tina's wedding party. After February it will be South Island's turn! We'll try to work a little but concentrate mostly on holidaying. It should be hard to work again after several months off.



Our first destination on the car trip around North Island is Hamilton, 1.5 hours drive down from Auckland. We opted for ...