"It's a good country...the girls are honest."
Although it's not entirely obvious, I can at times be rather charming. It was due to this alleged charm that Amy (my old boss) suggested that I go for a weekend away in Tauranga to party with her and a mate.
This happened to coincide with the arrival of Mike (remember the son-of-a-bitch I spent the first 14 months traveling with??). Unfortunately, it didn't coincide with the arrival of Mike's bag, but evenutally we made it on the road.
After a delightful roadtrip where I finally got to see some half decent N.Z. landscapes, and we managed to visit the giant L&P Bottle, we were shown around the town of Tauranga. According to the locals there isn't anything there, but we still saw some great views and a giant Kiwi Fruit.
We watched the 2nd Test of the Lions' Tour in a great bar in Tauranga, where they had set up terrace-like seating outside, and girls came round serving you cans of piss. They also had bagpipe players before the match, and a bunch of Maori kids did the Haka which was absolutely class. Even though they were about 3 years old it was still really intense, and would be pretty intimidating if I wasn't as tough as Brian O'Driscoll (immediately after his scandalous injury).
Disappoinnting result, but not too suprising since the English are a nation of chokers. (How's Henmania going this year?) It was cool to see it with mainly Kiwis. They're a nice bunch. I had said that the Kiwi accent made them sound inbred before, but actually its really grown on me. I offended loads of them at one point by saying I'd love to eat one of their national birds...that really bombed.
Went out on the piss after the match and back up to Auckland the next evening as the girls were back in work on the Monday. This is when my charm really kicked in and Amy agreed to lend us her car for the week, so Mike and I were back on the road heading north.
It was a cool few days away but the weather was rubbish. It put Dublin's drizzle to shame...it was fucking lashing. This made it hard to do a lot of things so we ended up coming back to Auckland a day early.
Nevertheless, we got to see some cool stuff. The absolute highlight was the very northern tip of N.Z., Cape Reinga (saying Regina got a laugh out of everyone we met, because everyone, at heart, is apparently 12 years old.). The sun came out for that point and it was beautiful. It really feels like you're at the end of the earth up there. You can visibly see the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean collide which is quite phenomenal. Common sense tells you that you wouldn't be able to actually see something like this, but common sense also tells you that if you're really nice to a girl she won't ditch you for a guy who treats her like shit.
It was good to see it with Mike, since he was the guy that I have done the majority of the journey with. I pointed out it was cool to come all this way across Russia and Asia and Australia and then to finally feel like you couldn't go any further. He scoffed at me, but even he got a little deep at one point so Cape Regina must be pretty special.
Other highlights include seeing the largest tree in N.Z. (all the trees are great. One minute you're surround by Irish looking trees, the next minute they're all tropical), getting a car ferry, staying in The Treehouse (a very cool backpackers) and NOT going in to SheepWorld ($15).
We finished our road trip around Northland at Karekare Beach, where The Piano was filmed. I've never actually seen the movie, but Mike filled me in: The lead actress has a great body and Harvey Keitel gets his dick out. Presumably there's a piano in it...and a beach...and I was on it.
Although the weather wasn't great, this is one of the greatest beaches I have ever seen. Beautiful surroundings and beautiful sand, and a real feeling of seclusion. Definitely worth the trip.
The Return Of The Mike concluded with us buying tickets to go see the final test of The Lions Tour. There was a worrying start where some guy was sat in our seats with the exact same tickets as us ("Where did you buy your tickets?" "From some guy on the street." "Yeh, me too."). But we found even better seats and it was great to see a match live, despite the result.
Here's a random Mike quote, said after coming out of the public toilets at Karekare Beach: "That toilet was disgusting...I wish I'd finished my sandwich before I went in."
The rain up north has allowed me to keep telling myself that I don't mind staying put for a while to wait out the bad weather.
I'm back to work, and trying to avoid eye contact with one of my druggy housemates, for the time being. I don't particularly like living with pill heads. At least the girls in Sydney would clean the house every time they did Ecstacy.
The druggy I live with at the moment makes the place dirtier. Still, at least I can get some entertainment messing with his head. When he danced through the front door one night and really wanted some of my Orange Cordial, I suppose I could have made it clearer that he should have diluted it first...but the end result was one any Lions or All Blacks fan would have been amused by. I'm an evil, yet charming, bastard.
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