When Ed was younger and was learning to swim he once put his inflatable arm bands around his ankles in the belief that he would be able to walk on water. Needless to say, he nearly drowned that day. But instead learned a valuable lesson.
When you fall in to a routine you don't really learn these lessons...it's only through doing new things.
It was through renting a campervan with Ed, Lynn and Orla that we learned that a '4 Berth' campervan is not actually 4 beds, but 2 double beds. So in a simple twist of fate I am traveling around New Zealand and sharing a bed with my ex-girlfriend. Suddenly it's 2001.
Luckily, one or more of us are mature adults. It also gives me an opportunity to show what a success I've made of my life since we broke up. On an unrelated note, did I mention I have no job, no money, no girlfriend, no prospects and recently I caught myself picking mold off bread so that I would have something to eat?
Our campervan (which was eventually christened Shamoo The Mysterious Whale) is excellent. It has a lovely little seating area, a great kitchen, a shower and a toilet and loads of little nooks and crannys which we are slowly getting to grips with. It is a bit cramped when everyones moving around in the morning. Fortunately, there's not as much emotional baggage as some though there might have been.
I love it. I don't love emptying our toilet, but we have a 'no poo' rule in place and it's working out well enough.
The only other drawback is that we think the van is haunted by the ghost of a gentleman we have named 'Lord Walkington'.
I really feel like we moved up the campsite hierachy after my days of tenting it in Oz. These campsites...they're all politics.
The first big stop was Waitomo where we went through some caves with loads of glow worms on the ceiling. Really amazing. Quite astounding to be walking and boating through these caves where the roofs are just covered in little illuminous green lights. It was quite 'Its A Small World Afterall'.
But the highlight of Waitomo was the rabbit shaving. Ages ago some Germans screwed with nature and the result were these weird bunnys which grow a lot of hair ridiculously quickly and have to be shaved every 3 months so that they don't overheat and die. So it's someones job to strap the rabbits down to a table which resembles one of those medieval racks, and shave them. It is one of the funniest, one of the most surreal things I've seen in my life.
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