nearly got run over at auckland airport looking the wrong way when crossing the road. it is nice to be back in a place where they drive on the right (correct)(left) side of the road and also be in buses with reasonable suspension that dont lean you towards the edge of a road with a big drop and no barrier. im sure it wont be long until i miss all that again tho... and i am well over this polite waiting for people who are late crap. that would never wash in the americas.
flew down to dunedin to surprise my great uncle doug at his 80th. he worked out who i was eventually. hung out with the fam in dunedin then headed up to wanaka via the taieri gorge railway. spent time up in wanaka with the fam mt biking (not all falling off), jet boating, hiking, puzzling, swimming, kayaking etc. was beautiful up in wanaka and great to get to know my second cousins better.
went over to queenstown and then over to milford sound for an overnight cruise. my bus driver had verbal diarrohea for the entire seven hours and the only way to avoid him seemed to be going to sleep. but to be fair, some of it was actually interesting. queenstown was just asia.com and with half the signage being non-english, i thought i was back in japan
milford sound was beautiful was still a bit of snow to be seen about on the scenic road there and the weather during the cruise out to the tasman sea and back was beautiful. as it was pretty much for all the time i was in NZ. stayed the night in a sheltered bay and did a bit of kayaking and a quick look at the end of the milford track before heading back to wanaka and onto christchurch where i stayed with some more fam and managed to watch my first bit of cricket for the year.
buses it up to picton and very randomly ran into a mate from uni on the way, only the second time in all my travels i have randomly run into someone i know. took the interisland ferry over to wellington on a much better day than when i did last time; and spent the evening trying out the monteiths range and gatecrashing trivia nights with neil-my tent mate for 7 weeks in south america earlier in the year.
my local advisor fi suggested i fly up to taupo as it was only 20 bucks more than the bus and would save me about 6 hours. this was all good until this little plane flipped on the runway 10 minutes before my flight and the airport closed down for 3 hours with all flights cancelled. luckily i was able to spend a lot of my long day in the airport waiting in line for a new flight, this took off about 5 1/2 hours after my original flight, in one of the smallest commercial aircraft i have ever been on. i had to nearly crawl down to my seat in row 9 (the last row of course) and i thought the windy wellington airport might have itself another victim before the day was out but twas all good
not much rest up in taupo with fi and family! walked up mt manganui, waterskiing/biscuiting/picnic on the lake (good from skyla dog pullin us into the shore too), 160km lake taupo cycle challenge (i just watched 10,000 of them do that, did go for a training ride with fi though), drinking at finns where aidan and dani; friends i met in mexico are now working for a few months. also got them out on the lake one day and was great seeing them again.
think the highlight was the day fi and i did the tongariro crossing. the weather was perfect and there was scree and still lots of snow to run down which i loved. the last bit dragged a bit cos you know the best is behind you and you have been walking all day and just wanna go sit on a bus. but overall; awesome.
took the bus up to auckland and then went roadtrippin around coromandel with josie-another mate from south america. went hiking round cathedral cove, hot water beach, kauri groves, old mine tunnels etc and then went down to waihi beach and stayed at liz-one fo fis friends' shack right on the beach, we could literally see the water. very cool for some bodyboarding and drinking.
headed back up to the airport the next day and over to australia. was very impressed with kiwi airports, so fast and easy; definetly the best i saw this year.
had a night in melbourne with a mate and then nan picked me up from the airport and surprised my parents. all good. a great three weeks to end an amazing year.
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