the unofficial guide of bex, eric and smurf

24th december: eric returns to auckland, albeit more tanned, fit and tired of the smell and taste of mandarins.
25th december: christmas is spent at rachel and regan's new house with my family and regan's family.
26th december: we head south to hamilton to spend boxing day with dad's side of the family.
28th december - onwards: eric and i head north to camp and walk the cape reinga coastal walkway for 4 days before continuing around northland.
january 15th: i return to auckland to go to the wedding of a good family friend.
onwards: we head to east cape, tongario, waitomo and then across to raglan.
february 4th-6th: waitangi weekend soundsplash reggae fest in raglan
onwards: head south to wellington then jump the fence into the south island.

i think this is the longest i have gone without writing on here. this causes quite the catch-22 (which, i might add in a timely aside, is a superb book that i thoroughly recommend to you all to read one day) because on the one hand i don't want to write because it seems so long since i last wrote and this means that lots has happened and how do i brilliantly conduct such excerpts of life into paragraphs that will be entertaining to you all, and then on the other hand, if i don't write, then that will continue to lengthen the amount of time i haven't written and hence increase the amount of interesting snippets of things that have been and gone and hence make the dilema to write in the future even bigger than it is already.

already the whole situation feels so big and grandious and out of hand that i'm almost compelled to quit while i'm ahead. but am i ahead? this is the real question, though the catch-22 is most certainly a valid question as well. though maybe an even more real (if such a statement can exist) question should be, am i a quitter? well no. quite frankly, i am not.

so here i am. and hurrah - two paragraphs have appeared and i suddenly feel like i am winning the race. for the moment. until i actually have to start chatting about the last couple of months and life and what is happening. but when all else fails i have the perfect remedy and that is known as "the list theory". i have often fallen on this in the past, and now comes the time to once more revert back to the classic bullet point style...

bullet point one: the job. i finished my job on the 17th of november, and despite warning my boss of this 3 months in advance, i was busy training a new replacement as of half an hour before i left. leaving things to the last minute is my secret motto for the place. since then i have been rung on several occasions to discover that those whom i had trained had departed without warning, and i was needed urgently to train new people. i was not back in auckland until yesterday when i kindly offered my services (for a generous hourly rate) and returned to work for two days to do training. this complete, i resume my holiday.

bullet point two: the boy. eric arrived in auckland (much to his surprise that my country did in fact exist) on the 18th of november and has been enjoying such kiwi luxuries as drinking l&p, buying fish and chips for $2, lounging on deserted beaches, listening to live kiwi reggae, catching fish off the rocks and being overwhelmed by such wonderful sports as rugby, league and cricket. currently he has headed north without me to work for ten days thinning mandarin trees.

bullet point three: the trip. so far we have travelled just north of auckland, and then south along the coromandel pensinsula and through to rotorua. this brought with it highlights of beaches and coastlines, volcanic activity bubbling up from geysers and mud pools and throughout parks randomly strewn through town, and hanging out with a school group all night as the southern cross slowly came up over the horizon - all of which stunned someone who comes from a land-locked, volcanco-inactive town that will never see some of the stars we have on offer.

bullet point four: the car. smurf (my toyota starlett) has been doing fantastically and is officially a well loved and well driven car. eric has yet to take the drivers seat, but i'm sure this will be changing in the new year. the sad news is that smurf had a run-in with some villains who broke his window and proceeded to take $1200 of cds... this saga is still in the process of being sorted but it put a dent in our plans as i returned to auckland to try and get things fixed up.

now i will separately post our unofficial camping guide.