Me against NZ

Right, so this turned out as a wonderful day. I was up early, had a brisk walk to the bus stop, the sun was shining, the waterfront was beautiful, the birds were singing. I got to the bus ahead of time, which left me plenty of time to put down my backpack straight into a huge uddle of guano, more colloquialy known as birdshit.
Yes. True story. Does it make it any more comforting to know that, in true backpacker style, I had latched my fleece onto the front of my bag, and it got covered in ... well you get the picture. Anyway, thus started my day of horror - a four hour ride into Auckland, change bus to the bus to Hamilton. Get off bus, dash madly into information office, by (very lucky) chance gt a ticket rom Hamilton to Otorohanga (and can you imagine the fun we had, me and the locals,as I tried to pronounce the name?), and from the just a quick shuttle ride to Waitomo. All told, about 8 or 9 hours on the bus.
There was only one thing I could do at this stage.
I simply HAD to do the laundry.
No, seriously. You belittle the healing powers of a good laundry session. I swear, once I had the clothes in motion, the jacket (thankfully) clean and the machine going, I could finaly let go.

But let me recap on the last couple of days. Auckland was nice but slightly boring - I did a nice walk up to Mount Eden, all through the city and back. I visited the Auckland museum on the way, and even went to the corny "Maori Show". Even the actors looked bored, but whatever. The Volcano exhibition (which patiently describes how we're all going to die of volcano eruptions before global warming gets a stab at it) was more interesting. Other than that, the city itself is rather small and rather dull.

I continued the next day to the Bay of Islands in the North. It's very beautiful - not just the islands but also the beaches and the birds. I also made a brisk 3 KM walk to the Waitangi house, where the first treaty between the Brittish government and the Maori people was signed. The museum was actually interesting. As a bonus, my finger blistered after the long walk, so I got to limp into town all the way back. Beautiful.
The next day I booked a fast boat ride to the famous Hole in the Rock. The ride was, of course, cancelled. So I took a tour boat, only I hadn't realized it was raining and cold, and anyway I came prepared for the fast ride (i.e. shorts and crocs), so I had the pleasure of freezing during a sx hour boat ride. Which was not bad. Well, actually, not as bad as the seasickness. Have I mentioned I hate boats?
But - if we put aside all the things that could go wrong and DID go wrong - the place is really beautiful. And the history o it is actually interesting. So there IS a silver lining to each cloud.

Almost forgot - met two very young and very beautiful Dutch girls, and we had a lot of fun watching The Bridget Jones Diaries (part II) together. Who said traveling isn't fun?

So now I'm actually in the hostel in Waitomo, and I've booked the rides for tomorrow, and am going to go to bed very tired ut also very frustrated.
Gotta go - laundry calls. And the damn computer won't download my photos - sorry...

Kisses to all,
M.