Well here I am writing the last entry from New Zealand... I thought the day would never come and yet here it is. I've had an amazing year in New Zealand - experienced & seen so much.  From Stewart Island to Golden Bay to the Coromandel Peninsula - all of it has been so beautiful.  I've met amazing people & have sparked up so many good friendships. Some day I'll be back to trace some of my footsteps..

 

Next stop: Kuala Lumpur.  Tomorrow my flight leaves Auckland and after a few days spent in Malaysia, I look forward to a roadtrip around Northern France with my dad.  Can't wait to drive on the open road again!

 

Cheers for reading the ol blog & see you all next week in Ireland!

At the moment I'm in a little seaside village called Tairua on the Coromandel Peninsula.  It's a really nice place - small & rural and the people are really easy-going.  The weather is still fantastic up here too (apart from a big rain storm last week) and I've been taking advantage by refining my pretty pathetic skills on a surfboard.. I'm having a lot of trouble even standing on the board up here - the waves are huge & have no trouble in flattening me everytime I think I get close to riding one.  Apart from surfing I've been working in a restaurant as a kitchen-hand (doing prep & washing dishes) - the hours are drying up (summer season is coming to an end) so I'm not sure where I'll be this time next week..

 

Had a good time roadtrippin around the North Island with Niamh - we saw lots of interesting things including (can't believe I'm putting them all on a list - makes better reading than a big long sentence I guess):

 

- the longest pier in NZ (well it wasn't that interesting really..)

 

- a lighthouse on the East Cape overlooking the Ocean.  We were supposed to watch sunrise from here - the first in the world, but the car got stuck in the grass when were trying to leave.  We also had to endure a one-way conversation from a local farmer whose land we were
camping on - he was going to charge us to stay but then heard we were Irish.  In hindsight we shouldn't have mentioned a thing as this launched him into an hour-long description of his ancestry (parts of which were repeated over and over for effect).

 

- geysers & bubbling mud pools in Rotorua.

 

- Cathedral Cove & hot water beach in the Coromandel, where you dig a hole in the sand & thermal springs fill it up.  This has to be done around low-tide so we were down before dawn equipped with pots (ahem..) to dig with.  Turned out to be a disaster so we tried again in the late-afternoon when we had a bit more success & eventually gate-crashed into a big communal hot pool.  So nice...

 

- big waves in Raglan where I managed to surf for the first time.  I tried not to think about the shark attack that happened at the start of the summer..

 

- Lake Taupo, where we got wet in the tent & Niamh couldn't do a skydive because of bad weather.  We did get to see the buried village of Te Wairoa though (which was a load of shite by the way).  A volcano erupted in the 1800's sometime & buried a few things that have been excavated since.

 

We even managed to fit in some white-water rafting (where we got deliberately tipped by our guides - for a split second we all thought we were going to die) and jet-boating, a concept unique to New Zealand where the boat is propelled by a jet of water coming out the back.  They can operate in really shallow water - something crazy like 15cm...  After Niamh left, I hung around in New Plymouth looking for work & waiting to see the elusive Mt. Taranaki - a huge (dormant) volcano which looks like Mt. Fuji in Japan.  Didn't find any work (although I did wwoof for 10 days in a motel) and didn't manage to see the famous mountain until the day I decided to leave.  So here I am back up on the Coromandel Peninsula (where I met up with Lynn & did the hot water beach thing again - we managed to dig our very own hot pool this time) lapping up the beautiful scenery & weather and plotting my next move...
 

Two lessons for the day: if you have just spent a good half hour or more writing a blog entry, make sure you make a copy of it before uploading to the web, lest it be swallowed & lost forever.  Lesson two: if you feel a large creature crawling up your arm in the middle of the night, wake up & kill the bastard before it spins a web all over your face.

Right - to resume the task of removing festive greetings from the blog... It's been a long while since I wrote anything up, so this may be a tad long (apologies to anyone with a short attention span).  Since departing Stewart Island, I've had a lot of interesting experiences & have done quite a bit of travel.

First up was the roadtrip up the East Coast - destination: Nelson.  After picking up the pimpmobile from long-term storage in Bluff on the mainland, I promptly hopped in and headed towards the forested & remote sea-side coast known as the Catlins.  Filled with stunning beaches, sheer cliffs, forest & field, I gradually made my way through the main tourist attractions.  Highlights had to be the petrified forest (ancient fossilised wood on the coast); porpoise Bay (surpisingly enough with its porpoises playing in the surf); Kaka Point with its penguins & seals; and Nugget Point with its seal colonies down the bottom of massive cliffs (actually quite reminded me of Howth).  Stayed in various hostels, the best being an old farmhouse which only had two guests: me & another girl who came from China (or was it India?..) as far as I remember.  I remember getting up at the crack of dawn to watch sunrise the next morning, only to be greeted by an unexpected wave of low-cloud & drizzle.  Now awake, I decided to pack up & head North again...

Next stop: Dunedin.  I spent four nights here, this time opting for a hostel in the town centre.  Time was spent frequenting various night spots in the city; driving around the Otago Peninsula (the last time I was there was quite bleak in the depths of winter - this time it was blistering hot) and spotting a few more yellow-eyed penguins; watching the sea-lions chase unsuspecting tourists with their dogs on the surf beach of St.Clair.  Now recharged & ready to drive again, I headed in the direction of Christchurch.

Passing swiftly through any towns on the way & bypassing Christchurch itself (which I have to admit I'm not a big fan of), I headed to the stunning Banks Peninsula.  There's a summit road which stretches all the way out to Akaroa (an old French port) and along the way you have the option of dropping into any of the numerous secluded bays.  Many kilometers were clocked up doing such trips - in most cases, you need permission to cross private land to reach the beaches.  I spent many an afternoon fishing from the cliffs with nobody else for miles - only seals playing & sleeping beside me (after some initial confrontations & a few chases).  Unfortunately I didn't get as much as a single bite.

After spending a few nights here (which reminded me much of North Mayo), I decided to head towards Kaikoura, the capital of whale & dolphin spotting.  A pretty touristy town with plenty to do.  The heat was something else & got quite sizzled while wandering for miles up the coast past seal colonies & running past nesting gulls (whilst waving my t-shirt at the dive-bombing variety).  Decided to make the effort to go whale viewing, so spent the money & off I went.  It turned out to be a bit like a cat & mouse chase - stopping every so often to suss out the situation (listening for whale echoes using some fancy apparatus) & then racing to the most-likely point where the whale would resurface.  We were quite lucky in that we all got to see two distinct Sperm Whales & I managed to capture some pretty good tail shots as they redived to the depths (which amazingly go down to 2000m - there's a massive canyon exteremly close to the East Coast: hence the large number of different species of whales).  Met up with my crazy French friend Pierre for the last night in Kaikoura & spent the evening in an open-air spa in the pissing rain.

Next morning: Blenheim, the wine-growing capital of the South Island.  Only spent one night here (nothing much happened here) before heading towards Nelson via the stunning Marlborough Sounds.  Arrived in the arty (and quite quaint) city of Nelson just in time for Christmas.

Christmas Day was spent in the Green Monkey hostel (cheers to all the crew for a great Christmas stay!) and much fun was had barbecuing, swimming on the beach & playing various games including touch frisby.  Even received a gift: a squeaky kiwi key-ring which now hangs in the inside of my car.  Met up with tonnes of friends & others from all-over.  Drunken merry times were had.  After spending a good week in the area, I headed out towards Motueka to meet up with Madeleine who was working on an orchard.  After a few days free lodging, I eventually managed to land a job apple-thinning.  Only lasted about three weeks: my mind couldn't take any more numbing.

New Years' was spent at a 3-day dance festival on Takaka Hill.  Bought a huge tent in the Warehouse for little or nothing (was brought back by someone because of a fault, but because the fault was never recorded & hence nobody knew what was wrong with it, it was sold for a mere 30 dollars. As it turned out, only two small & trivial clips were broken - nothing fatal.  Sold it a few weeks later for double the money spent..)  Ended up camping close to the action with five others (and girls at that: lucky me!) & managed to smuggle some alcohol into the non-alcohol event.  Was an amazing experience.  I had never been to a rave festival before & so it was quite interesting.  The weather was shocking: rainy and cold - however it did add to the eeriness of it all, especially at night time when lights would shine through the mist & creep out through the trees in the distance.  Spent much time wandering about in the woods & bush with the torch, dancing all the way.  The music didn't stop for one second until 3 days later when eventually the sun came out & dried our drenched tents.  Roll on Uprising 07!

So: where am I now?! I'm currently in Golden Bay and more specifically in Onekaka near the famous Mussel Inn, where until recently you could swap a possum tail for a pint (possums are a non-native species that tear through tonnes of bush every year & hence considered a pest) - the day before I arrived, the 5000th free pint was supplied - a final landmark for the concept.  I'm doing some WWOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) with a local couple who grow their own vegetables & own a willow weaving business - here's the web site: http://www.willowworks.com.  Basically I work 4 hours a day (willow-weeding, other gardening, some cooking - general helping out I guess) in exchange for an awesome room & really tasty meals.  It's a fantastic experience & it's fascinating to watch an artisan work at his craft, weaving various baskets from the willow farmed on location.  I'm having extreme amounts of fun in the hot sunshine - roaming the quiet beaches, camping, fishing (with normal rods & those made from forest branches!), going on road-trips to stunning bays & frequenting the odd local party... I'll probably stay here a bit longer & then move my reluctant ass to the North Island before my visa runs out! 

So there you have it: a trip to Golden Bay is a must if you ever come to New Zealand.  Watch out for the massive spiders and remember to save all your work on the ol computer as you go along....