How things change when you're travelling... No more Taupo, no more dreams of work, time for a new country and new friends!

The few days before Christmas were spent mainly decorating the hostel and buying food and booze for the festivities... Christmas Eve for a change wasn't spent on a pub crawl around Ilford (sorry guys, missed you!), but just having a few cheeky beers at the hostel. Christmas day itself comprised of a bacon sarnie and beer for breakfast followed by a full dinner for 60 people or so. The it was off to the local park for 20-a-side footy, teams being seperated by the colour of the beer can each player held. Believe it or not, I actually had a good game, the highlight being a clearance off the line at full pelt into an oppositions face. How we all laughed when he went down like a sack of s***e. How we all laughed even more when the ref made him down a shot of jagermeister for spilling his beer. Two games later it was back to the hostel for drinks in the rain. Yes rain. The summer christmas dream is now long gone!

The next few days were rather more sober, and on the 30th December, I decided I had outgrown Taupo and got back on the Kiwi bus to lovely Auckland. It hadn't improved. Still, ended up in a room with two Bournemouth lasses and three lads from Argentina, who naturally became my buddies for new years eve. Which was spent in the local hostel bar, some dance party in the civic centre, and standing outside the skytower watching fireworks. And for once I actually managed to stay awake past midinght, yay!

On the 2nd Jan, decided it was time to finish the Kiwi experience, so up to the Bay of Islands for a couple of days. First day went for a boat ride around the islands on the "Excitor" jet boat. Which wasn't as exciting as the name suggested, but was pretty scenery all the same. Second day was spent driving right to the north tip of the island (Cape Reinga I think), with a good portion of the journey driving in a coach up 90 mile beach on the sand. And dabbling in a pot of dune surfing... Sliding on a boogie board down an 80m sand dune, really bloody fast! The walk to the top however proved that 5 months of no exercise has pretty much killed me! Ah well, just another thing on the list to do when I get home...

And so back to Auckland for the final week. Lots of sitting around (just for a change), reading up on Australia as I've moved my ticket forward and am now flying to Brisbane on the 12th....