So thought It was probably about time I did a proper blog rather than being lazy... *If you want a postcard or any of that kind of stuff then send me your address and i'll send you one from aus cause i'm cool like that* Wellington has been pretty sweet. We've been working 9-5 mon-fri for the past 2 months or so, so it's not really proper travelling as yet, more like being at home but in a much nicer country. Working in lower hutt, which takes about 3/4 hour to get to in the morning cause of traffic, the bus' are a bit hit and miss though. So the weekends over here we've been going out with some safe people, this guy Matt and his friends who we met randomly walking back at 3am, and he was in a trolly being pushed around by Maggie, ended up chatting with them for hours on the benches outside our apartment. But we've been hanging out with them they're all Uni students over here.rnTwo things about the Uni's over here, one is that with their loans rather than a lump sum they get $150 (£50) a week, which is for rent, food, clothes,everything... seems pretty tight. The other is that the uni exams are quite hard, but all the indiginous people, the maoris dont have to take any exams to get into uni at all. Last two weeks ed's parents came over which was a pretty cool time. Got to see some of the nicer restaurants in Wellington and ate some awesome food. Flew up to Rotarua on Sat, got off the plane and the first thing that hits you is the smell! Because of all the volcanic activity it hums of suplher, so basically like rotten eggs. You get used to it though. We went and looked at some of the volcanic activity site, lots of things that were steaming, bubbling, smelly and hot but pretty interesting! On sunday morning we went fishing in Lake Rotarua with ernie the fisherman, had a really good time, caught like 9 Trout and lost about 4 others. Kept 4 of them for dinner, and had mine fried with breadcrumbs and it was amazing! Spent the rest of the time doing touristy things, went to a Kiwi sanctuary, they are the wierdest things i've ever seen but so cool! Funniest moment of the whole trip was when we went to the Prawn farm, fishing for prawns off a little jetty and ed had his mums camera in his lap....went to stand up and....plop! In it went into the pond! So we're trying to fish it out and this little 8 year old aussie kid kept on trying to talk to us... 'did it take you long to fly over here?' 'have you ever been to perth?' 'I wish we had rain in perth all the farmers are committing suicide' 'can i show you my prawns?' 'why don't u jump in and get it?'rnI had to resist throwing him in to get it himself. Anyway we managed to fish the camera out and amazingly it turned on and the screen worked....but the pictures were black on the pc lol. $20 to me ;) Ed managed to lock himself in his own room yesterday lol, had to get the locksmith in, but meant we got a day off work! So i went and bought my back pack for aus and thailand and renewed out gym memberships....yes we've been going to the gym believe it or not! Pretty good deal as well, we got the first month free as part of a promotion and then managed to get 21 more days for $21 (�7). Sweet as. I've sorted out all my stuff for australia now, taking the oz experience bus up the whole sunshine coast and gold coast on the east of aus. Basically a bus I can get on and off as I please and meet other backpackers. Going to spend a week learning to surf, swim with dolphins and go to frazer island as well which should be awesome! Leaving on may 11th. Sorry for such a long rambling! Now go leave me a message on the message board, go on you know you want to ;) xr And if you're looking for places to go in Wellington... There are A LOT of bars in Wellington and as it only takes about 15 mins to walk from one side of the city to the other it means we get to sample most of them! The matterhorn has a really good bar and the guys there are awesome, food is amazing too but relatively expensive. Hope Bros is really good on wednesdays, really cheap and quite a good atmosphere. Mighty Mighty is always good to go to when you've had a few, pretty 'alternative' crowd which you would expect from cuba street Shooters/Coyotes...the two biggest places and the closest to a club that there is, things get very messy especially in Coyote...imagine Zero's but bigger. Big Kumara has a big student crowd so the drinks are really really cheap, live bands and air guitar competitions are always good as well And some bar who's name escapes me... but I ended up drinking these 'gas chambers' where they set a shot of sambuca alight and put a glass over it and u suck in the fumes with a straw...knocks you on your arse.