Hey!

I am writing this from the TV room the Top 10 Holiday Park in Coromandel Townwship. Since my last blog entry I have played 72 boards of bridge, eaten lots of chocolate and brownies, thought that my car was broken and booked flights to Australia without having a partner or teammates.

Rotorua was very nice, but I didn't play my best bridge. Actually I still don't know how I could ever play my best bridge with 72 boards on one day and six minutes for each board. It feels a bit like slowball - I might get used to it eventually, but then some other people won't be too happy anymore :D Besides, tournaments in NZ are just great - entry fee was 30 dollars (20 euros) and we had breakfast, a snack, dinner and free coffee/tee/water all the time. The people are friendly, try to find jobs for me and it feels really social.

On Sunday I slept long (was SO tired on Saturday!), talked to some people back home :-) and prepared for my second road trip. I also booked flights to Brisbane to attend the Gold Coast Congress next week. Until now I don't have a partner for any of the tournaments, but am trying to find one. Otherwise I'll just go to Australia. Should be nice anyway. I will fly to Brisbane next Tuesday, spend the time till Friday in the city with whatever comes up and go to Gold Coast on Friday with the other bridge players from Auckland. March 1st I'll go back to NZ. Just for you to know where I am :-)

Early afternoon on Sunday, I picked Laurien up in Auckland and we left for Coromandel Peninsula. The first night we stayed on a campground a bit north of Thames. There were only two not-so-cheap campground in this area and we weren't too happy about it - until we saw the one we had chosen. It was an amazing little place in the nature, with hot showers, a fridge and two nice elderly kiwi-couples who have a permanent place there and who invited us for puzzle-solving and dinner. Obviously we were in the right place at the right time.

Next morning I woke up at 5:50 am and decided not to go back to sleep as it wouldn't be dark much longer anyway. So I walked a bit up the road for an hour or so. I found a mini-Kauriwalk and a nice creek that looked like middle earth.

After breakfast (some hours later) we took the road North and went via Coromandel Town and Coleville to Fletscher Bay. The way was already amazing, with many nice viewpoints. On Fletscher Bay we wanted to stay at a Doc-Campground to be at the right spot for the Coromandel Coastal Walk. When we parked in front of the reception at the campground, I couldn't start the car anymore. It was just not working, I couldn't turn the key. And then there was a cable somewhere at my feet.

Obviously I was kind of shocked, wanted to start crying and moan because it was probably the wrong decision to buy a car after all, because I would lose all my money now and wouldn't be able to do all the cool things I had imagined with my car. Unfortunatly there wasn't anyone to tell me that this wasn't true or to buy me cookies icecream, so it didn't make any sense and I tried to stay optimistic and to be happy that it had happened at a campground and not at a viewpoint in the middle of nowhere. Well, the campground was in the middle of nowhere, but at least there was a very nice woman at the reception who promised that her husband would have a look at the car as soon as he returned from some other work. So I had to wait only for an hour, torn between crying and having the feeling that it wouldn't be so bad after all and reading some fanfictions to calm down. Then the husband came, had a look at several things, didn't find out where the cable came from and finally put some liquid into the keyhole - which apparently solved the problem.

So it had all just been because of a broken keyhole. Fortunatly we hadn't called the roadside assistance, it would have been pretty embarassing. Now I was just very relieved, so we started to drink wine at 4 pm, which was actually really funny. The campground was very nice, with only three other guests and a lot of ducks who wanted to steal our dinner.

We went to bed early and I woke up only twice because my completly bitten feet (mosquitos) were itching so badly I had to put cold water over them to stop myself from scratching (I am already used to this procedure). In the morning we tried to have breakfast, but there were so many mosquitos it was close to impossible, and then started the Coromandel Coastal Walk. We decided that we are moderatly fit and took the loop way - crossing some mountains on the way to Stony Bay and walking on the coast on the way back. It was a really cool walk, you should probably really be moderatly fit (and obviously we are, yay!) as it goes up and down quite a bit, but we had some beautiful views on the ocean and the mountains. Only the very last hour was a bit annoying because it started raining and I hadn't taken any pullover. Back on the campground I had the nicest cold shower of my life. As it was still raining and we didn't feel like spending the rest of the day in a wet car after the hard walk, we decided to go to a fancy campground instead. So here I am now, having eaten lots of chocolate, tomato soup, delicious cookies icecream, tea with lots of sugar and buns with lots of cheese (lol - yeah, quite a lot) and relaxing in the TV lounge of a really expensive Top 10 campground.

As we will go to Hot Water Beach tomorrow (where they have only really expensive campgrounds, so we will be forced to take one - bad luck :D ) you might hear of me again soon!

What have I learned?

- I seemed to be not that bad at being in the right place at the right time (sometimes. I hope for more).

- Chocolate is one of the best things in the world,

- Mosquito bites can be REALLY annoying.

- Reading good LotR Fanfictions in NZ may be very nice.

- I would like to learn horse riding.