Sometimes the best decisions are the most random ones. This whole week started over a drunken meet up in Wellington. It's strange what you agree to after a few beers. This time I agreed to a road trip with some fellow travellers up the North Island. Only yesterday though did I think how weird it is that you agree to spend a week with people you barely know but travelling instills weird things to you and as a friend said to me before I left the UK, "Say yes to Everything and say hi to the locals". Top advice. So over a few beers at quite possibly the most un-Irish Irish pub in New Zealand, the 3 of us decided that we should all road trip across the north Island. Luckily the Italian reminded me of what I agreed to the next day as with all these kind of decisions, I regularly forget what I agreed to the morning afterwards. Anyway after refreshing my memory with a few coffees all was well and we set off the next day for Tongario National Park.

Our merry party consisted of our mean machine car, 1 German (Steph), a Canadian (Peshaunquet) and me the Brit so we were quite an International party. As P and I expressed and interest in learning a little German, we spent lots of time picking up phrases from Steph along the way. The chief of which relate to Beer leading me to believe that Germans think that Brits and Canadians think of nothing else. Still my German is remarkably on the up Anyway I digress. So in light of the fact that NZ is a top trekking destination and I've managed to do b***** all trekking since I got here, we headed for Tongario National Park. Hobbit fans will be pleased to know that this is the setting for Mordor in the films but for other people it's one of the most beautiful landscapes in NZ. I can only tell you this though by looking at the Photos as when we arrived, it was shut. Mmmmm well I guess the Sharp holiday curse had to kick in at some point. Still we drove around the base of the mountain and consoled ourselves with beer and a modest hope of seeing more natural wonders the next day. Having left Tongario we decided to speed over to Taupo for sky diving! This was put to an abrupt end however by the truly crap weather we were having so we made do with continuing the drive up to Rotorua. On the way we stopped at a prawn farm which somehow managed to make itself into a tourist attraction. We were glad to meet Shaun the Prawn though and we bought some of his compadres for dinner that night.

It's fact time again people. Rotorua is famous for it's thermal hot springs and Geysurs. It also smells like rotten eggs the whole time because of the sulphur in the air. Tired and demoralised because of the weather and as a result the lack of activities over the past two days, we went straight to the Polynesian Spa to sit in the Natural hot mineral pools which was awesome. So after an aftrenoon of chilling out we headed back to our hostel. Here's a strange fact, after traveling in some of the worst dives in the world and staying in some dodgy places you'd think that the hostels in NZ would be pretty good compared to those. I thought so to until we stumbled across Cactus Jacks in Rotorua. Now I've heard loads of girls moaning about Boy smells in dorms and to be honest I always found it quite sexist and insulting. I'm now in full agreement with them though after staying in THE DORM OF ETERNAL STENCH. Our dorm was cramped, crowded and had the added scent of cheesy feet mixed with ass. In hindsight we shouldn't have stayed but we thought we could handle it. So after a good night eating Shaun the Prawn and downing a few beers with our fellow travellers we headed off to bed luckily falling asleep fairly quickly. We were all awoken though by a strange noise in the middle of the night. It turns out that the guy under Stephs bed was so wasted he was actually throwing up in his bed and he just slept in it for the rest of the night. Lovely. SO I'm sure you can imagine, the added scent of the Vom did wonders for a good nights sleep. We emerged broken travellers but spirits were raised by the better weather and a chance to see Rotorua. Major highlights include the amazing lake, Hot springs and the town singer who belts out Tom Jones covers in the style of Jerry Sinclair (Phoenix Nights) all day. Alas it was time to head to Auckland to drop P where we had some goodbye beers and a meal. For Steph and I it was off to the Coromandel Peninsula.

Thanks to Mum and Dad, I'm now in possession of a driving licence again so I got the chance to drive. It was a bit of a shaky start as I've never driven an automatic before. So after slamming my foot on the brakes, thinking it was a clutch and nearly knocking my german friend out on the dashboard a few times, we made it out of the city and on to the highway with Anglo-German relations intact. Wunderbar. After a few stops along the way taking in some hiking and food stops of course we had to take our gas guzzler to get petrol. This shouldn't be a hard task I hear you say but I spent the best part of 5 minutes trying to get the b***** to work, but work it wouldn't. So after getting a little fractious with my attempts, the German steps up and takes over letting out a sigh to indicate my ineptitude. Suddenly in turns out that she is far from able to fill it up either and that moment Petrol erupts all over her which resulted her emitting a scream that deafened the lovely people of Fiji. Thankfully we managed to fill it up and make our way off to Whitianga.

The Coromandel sits east of Auckland and boasts some spectacular coastline to drive through. Our stop in the town of Whitianga came highly recommended and thankfully we weren't disappointed. Thankfully, the Coromandel is also devoid of the hoardes of Kiwi Experience buses packed to the rafters with over enthusiastic irritating young travelers whose only point of conversation seems to be that they " don't have Hollyoaks over here"! Enough said. Anyway we were told that it was $6 pasta night at the local "not Italian pasta...just pasta" mmm lovely we thought. 2 Delicious pastas for $6 the poster said. In the UK you could have the owners under the trades description act....although to give them credit, the pasta was $6! Being fully trained in the art of pasta by previous encounters with the Italian though I have to say it non Bene!

Our hostel, the Cats Pyjamas, was really homely and had an interesting bunch of people and again randoms to talk to. Random of the trip has to go to Mark of the Cats Peejays. Basically he was a really friendly guy who had a variety of interests but chief among them was seeing how far he could stretch his disability benefit to cover his trip around NZ. If you are a fan of Australian Idol you may have seen him in 2003. Apparently he turned down a recording contract to wait for a better offer but he's still rapping every day. I reckon he totally looked like Pretty fly for a white guy (PFFAWG) Anyway after chatting to him for a while and then finding out that he's also a Christian fundamentalist who chastised my atheism I ended our conversation and watched a film. Now when you meet randoms who slightly freak you out you'd usually try to avoid them at all costs. You probably wouldn't invite them on your road trip as Steph did despite my best efforts. I was mouthing "NEIN NEIN NEIN" behind PFFAWG but my English accent on my German made me non understandable. So the next morning PFFAWG, Steph and I headed out to the Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove which thankfully made the trip with PFFAWG more bearable. It was really beautiful scenery once again and the walk to the cove was amazing. However PFFAWG's relentless monologue about his life and future rap career began to wear thin which resulted in the German walking off 10 paces in front leaving me with the guy. Cheers. Still thankfully the trip was almost over and after dropping NZ's answer to Eminem back off at the hostel we quickly drove off, telling ourselves that any more passengers like that would not add to our Road trip Gemuetlichkeit!

After following the magnificent coastline towards Thames and avoiding near death at the hands of the German ( she started taking pics while driving of the countryside unaware that we were speeding towards ditch at the side of the road. Good thing I woke up!) we rocked up to Sunkist backpackers. Again this place was filled with randoms 2 of which spring to mind. 1) a british girl from Bristol who was impertinent enough to think that we all wanted to hear about her trip...repeatedly and 2) an American Jewish guy who upon finding out that Steph was German said the only German he knew which all related to WW2 an the holocaust. Blimey! Still in the end despite the subject matter we all had a wicked time and a good laugh and Noah went away with an intention to go to Cologne carnival next year. See you there dude.

So the last day of a road trip involved getting to Auckland to take the car back. I was happy in the knowledge that I would be able to sleep in finally in a nice hostel in town. My illusions again were shattered when I walked into the dorm, quite possibly the worst smelling place I've encountered. I though I'd be able to handle it for one night at least but I promptly moved out the next morning after almost choking on the cheese fest in there. Auckland is a cool city with all the usual attractions of a big city to keep you busy. Steph and I did most of them including the museum where we walked in to a massive WW2 exhibit, You just can't get away form this stuff. Still we had a good laugh about it and headed off for Sushi which is amazing here and Super cheap. Luckily there's also a film festival going on here so we've been each night. This is mainly because stinky Pete at my hostel veg's out in the common room making it uninhabitable for the rest of us. Ave a wash! The loveliness of my hostel was confirmed ths morning when I was woken up by the gentle rocking of my bunk bed. The guy below was giving himself a Sunday morning treat! Oh my god I can't wait to get out of dorms man.

So that's the end of my time in NZ and I'm really sorry to be going. I can't get over how much I loved this country and it's the first place I could see myself living in, who knows? I definately want to come back with more money and time to explore it properly. It offers lots of Gemuetlichkeit. So it's off to LA in 8 hours and I'll be having a mini groundhog day as I'm crossing the date line.

Hope all's cool back home?

Tschuess