Hello hello. I know I’ve not personally updated this in a while but hopefully you’ve enjoyed my Dad’s unique additions, I was there for most of it so there’s no need for me to repeat things.
I’ve left Wellington now (temporarily) and I’m now in Taupo, although I’m about to leave here in an hour or so! During my last weeks in Wellington I saw The Police at the Cake Tin and they were pretty amazing, I felt so young though because there were quite a few more senior fans in the crowd! I can’t remember how long they played for but they seemed to enjoy it as well and they had loads of lights and visual stuff happening too. Fergie (not the Duchess) was one of the support acts and even though I’m not exactly a fan, she was good and entertained everyone really well, even threw in the odd rock cover into her set. It was hard to imagine that The Police are in their 50s/60s as they had quite a lot of energy and were playing with so much enthusiasm and I suppose it was as if they were just resuming after a short break, not such a massive gap. I thought there might have been some friction (light hearted or otherwise) between Sting and Stewart Copeland but I couldn’t spot any, although according to the newspaper/online stories I’ve read they all seem to be getting along well.
I finished work at New Zealand Post on the 25th, another milestone passed. I had a great time working there and I picked up a lot of tips and techniques, also met some great people there too. On my last day we had cake and then went for a drink at the Ferrymans next door, a few of the guys are doing the Round the Bays run sometime this month but that’s far too much exercise for me! I’ll be cheering them on from a distance and possibly from a comfy chair… with some Speights.
It was quite sad to leave Wellington, my home since September but I’ll be back there in less than a month or something like that, depending on how the travelling goes. I’ve got tickets for all five days of the England – New Zealand test match at the Basin so I’ll have to be back for then anyway, then it’ll be the South Island after that.
I got a national Stray (bus) pass so that’s taking me round the country, it stops off in loads of places for however long you want, kind of like a hop-on-hop-off type thing. It took about five hours to get to Taupo on Friday from Wellington, after passing through Bulls, a place which has puns flowing from every street and shop sign. The police station is called Consta-bulls, the McDonalds has a drive thru-abull and most shops boast unbelieva-bull prices. After a refuel-abull stop, we made our way to Taupo.
At the moment it’s just me and Holly on the Stray bus but we met up with Mark in Taupo yesterday as he’s on the rival Kiwi bus. He’s only got a couple of weeks off work so he’s not wasting much time going round the North Island whereas Holly and myself are ‘between jobs’ so we’re in no rush. We all went to an Irish bar in Taupo for a couple of drinks last night and caught up with what’s been happening lately, we talked about Hong Kong and that just seems so long ago now!
At the weekend we had a bit of a wander round Taupo, went to Huka Falls and also to a place called Craters of the Moon, it’s some kind of thermal activity site with steam coming from the ground. It was so hot though and I now have a red nose! After a bit of a walk, we managed to find the thermal stream I went to with Brad and the rowing guys in December so we had a few hours there swimming and chilling out in the river/pools. We go back to Taupo on our way back down so we’ll do some more things then, it wasn’t like we had to rush around to fit everything in.
The plan at the moment seems to be to hire a car once we’re back in Auckland and then drive up towards the Bay of Islands and see what else is there. Then it’ll be off to the rest of the North Island for some more travelling, I feel like such a tourist now! I’ve got photos of Wellington and Taupo up in the gallery if anyone’s interested, I’ll take some more of Wellington when I go back because I didn’t get any of where I lived (on the edge of the Outer Shire) or of Lambton Quay or anywhere like that.
So that’s it for now, a bit of an overdue, mixed up, random, full of gaps update… better than nothing I suppose!
No Comments