Quick catch up

Well, I'm in a little town called Thames where we have 45 mins to kill en route to Coromandel Peninsula and hot water beach. We dropped my little posse of mates off in Auckland this morning so it feels very strange without them, but there are some nice newbies and I've just got till Sat so it's do-able. I feel lucky to have met so many lovely people who have helped make this experience a bit easier for me. We've been through a fair bit together and we'll always have this trip and its memories in common. There's now a lot of young (ie 15/16 year old) German students on the bus, so the atmosphere is quite different and I feel old. Having said that, I was asked for ID in the supermarket yesterday - get in!

I've had a very different experience on the North Island, partly because we got a new driver and guide who aren't half as good as Mike and Avril, the previous guides, and partly because we've done a hell of a lot of driving on a very hot bus. Having said that, the Bay of Islands was absolutely beautiful and I spent a very enjoyable day sailing and swimming up there - it felt like being on holiday once again and they could have left me there for a week or two and I would have been quite happy.

Our next stop, Hot Water Beach, sounds pretty amazing - you dig a hole in the sand and it fills with boiling hot water that you add some cold water too and have a little soak. Then we've got the geothermal stuff and an alpine walk coming up in the next few days before I get back to Wellington on Saturday morning. It will be lovely to see Laura again - my second home - then it's on to Melbourne to stay with lovely Janelle. NZ will always have a special place in my heart - it's taken very good care of me - but I'm looking forward to settling somewhere for a while and not living out my case.

Until the next time...