Season's Greetings!

... its CHRISTMASSSSSSSSS... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sorry, we can't send everyone Christmas cards this year as the postage would financially cripple us! But, we just want to wish everyone a really excellent Chrimbo and hope you follow it with a fantastic New Year!! Take care of yourselves and we look forward to seeing you all this time next year.

Love

M&T

xxx

p.s. Cheers Lee for the piccie :)

city life...

... so, we're back in Auckland... and as far as city living goes, its actually really nice! We are staying in an area called Mount Eden, which those 'die-hard' blog fans will remember, has a volcano that we visited earlier in the year?!? In fact, from where I am sitting now I can actually see the peak of the thing! We're close enough to the city so that you can walk in, but far enough out so that you don't get the city noise and hassle. Perfick!

We are currently managing a backpackers hostel called 'Bamber House' (www.hostelbackpacker.com), and it is really nice. We are working pretty hard- we both do 12 hours a day for 7 days a week- but split this up between ourselves. In return we are getting a small apartment (which is absolute heaven after living in the van for 6 weeks!!!!!), and we are getting paid too! The job is nice and we are getting to meet some really friendly and nice people... also a few nasty ones.... but there's the good, the bad and the ugly from every country...

But overall, things are pretty darn tops!

The weather is starting to pick up just in time for Chrimbo (hehehe, thought I'd mention that... are you all wearing your winter woolies yet?), but it doesn't really feel that merry. Its all quite surreal in fact.... December.... sun.... BBQ's???? Hmmmm..... don't get us wrong, its nice and all, but it just isn't Christmas.... sorry NZ, but when it comes to seasonal tidings the Brits do it better :) Where's the trees? The Carols? The ace stuff on TV? The biggest Christmas song in NZ is called 'Snoopy'!!!! and, its not even about Charlie Brown's dog??? I mean, what's all that about!!!!! Its actually about a cowboy.... what???!!?!?!?

Anyhoo, we've ventured out into the city a few times- we went to the big Auckland 'Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park' celebration, which had bands and famous NZ celebrity type people on (who we'd never heard of... lol), we've done the normal tour of Queen Street... but, the best place we have found so far is this really old Graveyard where the trees are opening all the graves up.... a bit macabre we know, but its ace!

*click here for more pics*

Also, as its Christmas and we haven't seen him for a while... we let Max join us again!! In typical Max stylee though- we met up to find out he had a date in court and had written his car off! So him and me (m@), headed to Auckland Court to find out his punishment... for driving on the wrong side of the road and having a head-on crash! He was fined $430... hehe... oh how we chuckled... until we arrived at court... at which point we were actually VERY scared... bad people everywhere!! Still, got a few good pics of the event :)

the road to Mordor... ish

Yey! We finally finished the nightfill at Pak'n' Save, which whilst we'd love to say was a great job.... it really wasn't.... unless of course you mean great 'job' in a Billy Connelly stylee.... but, it served its purpose and got us on the road again in a newly re-vitalised van... in fact, it is now the van with the attitude of a huge, big truck! It kicks ass! OK, so things got a little embarrassing when we were told we'd actually been putting in the wrong fuel.. but hey, you learn from your mistakes! We now get double the mileage from a full-tank... yes, not the most interesting topic...unless you are about to run dry between Rotorua and Taupo for example! Which, incidentally....

After leaving Napier (click here for the last few Napier days...), we headed out to Taupo, which was a great place- it has the biggest lake in the North Island, and is actually a huge volcano crater, which is still active! We slept on the side of the lake and found a great thing called a 'super loo'... amazing! It means you don't have to book into a campsite or anything, because you can get a shower for $2.... (about 70p).... amazing for gypos like us (wanna buy some pegs mister?)....

Anyway, less of the loo- we were in an amazing place, and all we can discuss is the bog and shower facilities..... we woke up on the first morning there and could see Mt Ruapeho and 2 other active volcano's (with names I could not ever type!) across the lake.... It was absolutely brilliant! It was quite scary too as the volcanoes had last erupted in 1995 and 1996 ... so, they could blow again anytime!

Not content with being at arms length, we actually took a drive up Mt Ruapeho, and managed to get 1/3 of the way up it in the van... it was here that Mordor for the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed. It was pretty desolate and barren, but still had a beauty of its own.

The next day in Taupo, we seriously considered doing a skydive... but money stopped us... really, we weren't scared in the least ;) Instead, we went on a sailing boat (previously owned by Errol Flynn, which, he apparently won in a card game!) over the lake and out to the Maori Rock Carvings. They were really good, and the sailing experience was amazing! I felt like Simon Le Bon in the Rio video (for those old enough!)... and Trace even got a chance to steer the bloody thing while the skipper made us a brew! Captain Bull, at your service.....

We followed this by a ride on the HukaJet (www.hukajet.co.nz) at Huka Falls... 360 degree turns in a speed boat! Awesome! And not actually that scary... until the guide told us that the water was so rough near the falls themselves that there was nothing but air in the water (!) and so if we got too close we would just sink! Luckily, we didn't get 'too' close... although a 360 spin right on the border was enough to concern us a tad......

Then, we headed back to Rotorua because we just couldn't get enough of that bubbling mud! Its great! Its kind of like the insides of a big intestinal system... lots of gurgling, farting, spluttering, and mini-explosions of the poo variety... except with mud and egg smell.... but its great and you can watch it for hours and chuckle like a kiddie at the noises...

And, finally, before we headed back to Auckland, we went out to Raglan to meet up with our Scottish pals Kirsten and Alec, who were now traveling having finished their cushy number in the Bay of Islands :) It was really nice to see them again, and we had a great time getting drunk on 1/2 a bottle of wine and playing cards until the moths became too much...

So, off to Auckland it is to start working again (for 'the man'- as Jack Black would say) and try to earn a living.... in another type of job we haven't had before... fingers crossed it'll be ok :)

*click here for more piccies*