I was a nervous wreck behing the wheel of the largest vehicle I'd ever driven for about 20 minutes. Bumble B is in fact a very easy drive. It helps that, unlike the UK, here pretty much every tourist route, sealed road, roundabout and parking space is designed for vehicles larger than a Smartcar. So after a few dodgy left hand turns and a couple of hub-scrapes, we were cruising out of Auckland on State Highway One at a clipping 100kmh. It was sunny, the traffic faded away after we crossed Auckland Bridge, and gradually a bit of real Kiwi countryside [View Full Entry]

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This is a quantum jump for a second blog entry. It's 7.15pm in New Zealand, and I'm sitting in our backpacker van atop a flowery mattress, in jumpers and a sleeping bag at 7.15 at night. It's dark, and cold after a cloudless day. We're in a posh managed campsite on the southwetern corner of the Coromandel, in the North Island of NZ. Yes - we made it here in one piece. I say that because Clarissa's nervous build-up to the first flight leg from Heathrow became so intense that even I started to doubt a 747's ability to take off [View Full Entry]

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With two weeks (tomorrow) until Clarissa and I board a Cathay Pacific 747 to Hong Kong, I sit here and honestly wonder how we're going to be ready in time. We booked our tickets a month ago, and apart from the odd-job here and there have had no pressing engagements other than finishing paperwork and getting packed. But the extraordinary assortment of chattels which I alone have collected over four years of living above my own business - let alone the plethora of "important stuff" which Clarissa has brought into my life - are sitting in vague, silently accusing piles around [View Full Entry]

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