Day One - Saturday 22nd August 2009 When does your trip begin for you? When you finish the last day at work? When you leave home for the bus / plane / train / boat? When the plane leaves the ground? When you arrive at wherever you are going? For us, our trip begins when we leave home. The excitement begins when we leave work for the last time though! So technically, day one was yesterday, when we left home and drove down to Auckland. But as day one then would only include the drive through multiple sets of roadworks, dinner out with Judith and a few hours hanging around at the airport, we decided to start day two as day one as it is the first one that we did much. Not wanting to take ... read more

Monday 13th April 2009 Was there an earthquake this morning? Not a huge one, we would have heard about that, but maybe a little one? Sometime this morning the van moved like someone had come along and pushed it, only without the someone pushing it. Or like there was a huge gust of wind, but of course without the wind. Anyway, after breakfast and some good byes, we headed back off on our road trip. We took the Pacific Coast Highway back north for a while, as far as Wairoa. On the way, just before the road starts twisting and turning, we stopped at a reservce we;d seen on the way down. Its the Tangoio Scenic Reserve, and there is a short walk (50 minutes) to two waterfalls. The first one, Te Ana Falls, was neat, ... read more

Tuesday 7th April 2009 Darkness in a DOC campsite in the bush isnt always a good thing. We lay in bed listening to stags roaring. Loudly. Getting up in the night to visit the compost long drops involved not looking at several pairs of eyes glowing in the dark at us. Not to mention the bush rustling... We were up and out reasonably early, back down the forest road to Kawerau and on to Whakatane. We stopped briefly to load up the last blog (free wireless in the i-site, bit slow though and wouldnt let us check the blog to make sure it was ok!) then headed out again. Most of you know that we arent good at sitting around, and this trip is short enough that we cant sit around for too long (except for ... read more

It seems like every place we go to is our new favourite! We loved San Francisco and had a great time there, the memories temporarily eclipsing those from other places that have come before. We definitely needed way longer to explore, not just the city but all around too, but this trip to SF was just a layover on our way home from Mexico. Ahh, Mexico, that was probably the real favourite! Not that hitting San Fran was much different, the first place we came to getting off the metro was a Mexican diner, the labourers in the street below our "bedroom" window were Mexicans, a lot of the people on the buses were speaking Spanish, if it wasnt for the signs / billboards etc., we could have still been further south somewhere. Talk about making ... read more

Next stop on our whistle stop tour was the city of Oaxaca. We got there on another overnight bus, from Tuxtla. We went straight round to our next CS host, Vul, but it was possibly a bit early for him. He said in his profile that he has to get up early for work...early seems to be about 9am. Not so early! He runs a cyber cafe with his flatmate, down in their lounge, meaning the house really consisted of two bedrooms and a bath. Going to work involves getting up and walking down the stairs! Even the kitchen was taken over by the business, leaving us a fridge and microwave to cook dinner in! Still Vul and Emmanual were great guys to meet, even if cleanliness is an unknown concept! Oaxaca was all about Monte ... read more