Day 236 - Boy meets Girl

I’ve been considering over the last few days whether or not I should let you all in on a secret… and I’ve decided, in the interest of being as honest as possible in this blog (and because you'll probably realise sooner or later!), that I really should.

You see when I wrote my last New Zealand blog I was at Auckland airport waiting for a flight... but I didn’t specifically mention where to. I’ve actually spent the last week in the tropical paradise of Fiji… and the reason: well it was because of a girl. But I guess I ought to start at the beginning.

If you’ve been reading the blog avidly and paid attention you’ll remember Sarah, who James and I first met in Bolivia. Well it was pretty much your classic story of Boy notices Girl on a night bus from La Paz to Potosi. Girl is supposed to take the same tour round the mines as Boy but logistics mean it doesn’t happen, so Boy leaves town with only a brief goodbye through a bus window. Fate (or rather the Gringo Trail) intervenes and Boy is delighted to run into Girl randomly again a couple of weeks later in Tupiza… this time Girl is persuaded to come and play at being Butch Cassidy on horseback through the southern Bolivian outback and they get to hang out for a day. Boy is pretty smitten but is heading towards Brazil that evening whilst Girl heads to Argentina. Worrying about ships that pass in the night Boy reluctantly departs but leaves Girl with reliable friends Clint and Noelia (also heading to Argentina) and they travel together for a while. Thanks to the internet - Boy, Girl and rest of travel posse keep in touch and finally manage to meet up again in Mendoza, Argentina.

The rest of our travels are pretty much documented in my Argentina blogs with the exception that I didn’t mention how, over the course of those long bus journeys and great adventures, Sarah and I got along like a house on fire. She is a fantastic girl and saying goodbye to her when she had to leave to continue her travels in Australia was definitely the toughest challenge of the trip.

But we had every intention of catching up again further down the line so we kept in touch over the Christmas and New Year period and decided on Fiji as as good a place as any to meet up and see if we still liked each other… and the reason I didn’t say anything sooner… well I wanted to see what kind of story came out of it. Obviously!

So we spent an idyllic week in sunny Fiji, island hopping through the far north-western Yasawa Islands (for a perfect balance of fun, remoteness and then luxury try Octopus, Long Beach and Nanuya resorts). Then, once again, I had a run in with the umpteenth natural disaster of the trip - this time: Cyclone Gene - which arrived in force on our last day and left us stranded and windswept on our far-flung island with no transport able to get to us for a return to the mainland. Hardly an inconvenience given the cyclone devastated the coast of Fiji and tragically killed 7 people in Nadi. Other than a rough crossing back, a missed flight out of Nadi and a day on standby at the airport we were fortunate not to be caught up in it more and were returned safely to Auckland just 2 days late.

But that’s the facts - I guess the real question you’ll ask is - how did it all go?

Well - pretty well actually thank you… at the moment you have a very relaxed and extremely happy me to listen to! This is me in a new relationship. Something that doesn’t happen all that often.

But now I’m back at Auckland airport on my own again… although this time not for long. Sarah has gone for a weekend with Noelia at the Hawkes Bay Wine Festival and I’m about to stick to plans and head to the South Island for a few days trekking round Stewart Island with Clint. After that Sarah and I are meeting up again to finish seeing the South Island together, and, if all continues to go as well as it has been, we could well be finishing off the journey travelling as a pair for the most-part. That’s if I manage not to mess it up of course… Wish me luck!

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