Island In The Sun

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Firstly, a brief eulogy to Nicholas Howard who died a few days ago of bladder cancer. A kind a generous man who has been in the background all my life, i wish i could be there to say good bye to him. I hope my parents are ok, once again i cannot be there to support them when they are going through a tough time.
So, i had 4 days road-tripping around the north island with Flo and Sophia, which should have been a whole heap of fun. Unfortunately, they spent the entire time arguing with one another or sulking post-argument. There was maybe an hour of care-free fun over the whole 4 days. Don't get me wrong, there lovely people and i will go visit them in Berlin at some point, but it was a shame that something that could have been so good was such a disappointment.
The plan had been that the 3 of us would go to Waiheke Island (just off the Auckland coast) on monday. We would return to the main-land on tuesday and they would head back to Germany when i headed to Golden bay in the south island. Unfortunately, they were having such great relationship difficulties on monday morning they said they wanted to spend their time on Waiheke island alone. I resolved to make the best of a bad situation and camp on a beach for the night alone and leave for golden bay as planned the next day.
Who would i see getting on to the ferry at the same time as me, but Josie, a girl i built up a friendship with at kiwi-burn and vaguely planned on traveling with at some point (she's changed her plans in order to chase a boy). It emerged she was on her way to spend 10 days or so living with Kiwi, High-dive and Ingrid (all people i had met at kiwi-burn) and invited me to come along with her.
So, since last monday i have been living on Waiheke island, doing a little manual labour (mostly gardening in the stinking hot sun) in order to replace some of the huge amounts of money i spent at Kiwi-burn and hanging out with Kiwi, High-dive, ingrid and Josie. I've had a really good time here, got to know the people i've been living with really well and built up some long lasting friendships. It absolutely wasn't what i was expecting to be doing and wasn't what i would have planned but none the less awesome. The island is very beautiful (very similar to Hawaii i'm told) but there's not been a great deal to do when i haven't been working. Although i have been walking along the beautiful white sand beaches and through the temperate rain-forest, which i failed to get any photos of because i was sure i'd lost my camera but it magically appeared when i was packing away my tent a few minutes ago.
I leave tomorrow. Will be in golden bay on monday, will work there for a week then i'm gonna spend 5 days or so walking around the Nelson lakes on my own. This will mean i will spend my birthday alone, in the Nelson lakes. I'm not sure how i feel about that, but it's the only way i can do the house building in the bay, the walk and be in Christchurch by the 7th to meet Ben and Sarah (rather than the 3rd which they had originally told me).
So don't expect a reply for a while if you send me a happy birthday message.
Love, Chris

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