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July 15th 2008
Published: July 15th 2008
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So, blog #32, 10 months and a hair's breadth in New Zealand, and i leave this evening for asia. Pretty exciting, no? But before i get to that...
Richard, Sean and I left Levin and drove to Napier where we experienced the best weather any of us had seen in quite some time; we pottered and the guys looked around the town. The we drove on to Taupo and Richard and I ended up spending the night at the Tauhara meditation centre (a place i've wwoofed at before). It was really cool to say goodbye to everyone (again) and i spent a good few hours playing blues, in the middle of the night, in the rain with a girl from Minnosota with the most beautiful voice. After that we again pottered and enjoyed the weather, read etc in Taupo . We then made our way north to Rotorua in order to stay with Sean's aunt, uncle and cousins who he hasn't seen since he was 2.
Staying with strangers is always dodgy but staying with the family of a traveling buddy was asking for trouble; what would happen if they were awful??
Lucky for us they were fantastic, they treated Richard and I as family members and Sean's aunt made beautiful vegan food the whole time we were there. We did a couple of touristy things, but as i had been to Rotorua at least twice before and i was running out of money i spent most of the time reading Nelson Mandela's awesome autobiography 'Long Walk To Freedom' pick it up.
We had to drop the van off in south Auckland on the wednesday morning so spent the tuesday night in the sea-side town of Orewa about 20min north of Auckland. It was a really nice little place, almost like a surf town gone a bit up market and would have been an amazing place to hang out in the summer (alas you cannot see everything in the summer). We left in the morning and spent a frustrated hour driving around south auckland looking for the campervan depot (we had been given the wrong location). We then ventured back into the city, i said goodbye to Sean and richard and i eventually made it back to Kahikatea. We both stayed the night and then Richard got on the plane to return to the UK.
My last week in NZ has seen me back at Kahikatea painting another mural, this time of a abandoned city being reclaimed by the forest, unfortunately the photos don't really do it justice but you can get the general idea. And there hasn't been a lot else to report, i've just been reading and trying to entertain myself in other free ways. But my state of mind is not dissimilar to when i left the UK, i've had atruely great time here and i'm sad to go. I've been emotionally all over the place, up down and sideways and i'm sure traveling around asia in the monsoon season will hold more interesting stuff.
I don't think there's anything else that needs to be said, there are so many stories that i haven't been able to get across to you all over this blog (which will of course continue with the aid of alice) but i'm sure they'll come out in person\\

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20th July 2008

Monsoons
Never fear, it won't be monsoon season all over Asia! It's located in fairly smallish regions and varies from east to west coasts (and parts are very thin. You'll be alright! You want to get rid of one of those 17 pairs of jeans you're lugging around if you haven't already though! x

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