Howzatt!!

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England played well today in Hamilton - it was so good to see them play again, and lovely to be at a ground that allows you to sit on the grass to watch. It was the first of three Test Matches and perhaps I shall be at or near Wellington when they play the second Test....

As we went into the ground at Hamilton, we were searched for drugs, alcohol etc, then they proceeded to sell lots of alcohol at the game. Odd that, we wanted to drink some good red wine and all they sold was a revolting gassy beer. However, we got over that and just had a wonderful day.

It was good to see the young players who had featured in some of our coaching conferences actually playing in the match - Ian Bell amongst others. Its a good game and I shall start to watch more of it.

Next plan is to drive down to the south Island to do the Abel Tasman walk, so I shall set off tomorrow, drive down via one or two places that I chose not to visit on the last journey. Perhaps this time I should try out some of the vineyards!!

The weather has been lovely - warm and sunny, but the mornings are getting cold. Time to get the second sleeping bag out!!

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OK, OK, we lost the test match!! I have been listening to the news as I travel down south and it has not been good. But hey, its just a game!

Just south of Lake Taupo the mountains start to rear their heads and the road goes through a desert on top of the mountain, so at the same time I was driving through the clouds whilst in a desert. That's a first for me I think!! I am now at the backpackers at Taihapu, and as the clouds are so wet I decided to duck in to a dorm. And what a great place! I have some prawns from the farm to cook for tonight and permission to use the internet as I connected this machine to the wireless. (The hours of banging my head against computers has been beneficila - if only for tonight.)

Tomorrow I think I will look around some gardens here, then go on down towards Wellington. The next horror for me is to drive onto a ferry - so I will leave that until the morning on Tuesday - unless of course, I change my mind!!

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