A home sweet home

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Well - Flying out of queens was worse than in!! The 360 thing reversed was even scarier when flying out in gale force winds!! It was nice however to land in warmer climates, and after another 5 hours of coaches and coffees, I arrived in Whangarei, North island to go to a real life home for xmas!!

My excitment was beyond belief to get to my best mates sisters house, see familiar faces, get my own room, a double bed AND A MASSIVE SHOWER! You forget these home comforts very quickly when in and out of hostels. Kath and Darren have recently moved into the most beautful place, a 5 bed chalet on 8 acres of paddocks with horses and the most amazing views! There are also the most beautiful two girls here waiting in the form of Grace and Evie, as Steph will qualify, they are the cutest pair going and welcomed me with open arms!

I settled here very nicely and the first 5 days raced past! I caught up on some much needed sleep, washed months of grime off, and sat with many a glass of wine watching the horses from the sun deck. Christmas over here is very different, obviously its summer, so santa decorations and fake snow is a little ironic, but altogether there is not the mayhem which england promotes. But we still enjoyed hours of decorating trees, and i even have a few pressies ready to open too!!

Two days into being settled for xmas, my ex-tour driver calls up and states that she had bought ,me a ticket for a fleetwood mac concert the coming saturday down the lower end of the north island, in a remote place called new plymouth. So without thought, i agreed, and suddenly xmas seems ages away again!! i was promptly thrown onto the next free bus BACK down to auckland and started another new adventure!! so we headed off to Taupo to meet with some more of the drivers, and in total 9 of us drove back down the country for this concert!!

now, looking at a map of NZ, this seem sot be a fairly easy feat - maybe the distance of brighton to birmingham, but when the roads are unkept in places, and have to wind all the distances through, round and over mountains, then everything seems to take 3 times as long!! we even found ourselves on a gravelled unkept road with avalanches and sheer cliff drops (called the forgotten highway - we shoulda guessed!) so in total, the day of the concert had 11 hours of road work attached to it!! In true NZ style, it also belted it down the whole duration of the concert!! We were in an amazing outside amphitheatre which had the stage set in a lake, but also meant that we were in full force of the rain, i wore dustbin bags (very stylish) the whole time and stayed fairly dry, but elbows and knees down was drenched!

Fleetwood were amazing, and played for nearly 3 hours!! they sounded fantastic, and kept us informed with a run down of their history throughout, we also had our picture taken for the local paper (which i am desperately trying to get a hold of!) all in all, this was a proper road trip, and definitely worth the 5 days and endless burger kings it entailed. Once rested and back in Auckland, things started to get a little weirder.... Lauren was dropping me off back at Kaths on her way home to Paihia for xmas, when her dad calls. He runs a hotel in Paihia, and was looking for a receptionist for 3 months to cover their busy summer period, with me still in the car, i continued up to Paihia with her for an interview on the deck over a bottle of wine!!

It so happens, that no interview is actually required, and i get handed a contract there and then!! being in the same clothes i left whangarei in, i was unable to start there and then, but bagged myself a job to start after xmas!! Absolute result, and with no effort require din the slightest!! I was never meant to be inm welly or queenstown just yet - i was apparently paihia bound!! I am certainly not complaining!!

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