November 5th

I’m about to head off for three weeks, but I’ve had a great last couple of days. I’ll try to update a couple times while away, but no promises. Yesterday my cousin Charles came over with his girlfriend Donna, and we had a great Barbeque of a whole bunch of meat and other food. Then we headed down to Karangahake Gorge and went for a little walk around the old mining operation. Some of the shafts looked absolutely terrifying. They really must have lived a hard life back then.

Today we went down to Te Puke (Pookie not PUKE) and met my other cousin Davey. Bob’s got a very nice Subaru WRX STi which absolutely flies down New Zealand’s back roads. We hit 180 km/h a couple times; it was an absolute blast (he wouldn’t let me drive it though, saying I’d probably kill us.. I’d be inclined to agree). Bob used to be in a band, Majority One, and was telling us stories about sitting down with The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Tom Jones and the Beetles and all about the clubs in London. It must have been an absolute blast. You should look up the music, it’s pretty good, and they are re-releasing a couple songs for Christmas. It was Cody’s (Davey’s son) 2^nd birthday and I had my very first taste of New Zealand beer. Not bad!

Tomorrow I’m going off for three weeks, going North of Auckland, as well as maybe visiting a family friend in Warkworth, and then heading to Waiheke Island and up the Coromandel. The goal is to be back here in Waihi at Alyth’s on the 26^th for a family barbeque, and then to work my way down the North Island over the next three weeks to make my way to Auntie Judith in Blenheim. I’ll be hitching most of the time, so it should be interesting to see if I make it through in one piece. A little worried about Auckland, but hopefully everything will turn out fine. Updates will probably be much less frequent, but wish me luck!