Made it here...

Firstly, many apologies for the gap in blogging. As you could probably imagine, the last few days before I left were a little on the manic side but the things you need to know are a) to my immense relief I let my flat to a lovely couple who move in on December 1st (or at least I bloody hope they do!) b) I had a leaving do in Richmond and it was lovely to see Ellie, Zoe, Adam, Jenny & Neilon there, so thanks guys and c) Isaac & I successfully met up in LAX airport, had one crazy night/day in LA (and believe me, LA does crazy very very well indeed) and flew on to NZ a week ago. Now having recovered from the jetlag I feel up to giving you a quick update.

So far, to be honest, we've seen very little of NZ. Auckland has been lovely - even Isaac liked it and he hates cities - and we have bought our campervan, a bright orange Toyota Hiace that has yet to be properly christened, in every sense of the word. Any suggestions for names? Isaac suggested Bull because of the old Toyota logo, so I thought Taurus (tour-us) was a good play on words but he just looked at me like I was mad so it seems that's been vetoed. Rusty Griswald has been bandied about but nothing settled yet. The guys before us called it The Phoenix, but we don't want to call it anything they did, because they were, as it turns out, arseholes. They upped the price by $500 hours before we picked it up (I managed to knock $60 off that but boy was I furious) and they took the cigarette lighter plug adaptor that was going to be so useful out of the van before they sold it to us and INSISTED that it was still there and we hadn't looked hard enough when we asked about it. All that and he still said 'So when you're back this way next year and looking to sell, give me a call and I'd be happy to buy it back from you'. Isaac swears he'd rather drive it through his front door. The poor idiot must have forgotten the van came with a set of nunchucks, which Isaac is planning to be proficient with by the time we come back this way...

A few days ago, the day we picked up the van, we drove down to South Auckland - the NZ equivilent of LA's South Central haha - to visit my friend Jude, who I went to Heathside with for a year back when we were 12 and haven't seen since then. Good ol' facebook. She emigrated to NZ a year or so ago with her husband Glynn and we stopped in for dinner - we're still here 3 days later! We've been getting on like a house on fire, they've given us heaps of tips on travelling around the country and free things to see and do, taken us to see Hanua Falls which was beautiful, and it's been a great place to get the van up to scratch. We've been able to sort through every box, drawer, nook and cranny (and that sodding plug adaptor is definitely not there), wash blankets, buy new sheets (because using someone else's, especially blokes' = bleugh), buy power cables (grumble grumble), get our mosquito nets properly set up, fix the heating and generally make it feel like home. Which it now definitely does! Tonight we're planning to do a dry run: we're going to sleep in the van but in Jude & Glynn's driveway, just so we can come in if we have any problems, then tomorrow it's all on for real. We're heading back up north of Auckland to visit our friend John, who worked in rentals at Sunshine Village, for a catch up with him. Then down towards Rotarua, to catch up with another old Sunshine work colleague - IT Benny! Can't wait. In the meantime, being Jude & Glynn has been a real pleasure and we were lucky enough to be here when they became grandparents - their preying mantis, Harold*, gave birth** to baby Charlie. It was a very emotional moment.

*who is technically a girl
**okay, hatched from an egg sack