Back in Kiwiland
Kaikoura on a proper summers day
Originally uploaded by aitchbee. Looking at the calendar, we have been back in the Land of the Long White Cloud for almost a month! We arrived a week before christmas and since then have been zapping around the country visiting family and friends and basically pretending that we are still on holiday... putting off thinking about "real life" problems like where to live and what to do.
To summarise our whirlwind tour of NZ we stayed a few days with Des's Dad near Tauranga (in the North Island) then went to Wellington for a few days, then went to stay with my Mum in Christchurch for some more days, then back to Tauranga, then Dannevirke to see Des's Mum, back to Christchurch for me, and to Tauranga for Des. I've been helping my Mum pack up her house as she's moving up to Rotorua at the end of the month. It's also been a chance for me to sort through (and throw out a lot of) my stuff that's been stored there for the last 6 years.
But our plans for living an endless summer (well for the last 6 months) have been foiled by the NZ weather. Up until the beginning of this week it's been absolutely freezing! I had to dig out some serious winter woolies from the garage at home, and have had to buy more warm stuff to keep my fingers and toes defrosted.
I got the chance to go to Kaikoura for a couple of days with an old friend and her family. The weather was against us for most of the trip but fined up in the morning for this photo... and that snow on the mountains is pretty fresh!
We are both back up in Tauranga now, heading to Auckland tomorrow to get our circus fix at Cirque du Soliel. At the start of next week we are driving down to Wellington to start the transition back to the real world... finding somewhere to live and an income.
Some new photos up for the last section of our trip in Vietnam and also some from the last few weeks in NZ.