Rotorua
After a mini-debacle I finally made my way out of Auckland in a shared rental car with a few guys I hooked up with: two Soviets and an Ecuadorian. Pretty good mix! No, I haven't done any of the driving yet, though I'm listed as an authorized driver. The car is a Toyota Corolla econo-cookie-cutter POS, crippled by a slushie. Ugh! Steve, one of my travelling companions, actually inadvertently made an emergency stop in Auckland city traffic when first driving the car, because he accidentally nailed the brakes when going for the "clutch" to shift gears! This mistake is frighteningly common (though I've never made it myself), and made by the best of us. But no rear-ender, just a long honk from a rightfully peeved driver behind. We're still all in one piece. :)
We stopped in scenic Tauranga/Mount Maunganui and climbed up to the summit of Mount Maunganui, which was worth it, because the view is great from there. My camera's memory chip is practically full now, so I'll either hafta offload the pics to my notebook using PictureProject (which isn't actually a bad piece of software once you familiarize yourself with it), or buy a new memory chip. But the latter aren't cheap, so it's better to be cost efficient methinks. Money is rather tight right now, and it's ten bucks tighter since last night when I came second in a winner-take-all private pub poker tournie (no, I'm pretty convinced it wasn't rigged, not for a lousy $60!). I had played hard and skilfully, such as that is possible with shallow stacks, and busted everyone out but one. Finally I got it in with AJ against AQ - not good - then outflopped him, then lost when he rivered a Q on me. That's the name of the game. Poker seems to be bigger in NZ than in Aus for some reason; in Australia most of the private games are kept so secret you can't even find them when you know about them! But Kiwis are playing in pubs, back rooms and casinos all over. Add in some friendly Maori smiles and you've got the makings of a pretty good place. Rotorua smells of sulfur dioxide, but whatever. You get used to it fast, because you have to.
In the pipeline is travel all over the North Island en route to Wellington. I will keep the readers as informed as possible. If all goes well, I should arrive in Wellington on the 3rd, and Christchurch on the 6th.
We stopped in scenic Tauranga/Mount Maunganui and climbed up to the summit of Mount Maunganui, which was worth it, because the view is great from there. My camera's memory chip is practically full now, so I'll either hafta offload the pics to my notebook using PictureProject (which isn't actually a bad piece of software once you familiarize yourself with it), or buy a new memory chip. But the latter aren't cheap, so it's better to be cost efficient methinks. Money is rather tight right now, and it's ten bucks tighter since last night when I came second in a winner-take-all private pub poker tournie (no, I'm pretty convinced it wasn't rigged, not for a lousy $60!). I had played hard and skilfully, such as that is possible with shallow stacks, and busted everyone out but one. Finally I got it in with AJ against AQ - not good - then outflopped him, then lost when he rivered a Q on me. That's the name of the game. Poker seems to be bigger in NZ than in Aus for some reason; in Australia most of the private games are kept so secret you can't even find them when you know about them! But Kiwis are playing in pubs, back rooms and casinos all over. Add in some friendly Maori smiles and you've got the makings of a pretty good place. Rotorua smells of sulfur dioxide, but whatever. You get used to it fast, because you have to.
In the pipeline is travel all over the North Island en route to Wellington. I will keep the readers as informed as possible. If all goes well, I should arrive in Wellington on the 3rd, and Christchurch on the 6th.