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whirlwind tourPosted on Fri 12 January 2007 at 09:47I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a week. So here it is. I had 8 days off work so we did a whirlwind tour of North Island down the way from Hamilton. We went to New Plymouth first and podded about there a bit - I would thouroughly recommend the motel we stayed at - if anyone wants any of the details of our stops you will have to email or post a comment as I can't remember the names offhand. An interesting place, what little we saw of it. Taranaki was awesome. I have to digress a moment here. I find the use of the word 'awesome' has changed over recent years. It used to really mean what it said but now it seems to be like 'nice' or 'fine'. I heard a colleague say he had an awesome sandwich - overkill if you ask me (overkill - not roadkill!). I use the word in it's original context, Taranaki truly was awesome and impressive, clad in cloud and dominating the landscape like a sulky teenager brooding on a percieved slight. Well worth the trip. Next - Palmerston North. I wish we had spent a bit more time there as we didn't really see much at all but did enjoy the changing landscape as we drove on. Wellington - I'm glad I have seen it for myself and experienced the wind! I have read countless times how the wind is a pervading factor in your everyday life there but never realised how true that was. Very hot and windy over our visit. One of the highlights was our meet up with Poppets (a poster on this site). You will know how you always have preconceived ideas of what people will be like? And how very often you feel let down because the person concerned doesn't live up to your expectations? Well, it wasn't like that at all! She and her husband were excellent company and we spent an enjoyable evening eating out. Her husband is a touch squeamish and Melissa's 'double-jointedness' had him unable to look at her as she rotated her arms and feet. Saw some of the city and the poetry that Billy Connelly featured in his program. Again, would have liked more time to do it properly but at least we left with a flavour of the city. My personal favourite of our stops was Taupo. It was so lovely there, we fleetingly considered retiring there eventually. But it is a large lake, not the coast and only the coast will do!! It had a real 'holiday' feel to it, friendly and laid back, lots of eateries. It will be top of the list for revisiting. We did a side trip to the gravity canyon - the link was in my last post. The nervous anticipation at the top was far worse than the actual 'flight' itself. It was stunning - I am so glad we actually parted with the money for the DVD of us grinning like a pair of idiots suspended on a 1km long wire over a bloody gorge - cos I hardly believe it myself! Steve is trying to take a still from it to post on here so you may see for yourself eventually. I dread to think how many kilometres we covered.. and I drove at least 70 of them!! And before I went back to work we finally all went on a 2 hour horse-trek (accompanied by Melissa's friend). We rode on hills steeper than I have ever ridden on and the girls were a bit more knowledgeable than last time so therefore more confident. It was really good - we rode on until it was dark and we saw glow-worms in a gully. It was fairytale-like, very glad we did it. But oh my God, I ache now: legs like sodding bits of string...no actually legs like sausages (maybe a bit less gristle!) cos they were too fat to get in my own long riding boots. I had to swap Melissa for her jodphur boots. But I haven't put on any more weight in spite of being on holiday and eating hugely. So back to soup and fruit for me. No news on the house yet as we are still waiting for the solicitor to go back to work on Monday. Bloody Hell - look at the time - 11.30pm and I have to be up for work in the morning. Flowers arrived - they were really lovely, thank you very much.
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