Leaving Las Auckland

For Vince this day came not more than a couple of weeks ago, but for myself and Julia it has just arrived. Tomorrow we pack up our bags(well tonight if we have any sense) and get on a plane to the South Island. Quenstown awaits, where we will meet up again with Vince, this time with Tamsin in tow, for a couple of days fun and laughter and then hopefully settle down for a few months with the serious business of putting together some sort of fund for the remaining NZ and Asia adventure. I just thought it was right to mark the occasion, in an end of tv series styley, with a blog entry that just paid homage to what had come before. Really this is just a way to chalk up another blog entry with little creative effort, in the hope that it brings us a little closer to the 100 entry mark. But in fairness, we've managed to let slip by 11 months in Auckland, and for the most part they've been pretty good ones. We've achieved our goal of working for a large amount of time, we've managed to see at least a little of the north island, and more importantly we've made some good friends along the way. Auckland itself hasn't been as gripping and exciting as hoped, but that's probably just big city living, but it has done a good job building up our anticipation for getting out there and seeing a bit more of the "real" New Zealand. Locals think of Auckland like those back home think of London, and we are assured it won't take too much time to understand what they mean(less sheep). Of what we know of our destination, well, I watched Billy Connolly's World Tour of New Zealand on the telly last week, and I've learned that he's not as funny as he used to be, and more importantly Queenstown looks quite nice with it's idilic setting next to a lake and surrounded by mountains. I think it's the home of many scenes from the Lord of the Rings, I'm just hoping it doesn't turn out to be Hobbitsville. In all seriousness though, that was turned into a tourist attraction about 2 hours south of Auckland. At present we don't know anyone in Queenstown but I dare say give it a couple of weeks in a shared house and that'l change, that's one of the great thing about travellers, they tend to huddle togther like a family of penguins, and friendships are made in record time. Of those we leave behind to their own adventures, Bon Voyage, unfortunately these people will most likely be seeing us again when we return to Auckland in aroun 4-5 months time. In the meantime we've got some skiing to do, yeeeaahh!