long time no bog

dudes,

i've been far too busy havng fun to remember to blog. sort of true.

i'm now in aukland. yes i know aukland already, where has all the timje gone? staying here for a couple of nights then off to sydney :)

volcano was awesome. next day had to go to rotorua to see the geysers (shooting jets of water from ground, not local gansta types from the east end). was driving along merrily. the trip was meant to take about 45mins. a bit rainy and still feeling the effects of being pulled over so driving slow. over an hour later and still not arrived at destination and running ow on fuel. i decided not to refuel to save time as i had plenty of fuel for an hour's journey, and (i'm lazy). however, i did see signs for napier. pulled over, checked the map. yes, of course i'm on the correct road. incorrect direction. what's more, there's no major towns between taupo and napier which means no fuel stops. BUGGER!!

driving along very mountainous terrain which means using lots of fuel on steep climbs. driving along with buttocks clenched hoping i don't run out of go-go juice. eventually i see signs for napier, only 18kms. buttocks unclenched. and then i see a petrol station. i'm not sure i've ever been that glad to see a pertrol station. had a chat with the lovely man who filled my tank and cleaned my screen- it's so civilised here - he said that council won't let him put up signs saying there's no fuel for 150km because it will put recovery companies out of business!!! don;t even get me started on that.

got into napier. thought i'd stay the night but not an awful lot to do. lots of chav types driving around very slowly in kev'd out jap hotrods with base distorted hip-to-the-hop blaring out of the boot of their cars. took some photos of the sexier art deco buildings, got back into the car and drove back to taupo and then onto rotorua. \

saw a sign on side of road saying 'craters of the moon'. sounds exciting i thopugh. a quick detour saw me walking through a geothermallyactive area with sulphurous steam venting through cracks in the rocky ground. if it wasn't for the vegetation, it was quite out-of-this-worldish.

weather was closing in as i arrived in rotorus - smells of rotten eggs. decided that the weather was rubbish and drove right on to aukland. mondo drive dudes. arrived at about 7pm ish. checked into a rather nice hostel. last into the dorm so i got the top bunk :( .

chilled out in the lounge and then went to bed at around 10ish. everyone else was asleep except one chinese girl at the opposite end of the dorm who was reading. every bunk had a dim personal reading light-very swish. bit of a problem with my bunk though. no steps or ladder. created a bit of a problem. so i took my clothes off ready for bed-had my superman red pants on. i then had to climb onto a bookcase and then into my bunk. i'm sure the chinese girl got quite an eyeful as i scaled mount bookcase to get into bed ;)

nextmoring, eft auckland at 7.00am and drove up to the bay of islands.