Tuesday

begun late. 9:30 or so. They let us sleep in. Geoff woke me up then to move the car so they could get out of their garage.

Later we got a tour of the house. It has really good views. You can see the bay and planes landing in the airport. Geoff also pointed out the WETA studios and the warehouses where they filmed a lot of Lord of the Rings. They have a really nice house. The toilet has posh wallpaper. I liked.

Geoff and Annwyn went out with their cute kids (whose names I'm not going to attempt to spell) so I took the opportunity to have a shower. I relaxed a bit after being on my best most normal behaviour now that no one was home. I whistled and sung silly songs. I sung "Boom, Boom, Boom". And I got out of the shower feeling wonderful. Then I noticed that someone had brought the mail in. Damn it. Geoff came home. I'm sure he heard me playing silly buggers. I felt as embarrassed as I did the day before in the cinema when the cleaner woman caught me pulling faces at myself in the cinema toilets.

Jo and I went to the Chocolate Starfish cafe which is meant to be very famous. I had a hot chocolate. We were sitting there and I looked up and saw a tall aboriginal looking man in an akubra. I said to Jo "There's Ernie Dingo". I was just joking but on further inspection it turned out actually to be the great man himself. Ernie and his friends were there to film a segment for The Great Outdoors it seems. Everyone crowded around Ernie, all his entourage. Whenever Ernie made a joke, everyone laughed.

Jo and I didn't get on television.

We went to Te Papa Museum after that. It was good, very modern. I got bored after about an hour and half, the uncultured swine that I am. I went and moved the car, then found myself some more cheap, lunch from the same food court as the day before, then headed off to the same park for more sleep and book reading. So wonderful.

I met Jo at 5pm and we went to the Warehouse and bought some cds an Christmas presents then headed off to our second cousins house about an hour or so out of town. I got to drive, it was good fun. The road was really windy with massive drops of the side of the narrow roads with only a wooden fence the catch you. Plus the whole thing has a speed limit of 100km/h. Crazy New Zealand roads. Beautiful countryside. Lovely hills. Lots of fun to drive. Zoom Zoom.

We arrived at our second cousins place, which wasn't actually theirs, just one they were housesitting. They were friendly. John and Kate and their 3 kids. I slept in a room with Claude, the eldest child. He was probably very nice, but I didn't really meet him. Just slept in the same room as him.

Wedneday

Yeah. I think I don't have too much to say. A lot of driving. Like Sunday in reverse really. Much wetter though. Jo slept more. As did I. We talked less.

We went to the Flying Teahouse which is a cafe in an old DC-3 stuck up on sticks. It's very cool. We took photos there, of the plane and of our faithful hire car.

We listened to good music.

While we were driving into Auckland it rained on an off. On second it was completly clear, the next it was pelting down. So thick taht you couldn't see the car in front. You had to judge where you were driving by following the cats eyes when the lit up on the road in the reflection of you headlights right in front of you. That was fun.

I had more sweet and sour pork for dinner.