I picked our next hostel (yes, me, Mark doesn’t really get involved in such practicalities, he likes the surprise – which normally finds him disliking it for the first hour or two but loving it by the time we leave), because it was on the way down to Wellington and it was quite remote, with internet, so we could spend a bit of time, not distracted by the world and catching up on stuff. With the macbook dying in Fiji, I didn’t really get a chance to do any planning for New Zealand and have found that, at time, has been quite detrimental, in particular, I have found the hostels get booked up early, so I don’t know how anyone does the ‘fly by the seat of their pants’ / ‘see which way the wind takes you’ type travel. Actually, I do, the dorms are pretty straight forward, it’s the double rooms which get booked up early and can be horribly pricey.
Anyhow, I really have to take some time to think about what on earth we are going to do in Australia before we go as that is going to be a bit of a scary one, seeing as it is horrifyingly pricey. I thought New Zealand was expensive, but Oz double rooms seem to be about 25% percent more expensive that here even. I have a sinking feeling that doing the three months we’d hoped for might not happen, if we’re going to keep travelling for more than a year. Anyhow, that has left me with a bit of a munk on. Have you noticed, how steadily my days have more mention of moody and grumpiness? I was naive enough to think I’d be skipping around picking daisies and singing everywhere we went, but I waexpect to be quite so fed up, quite as often as I have been lately. I think the moving about, not being able to do anything, like cook, wash and even sleep easily can get a bit tiresome. Not to mention trying to live to budget. I will try, however, not to litter the blog with moaning, as I can imagine that would be pretty annoying for anyone stuck in the cold/at work or both.
But if it makes you feel any better, we have arrived in a very cold and wet national park. The fact that the nearest bathroom means going outside, and then walking for 5 mins – I won’t even mention that in case it sounds like moaning. Marks pretty un-impressed and a bit bored at this point (I’m hogging the netbook, obviously). It is incredible the effect the weather has when you are travelling. If it was just as sunny and lovely as it has been the past few days, this place would feel, heavenly. We’d sit out on the decking, reading enjoying the warm and looking around thinking what a lovely setting we are in. But it’s raining and it’s cold so we are in our room with the heater on, feeling miffed that we have to walk such a long way to make a cup of tea and wondering if am going to be able to find anything suitable to cook the chicken breasts in later (I know that doesn’t sound like slumming it, but trust me, chicken and veg is the fanciest meal we’ll have cooked so far – most places don’t even have ovens).
On the upside, we can’t really spend any money here. Well, that is if we can manage to stay out of the tavern place down the road.
Plus, as well as catching up on correspondence (chasing the insurance company about our broken macbook and arguing with Groupon NZ about a badly described voucher I bought…. oh it does feel good to get it all out), and scouring the internet for cheap ways to do Oz, we can also catch up on those long missed tasks. I believe Mark, for instance, is going to cut his finger AND toe nails. I may tackle that hard skin on my feet and perhaps even pluck my eyebrows. Oh the glamour!