New Zealand

A few weeks ago on a Wednesday I received one of my regular emails from Flight Centre with a deal for airfares in and out of Christchurch and a week in a motor-home for $475 provided I booked the trip by the following Friday, and the deal was based on two persons renting the motor-home. Several phone calls and one Centrelink loan later and I was booked to fly to Christchurch the Friday after booking with my best friend Daniel, on 30 June. It cost a bit more than that by the time we added a day and got a loo and a shower and a fancier motor-home (the people the deal was through ran out so we had to go upmarket a bit).

Friday we flew in to Christchurch on a two and a half hour flight and with the time difference got in at 11:30 pm at night & were picked up and taken to our motel for the night. The next day we picked up the motor-home, which seemed like something out of Star Trek compared to what I had been expecting, then spent over three hours at the Antarctic Centre before heading into town to join Peter in a cafe for a couple of hours of conversation, then Daniel and I went to a play called "The very early late show" which was a performance based on improvisation. Daniel caught up with the performers afterwards and I went to bed.

Sunday we picked up an extra couple of doonas from the van hire place then drove through Arthur's Pass to Hokitika, where we camped at lake Kaniere. Daniel is used to driving big vans but my driving skills were not quite up to the task so he ended up doing almost all the driving. Lake Kaniere was beautiful and was a great place to wake up, but because it was cold and dark until late in the morning it would take us a while to get started in the mornings, particularly Monday morning. We then drove to Franz Joseph and managed to get a quick look at the glacier before the sun went down, then camped in a motor lodge.

Tuesday we went to Fox glacier where we went right up to the glacier (well, as close as the safety barriers allowed for). We realised we weren't going to get anything like as much of NZ in as we had thought and needed to head back over to the East if we wanted to get some skiing in, which we both wanted, so we headed up to Greymouth as Arthur's pass was closed except for chains (which we had but didn't want to use) and camped on this moor which was the worst night we had, it was like being in a scene from Hound of the Baskervilles or something.

Wednesday we went through Lewis pass to Hanmer Springs and sat in the hot springs with snow falling on us all afternoon, then camped at a motor lodge there before heading to Lyford Lodge where we hitch-hiked up the mountain for an afternoon of skiing in poor visibility at Mount Lyford, hitch-hiked back down and stayed in the lodge the night. Spending the evening sitting around the fire chatting with people made it the best night we had.

Now Daniel is often the last person to get on an airplane and I get nervous if I'm not somewhere five minutes before the suggested time, so given that we spent most of 24 hours a day together in a confined space for seven days we got on amazingly well, but God did take the opportunity to loosen my grip on being in control. If we'd done things my way we wouldn't have had time for the skiing and certainly wouldn't have spent the night at the lodge, which was our best night.

Friday we headed into Christchurch in time to hand the van back in and get on our plane, which unfortunately went via Brisbane. Daniel got off there as he had business
to do there & with an instrument failure that delayed the flight to Sydney by an hour it took nine hours all up to get back to Sydney.

Blessings,
Joe :-)

Trip to New Zealand brings changes

G'day (as I usually begin my emails). It's been a long time since I've done a post, and even longer since one appeared (for some reason my last post back in March didn't appear on my web site & I've only just noticed [I forgot to update my blog settings when my ISP changed hands]). Well I've been on a four week break from TAFE and came across a really cheap deal on a week in New Zealand with a campervan for two people, so I called up some friend's and went with my best friend whom I have known since we were four, Daniel.

We had a great time and I'll post the details of the trip later, probably after I get a chance to write it from a couple of postcards I sent my mum, but here I'll just comment on how the trip changed me.

When I was three my mum and a family friend took me, my brother and her son who was my best friend at the time to see 'The Sound of Music.' During the interval my brother went up to the counter at the shop and was saying 'Same as everybody else please.' I remember seeing all these people getting ice creams with chocolate on them and other lollies and not knowing how they could get these things but knowing I couldn't have them (we were pretty poor and although mum managed to get us to the movie, sweets were out of the question). Ever since I've had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome I've felt like a kid in a candy store without the means to purchase anything watching everyone around me live life but somehow not being able to participate myself. That is over. If I was rich I would travel around the world with my friend's, but that's exactly what I've been doing so it is no longer something I'm hoping will occur in the distant future, it's the life I'm living today.

Just before the trip there were shows on Oprah and Dr Phil about hoarders, people whose houses you pretty much couldn't move through because they were so full of junk. Although I'm not that bad I am a hoarder and still have old bits of computers that would have been really useful to me ten years ago. That's broken and starting before I went on my holiday I started chucking stuff out. It'll take a while because I'm only going to do a bit at a time but it'll get sorted. On those programs on TV they were saying it's often a reaction to feeling like life is out of control, reacting by developing this hoarding habit which is the person's sphere of control. Well, I don't need it anymore.

Blessings,
Joe :-)