Getting pretty excited now!

It seems I might be a bit crap at this blog thing. But I still have friends and family harbouring Facebook allergies, so – let’s get stuck in!

I explained in my last post how this blog is pretty much to share my Big Exciting Trip with my mates and family, but that there would be boring bits until I actually left. But I was wrong!! The last two weeks have been great!

Last week I went tramping with my dad for four days, through the beautiful Heaphy Track. This was 78km of stunning New Zealand forest, hills and tussock plains, and overall both dad and I were stoked at the experience. But alas, it just isn’t a Kimbles trip without a few mishaps (this doesn’t bode well for upcoming solo travel…) Some highlights:

• I left my trousers in one of the huts. Au revoir, best pants ever…I miss you already.
• My scheduled 2 hour return trip from Hokitika took 7 hours!! It was very cloudy in Hokitika, and lo! we could hear the plane overhead, it just couldn’t make it down to get us. So I got to ride across country in two buses, got  complimentary coffee at the ariport, and got to meet a friendly, pierced, skinhead, parole-dodging reprobate from New Plymouth. He sat in the back of the bus, quietly singing along to Taylor Swift on the radio…tee hee…
• My knees seized up. Both of them. Generally it’s a bad thing when you need to have anti-inflammatories for breakfast, and umm…maybe for dinner too… But my physio seemed to know exactly how to handle all of this, and while the latest set of exercises are agony of five different varieties, you can’t help but like a person who shows you said exercises, then finishes with “…you can do these at home with a wine bottle…”

Now it’s back to work, but the excitement doesn’t stop there, no! Mondays usually don’t need any help being crap, but I started my week with a driving test! A touch masochistic maybe, but it was over in a jif, and I passed (round of applause for self)!  I now have a full driver’s license – so rather than be driven around on bus tours, I can hire cars and get myself lost in the middle of nowhere, all over Europe!

A manuka branch - although mum reckons its the whole bush

But was that the extent of my exciting week? No! There’s more! (And more pain…) After months of trying to find the perfect picture, I wagged work on Tuesday, and got this beauty (left)…round of applause for Ben at Tattoo City, I love it.

And finally, the email I’d been waiting for from my lovely friend and travel agent…”Your passport has come back with your Russian visa in it.” YES!! Vodkatrain, all go. I’ve been treated to snippets of advice from a dear little 70-something year old lady at work, so now I have the visas, I need to stock up on condensed milk for my tea, and brandy…

Until next post, here are a couple of my picks from the Heaphy…

Dad striking a pose - sunset at the mouth of the Heaphy river

Somewhere down the west coast, on the way out, final day

One of many, many swingbridges