After jamming in a few road trips, I've had a long week of chilling out, nipping into Wellington for no real reason, hitting a few coffee shops, and trying a few local eateries.
One evening after a couple of beers in Wellington I convinced Marc that a New Zealand kebab needed to be tried. On Courtney Place he introduced me to a small Turkish restaurant, where I had a different interpretation of a kebab than I'm used to.
In the UK, a kebab (doner) is long strips of mystery meat, slapped inside of pitta bread and generously covered with salad, green chillies and a large squirt of chili sauce.
The purpose of all the salad, if you've been drinking, is to give you something to complain about as you rummage for the enclosed meat.
I can't say whether this was how all Kiwi kebabs are prepared, but I'm pretty sure I was given a doner burrito. The meat was as unrecognisable as it should be, although shredded, there was salad and chili sauce. What threw me was that it was all wrapped and rolled in a flour tortilla.
It was like a parallel universe kebab. Spooky!
Although that could describe many things I've found over here, the bit about a parallel universe, not the kebab part. There is so much that is familiar, and so many little things that are different enough to throw you a curve ball. Then there are the things that have knocked me right out of the playing field such as the sudden scenery changes, landscapes that have loomed in the distance only to suddenly envelope you, and the occasional earth tremor 'wobble' as I'm sat.
All in all, I like this place, it's still exciting!
So, relaxing, mooching about the area, cooking slap up meals at the house with Marc, and generally being a man of leisure has been a good change this week. It's also given me time to sit and start planning(ish) the south island trip.
It needs some sort of planning, or even a tiny bit of thinking about, as it'll probably take a good two or three weeks to see it properly, and I don't see any need to rush it.
As my mate Marc has finished his current contract, he's keen to hit the south with me. At the moment we're looking into balancing the costs of taking the Kiri, and shelling out for hotels, motels and/or campsites, against the cost of renting a big ol' RV (camper van).
It'll all come down to how the funds are best spent, so parachute jumps and bungee is probably going to take a back seat. If I want to be scared I'll go back and have another of those kebabs.
Although we're leaning towards the RV, as it should be more of a laugh, and give us the freedom to pretty much park up and stay wherever we feel like. We'll have to see how it all pans out.
As I was working out a south island route that would take in all that I wanted to see, and all the Marc wants to see, I played around and tapped in the routes travelled around the north island so far on Google Maps. I'm surprised that I've covered over 2,500kms since getting down to Welly. A few have been travelled more than once, and a couple of places, although passed, have not been properly visited.... Yet.
(Routes so far....'ish')
Surprised that It's only 2,500kms? Just because it feels like we've covered more than that, but then we've stopped off at a lot of places, and experienced some wondrous things, taken our time, and also some of the roads have been far removed from being describable as 'fast flowing'. As I've mentioned before, outside of Auckland you're on the UK equivalent of A roads, at best.
There's still a lot to see up in the north too. We didn't make Cape Reinga at the northern tip of NZ last time, as we got distracted by a whim, there's hot water beach to see, the bay of islands, the list is long. Changes to plan will keep happening, and the bits I've missed will happen in good time. As so much more will.
All in all, so far, so groovy.
Happy? Yes.
Relaxed? Yes.
Still a few worries hanging over from the 'real world'? Of course, but they're fading.
I'm sure there will be a few small jaunts before we head south, but no rush, no worries.
Stay happy all, and love your adventurous hearts, even if they do take a week off!
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