Welcome to the Flash Blog…

18/01/08
Hello again folks! Well, as I mentioned in the last post, today I spent the day in New Plymouth, as my bus wasn’t leaving for Wanganui until 5pm tonight. As a result, I predicted a fairly boring, lazy day. Well, I wouldn’t say that my day was boring at all. I ended up taking a bit of a road trip with a German couple to see a neat natural feature known as the 3 Sisters. Those of you looking at the picture and subsequent ones that will eventually get posted will note that they are not unlike Hopewell Rocks. You would be correct. They are indeed sandstone formations which arose over a long period of time as a result of erosion and big tides. This is a spot you can only visit during low tide, so we had to time our arrival correctly, which we did. I didn’t bother bringing along the GPS, although I wish I did. I’ll try to put some sort of map together, but no guarantees. Either way, read on for a bit more about my past 24 hours in New Plymouth.

13/03/08
Hello folks, I’m coming to you live from Springfield, NZ at the moment. I haven’t located the Kwik-E-Mart or Moe’s Tavern yet, but I plan to do some exploration after this post just to make sure they aren’t here somewhere hiding. I must admit, I had no idea where I was going to lay my head down tonight, but as it turns out, I think I made the best decision in the end. So why Springfield? After all, it’s not even close to being on my route, and I had to bike uphill to get there. Well, there are a couple good reasons, first, I can say I stayed in Springfield. But secondly, and most importantly for me, it’s 10km from Sheffield. I remembered someone telling me some time ago that Sheffield has the best pies in NZ, and what better way to spend my last meal on the road then eating the best pies in NZ while rolling downhill all the way to Christchurch on a scenic route? I couldn’t think of any either, and that’s why I’m in Springfield. Another option was Darfield, but I’ve since found out that the backpackers accommodations I’d read about no longer exist anyway, so I would’ve been out of luck. Anywho, read on for the rest of my story, and check out the map too.

27/03/08 … Again!
Well, as promised, here is the second post for March 27th. I guess crossing the date line has its benefits heading in this direction. i’ve effectively gotten an extra day on my holiday! Yay. Of course, I lost that day on my way down, so all in all, there is a zero sum gain, but still, on the way back, it’s nice to feel like you got an extra day, wouldn’t you agree? The flight from Auckland to San Francisco went without incident, and in fact, we arrived in San Fran 20 minutes early. How’s that for a change? Transport that’s early. Wow, I’m impressed. Shame I didn’t get a wink of sleep on the damn flinght. 12 hours of insomnia spent watching several movies, TV shows, and listeneing to music. I had a couple glasses of wine, but nothing too crazy. I wouldn’t want to risk a hangover on my very short visit to San Francisco. Read on for a little bit more info on this little layover.