auckland. again.

the journey back from the bay of islands was an interesting one. the bus to auckland wasn't until 4.30pm so we spent all day sat on a picnic bench on piahia village green, me reading the new zealand herald and reg reading some trashy mags, each of us exclaiming at particularly interesting articles, just like old people. we've been acting like old people quite a lot recently. all this sea air has made us really tired so we've been going to bed at 10pm each night to read. we're going to have to snap out of that.

but, anyway, the bus.

jared the bus driver arrived in a hurry cos he was running half an hour late. he slung all our backpacks in the back. reg doesn't have a backpack now cos it snapped in fiji so instead she has a massive pink suitcase on wheels. she's given up on the trudging-about-with-a-heavy-bag-on-your-back lark. anyway, jared exclaims when he sees her suitcase 'bloody hell, princess, you packed yer mum?!'. i love new zealanders! anyway, we sat right at the front cos reg felt a bit travel sick last time. we were going to settle in to listening to my ipod shuffle between us except jared, it transpires, likes a bit of company while he's driving and never shut up. we ended up plugging my ipod into the van stereo and subjected everyone on the bus to my music. it was horrific. i felt like my soul had been opened up to everyone there. i sat there with my finger at the ready to run some songs on. you see, when i'd put the songs on, i'd been in a strange mood and ended up putting on a few 'less trendy' songs on there, just for variety. the kind of songs, like tiffany and arsenium, that would remind me of home but that, perhaps, you wouldn't want to share with a busload of strangers. i had a regular panic every couple of minutes as each song ended. however, it all turned out okay as jared proved himself to be another musical loser like me by professing to also like 'can't fight the moonlight' by leann rhimes. thank god.

so today reg and i have both gone off and done our own thing, in order to not go mental in each other's company 24/7. i went to auckland museum which was fab. there was a 'maori cultural performance' with lots of singing and fighting and, of course, the haka. there was also a thing on volcanoes (auckland is on a whole load of volcanoes) which included a replica room which showed you what would happen in a real volcano explosion. the room shook and the lights went out and everything. it was brill and also scared a few small children. double whammy. there was also stuff on warfare in nz - with the british but also stuff on the world wars and that. provided another perspective.

so am off now to meet rach and have a drink up the sky tower. it's cloudy so we'll see bugger all but what the hell, we're on us 'olidays.