Fox Glacier: DOs and DON'Ts

Here is a brief and handy tourist safety guide to Fox Glacier:

DON'T assume that after spending the best part of a week driving round corners that require full steering lock, left, then right, then left, then right, you deserve a break. The road to Fox contains around 389,792,483 more 1st gear corners, some of them so sharp you could shave with them.

DO make sure you wear the correct footware for the terminal walk. If your girlfriend accidentally goes ankle-deep into a glacial stream whilst traversing some particularly unstable stepping stones, make every effort not to laugh.

If, upon arriving at your hostel, you find that a Cessna, mistaking Fox airfield for Franz Josef, has crashed into a pylon, and taken out the power for the whole town, DO stockpile duvets and blankets from unused beds and DO use gas rings to heat saucepans of water for hot water bottles. You may also like to have a conversation with fellow backpackers in absolute darkness or, for the more enterprising, by the light of a laptop or mobile phone.

The next day, once power is restored, if you are going on a heli-hike, DON'T be alarmed if the pilot appears to be about 14 (youngsters catch on very quick). Also DON'T ask the pilot if you can have a go at flying it because you once saw an episode of Airwolf and wondered how hard it could be. Or, once you reach the glacier, DON'T ask if you can lower yourself off the skis and drop the last 10m, because you also saw an episode of the A-Team and wondered how dangerous it could be.

DO put your crampons on the right way. DON'T make reference to the fact they resembles a cross between a muzzle and an implement of sexual torture. DON'T refer to them as tampons. Even though this is funny.

DO find out where everyone in your group is from. DO express surprise when you meet a couple on honeymoon from Coalville (yes! honest!). And then DO express surprise when another woman overhearing that conversation says she has a penfriend in Hugglescoat (yes! I couldn't believe it either!)

DO be prepared to be adventurous. If the guide takes you down into an ice ravine by a rope/ice-pins she's just hammered in, take the opportunity to follow her. If, once at the bottom, and in an ice cave the size of a large built-in wardrobe, she advises to lie on your back and slide through an impossiby tight aperture, DO follow her, because you don't want to get left behind.

After 2 and half hours on the ice, when you get back home to DO have some Supernoodles and an afternoon nap, because you will be knackered

DO post your photos on your blog:

Haast

Like Twizel, Haast was always meant to be just a stopover. And, like Twizel, upon arrival we realised spending anything more than one day here would be difficult.


When I say there was nothing wrong with Haast, this was primarily because there's not enough for there to be anything wrong with. And, similarly, when I say it was nothing to write home about this, in turn, is because I doubt the post van/mail coach comes through here with any alarming regularity, so it would be ultimately fruitless.


With a population fewer than the dwindling bars on my mobile signal, Haast's self-proclaimed "township" status belies its size, significance and remoteness. It seemed only fitting, therefore, that for the second time in my life I found myself in accommodation eerily redolent of The Overlook Hotel from The Shining, with its 1970's faux-alpine furnishings and long beige and paisely corridors. There was even a child's plastic pushbike in the hall.


The kitchen was equally hilarious and looked like a set from an episode of Tomorrow's World from 40 years ago: "Welcome to the Kitchen Of The Future. By the year 1978 every home will have one of these - the Microwave Oven. It's a compact 14 square feet and can cook anything from a Sunday dinner, to a 14-course banquet"


But despite Haast Lodge's timewarp qualities, it was that sense of isolation and wilderness that became its appeal. A trip to nearby Jackson Bay revealed the tiniest fishing village at the most Southerly point on the West Coast's main arterial route - literally the road just petered out into nothing. It consisted of a few shacks, a wooden pier with accompanying seal, and a portacabin fish restaurant called The Cray Pot, advertised infrequently on roadside blackboards all along the 50km road in. A road which was effectively a huge geographical cul-de-sac.


Later, a stop at Haast Beach during the twilight hour, revealed a desolate shale beach littered with all kinds of oceanic bric-a-brac. The sun set. The waves crashed. The wind blustered. Magic.

Haast Beach Photos.........

Te Anau

From Queestown it was a 2 hour drive to Te Anau, base for our trip to Milford.

Initially, I was concerned about our accommodation as we had opted for a "homestay", kind of like a cross between a hostel and a foster home. A "Fostel", maybe?

I had visions of sitting with a family in their own front room, having to watch the NZ equivalent of Gardener's Question time, listening to the clock tick, and coughing every time you wanted to fart.

On arrival the Christian fridge magnets did nothing to dispel that notion, but it soon transpired that hostess, Rosie, was the most hospitable and easy-going of people, her home welcoming, her room cosy and her cake-baking first-class.

Alarmingly, as I was playing Nothing Else Matters by Metallica on the guitar, I heard her singing along from the kitchen. That must be one progressive church she attends. I restrained from pushing her into joining in on any Rage Against The Machine.

An early start the next morning meant we were on the road by 6.30. After a winding two hour track through snow-capped mountains and tunnels (in reality a cave with a hole at both ends), the visitors centre loomed out of the mist.

We boarded a boat with only around 8 other people, and drifted off through the haze, past giant rocky outcrops and tree-laden crags.

Grand, towering yet serene, Milford is undoubtedly impressive. Yet Lou summed it up accurately by dubbing it the Ayres Rock of New Zealand. And that much is true: the lengthy drive to counter its remoteness requires committment, and the terrain along the way is so magnificent, that by the time you reach the Sound, it's simply the best example of what you've seen on your way in, rather than the like nothing you've ever seen before.

Still, I wasn't going to come all this way and not see it. And see it I did. And I'm glad I did.

Queenstown

First thing next morning, a quick trip to Mt Cook village to NOT see Mt Cook due to cloud, and then on to Queenstown to meet up with Pink Houser Chris.

We met at the world famous Fergburger, a quality burger establishment with a reputation stretching as far as the UK, and home to such classics as the Cockadoodle Oink, the chicken and bacon burger.

I was instantly taken by Queenstown. With ski-boots full of character, it's compact, clean and friendly and commands stunning views of The Remarkables and Coronet Peak. And whilst it's usually populated by people wearing idiotic ski hats and using phrases like "great powder today" and "have you seen my new gold-plated snowboard bindings", it still doesn't feel exclusive or pretentious.

The next day Lou and I were off up the hairiest of winding mountain tracks in a 4x4 bus to the summit of The Remarkables for a beginners ski-lesson. Unfortunately, however, although we did have a great day, it was no thanks to Diana, the worst ski-ing instructor in the world.

The only lesson we learned that day was never trust a Spaniard on skis.

Her crimes included:

* Waffling on in a thick Fast-Show-Channel-9 style eth-eth-eth accent. Slightly racist perhaps, but when you consider her sole task is to COMMUNICATE with people and CONVEY information, the fact that she couldn't pronounce the word "lean", or "wedge" or even "skis", was a serious problem. No one says Spaniards shouldn't ski. But a Spaniard who can't speak English teaching ski-ing ...that's different.

That was the least of it, however.....

* Texting some bloke she'd met the night before. Often whilst in the middle of a sentence: "OK, so eeeef you turn berry berry hard....(beep beep)....one moment................(giggle) (giggle)........"
At one point I'd fallen across the Travellator-type thing, returning skiers to the stop of the slope, and she didn't even notice because she was arsing about with her phone.

* Beginning the next wave of instruction for the few people who had made it back up to the top of the slope whilst half the group was still floundering on their backs like upturned ladybirds at the bottom.

* Forgetting who was in her group. She hardly spoke to Louise for the entire 3 hours.

* Issuing esoteric, non-sensical instructions. When I asked her what was wrong with my "snow-plough" manoeuvre, she responded "Tonight, take your girlfriend out in the moonlight and dance"

What does that even mean?

Aaaaaanyway, the next day we decided to abandon instruction and headed over to Coronet Peak for some self-tuition. And thank god we did. We learned more the second day without instruction than we did the previous day with instruction.

Purely by trial and error and practice, by the end of the day we had mastered left and right turns and even moved up to the next slope.

Still not a patch on Chris, however, who zipped in and out and round us on his super-duper new snowboard.

Queenstown. I love you.

Twizel

And so to Christchurch to pick up our hirecar. With 1.3 litres of pure power, representing the pinnacle of Japanese engineering, ladies and gentlemen I give to you the Diahatsu Sirion.

I was labouring under the misapprehension it was pronounced the Sir Iron, which sounded like a steel-clad Arthurian nobleman, proud and robust. In fact it's pronounced Syrian, a race of people next on George Bush's hitlist. Never mind.

Not the first vehicular-related mistake we made that day. The second, arguably more significant, was not taking the extra $17 a day insurance to cover tyre bursts and windscreen chips, as within 20 minutes of leaving Christchurch a passing lorry opposite hoofed a rock into the windscreen, leaving a sink-plug sized welt in the windscreen. So that's $350 up my shirt to start with.

But 3 hours and 250km later we realised why we were here, as the first snow-capped mountains were revealed, followed by Lake Pukaki, with its water so clear, and reflection so perfect, that if you stood on your head only the loose change falling up your nose would give away which way was up. Our first taste of proper New Zealand. And it tasted good.

By 7 o clock we had reached our destination. Eerily quiet, poorly lit and seemingly made entirely out of timber, Twizel itself was one of those towns where, if aliens landed, you probably wouldn't find out about it for about 6 weeks.

It was only ever intended as a pit-stop and not a bad place, but the sound of duelling banjos was ever-present in our ears.

The Long Awaited Update...

What with internet cafes in New Zealand being more expensive, per minute, than the Iraq War, updates have been few and far between. What follows then is not so much an update, but more part one of a datadump, after saving up for a few weeks and selling one of my kidneys to pay time on a PC.

It begins in, appropriately, at the beginning.........

Some Photos....Report Later (click to enlarge)

Old Zealand

Regular readers of this blog (to be honest, I don't know if they still exist) will know that, occasionally, I like to have a bit of a moan.

And though the following entry may well look like a moan, it's not. And while it may document and detail annoyances, niggles and beefs, it is most definitely not a moan.

Nope. Not a moan. It's just not serious enough. But here goes:

I am beginning to think of New Zealand not so much as a 3rd World Country, or even a 2nd World Country, but more as a 1.5 World Country.

It's a country where everything is around 34% less efficient, less effective, less functional. I hesitate to use the word backward because, well, it's offensive. But perhaps lagging would be more appropriate (or maybe even lacking).

Here's just a few examples:


* Supermarkets are apalling. Drab, cramped and staffed by indifferent zombies. Last week Louise asked an employee where the tacos were. He shrugged and said "I dunno".


* Communications: misconnected calls, inoperative and inaudible phones, hilariously expensive mobiles, and 256k Broadband. Truly a modern oxymoron. 256k. Broadband.


* Journalism: incorrect captions, punctuation errors, photos printed upside down and, in some cases barely-literate articles. " I liked The Dark Knight. It was really good!!!!! I liked the bit where the man dressed as the bat punched the other man and the other man went aaaargh!!!!"


* TV: the two new formats unveiled whilst I was here were...wait for it.....Stars in Their Eyes and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. First shown in the UK in 1989 and 1999 respectively. Presumably, Blankety Blank and Take Your Pick will be next year.


I hasten to add this is not in anyway a comment on the people. In fact part of the the problem is that with 4 million people in the whole country (that's a 1/3rd of London), statistically their top 10%, their high-flyers are simply less in number.

And alongside human rights violations and American foreign policy, it seems churlish to moan about such triviality, but its just a simple observation that alongside the relative functionality of say London, Tokyo and even Sydney, NZ...well...specifically Auckland seems a bit lax.

Can't wait for the mountains, the snow and to meet more of the people. I think that's where NZ's strengths lie.

Whether or Not...

Weathermen in Auckland have it easy.

Alongside guitarist in Wham, and singer in Milli Vanilli it must be one of the easiest jobs in the world, simply because with the same certainty that the Sun will rise, and the Earth will turn, it WILL rain.

I've never lived in a city so perpetually sodden, so cruelly hammered by the elements. Yet, conversely and seemingly at odds with this statement, the weather is still unpredictable because, though you know it will stair rod down, you never know exactly when.

Anyone who's popped their head out of the window, and seeing the sunshine, then thinks they can make the 100 yard mad dash to the petrol station for spaghetti hoops without a coat, will usually be hosed down within 40 seconds of leaving their front door.

Similarly, anyone strapping themselves up in Gortex and bubblewrap to defend themselves from a meteorological onslaught is bound to find the daily downpour a few hours late, and thus is likely boil to death in the afternoon sun.

Due South

This is the plan. It's already changed 9,237 times. It will probably change again.

Fly to Christchurch, pick up car, then on to

Twizel
Mt Cook
Queenstown
Te Anau
Milford
Wanaka
Fox
Nelson
Blenheim
Kaikoura
Christchurch


And that's just South Island. We're looking at returning to the North Island proper when the weather starts improving as there's no use sitting on a beach in mucky weather trying to convince yourself it's actually warm enough to sunbathe like people do in Morecambe.

Our hire care represents the very pinnacle of automative engineering - A 2005 Diahatsu Sirion which I am renaming The Die Hard Sirloin - and activities planned along the way include snowboarding, writing my name in the snow, having an argument about one another's map reading skills, shivering a bit, meeting up with me old mate Chris, cruising around Milford (not, I am told, the home of MILFs), climbing the Fox Glacier (which will be mint) and the Franz Ferdinand Glacier.... and probably a lot of driving.

37 days encounting......

Surfer's Paradise

So, I am leaving Auckland. The flights, the hire car and the accommodation are booked. The date is set. All I have to do is now is sit through another 2 weeks of, well, nothing. And that's harder than you think......

I joined this company during a staff shortage. And because there was work to be done, accordingly, I did it. But since that day way back in April, the company has hired no less than 6 new people, meaning that for the last 4 weeks I've been content to dawdle, dally and lozzock about on the internet, whilst work is actually taken off me by eager new beavers (probably an unfortunate choice of words given I'm still the only man here).

The problem with this is twofold. First, if it weren't for George providing me with a few choice websites, I would have bludgeoned myself into oblivion with a hole-punch by now through sheer boredeom. In your own home, doing nothing makes you the king of your castle - revelling in your inactivity and celebrating the stationary with no expectations and therefore no reproachement or guilt.

But to do nothing when you reckon you probably should be doing something. That's different. It's disquieting and makes for an uneasy day. Which leads to my second point.

I can't prove it, and it may well be a kind of mild paranoia, but I think the fact that my days are emptier than John Leslie's Diary is breeding a kind of polite but palpable sense of resentment among people who actually have work to do.

I have indeed telegraphed my availability on a number of occasions, responding to the Kiwi's wanky buzzphrase "Phil, do you have capacity?" with the reply "Yes, I'm not busy right now", although I would have liked to reply "Yes, I am indeed capacious right now", yet work has not been forthcoming. In my defence, all I can say is: it's not my fault I'm not busy.

Anyway, I have two weeks of surfing youtube and Facebook left, and then will have to find 3 weeks of temp work before I leave Auckland on the 25th August. If anyone fancies sending me some interesting links to browse whilst I glance over my shoulder to see who can see my screen, before flicking back to an empty Excel spreadsheet and punching a few random buttons on the calculator to make it look like I'm working, please feel free.

Flat Out

Lou and I finally have a flat.

I'm sad to leave The Brown Kiwi: the cameraderie was endearing, the host hilarious, the experience memorable. But this trip is all about what happens after Auckland, and for that we need money. So with the Brown Kiwi's double room costing us the equivalent of a return ticket to Western Samoa evey week, despite Nils gracious discount, we decided to move out into cheaper digs.

Conversely, and fortunately, over here cheap accommodation does not mean having to live underneath a railway arch with an itenirant jazz musician called Keith. Rather, rental prices are around 40% cheaper than hostels, and $200 a week has secured us a room in an apartment 15 minutes from town with bed, dishwasher and TV. Three of my key requirements.

Admittedly, it wasn't the first place we looked at. A trawl through some accommodation websites revealed that we weren't in the most favourable of positions - a non-smoking couple requiring a flat for only 8 weeks - especially considering the online adverts were very specific about the type of housemate required, some stating: must be smoker, must like cats and, my favourite, must be quiet.

Our first viewing was a place just off Ponsonby road which could only be described as a cross between Northampton Polytechnic student accommodation and an inner-city "housing project" for single mothers with learning difficulties. There's something very disturbing about a "TV room" consisting of four walls of powdery, unpainted breezeblock, together with 3 plastic school chairs pointed at a flickering screen.

Our second viewing was of house in Grey Lynn, and whilst the accommodation was fine, Lou and I both agreed the woman who already lived there, Camilla Ribena-Faqhuar-Camembert-Bibblington-Breadbin, was annoyingly wiffy-waffy and would have probably required throttling at some point.

And so finally to our current location just off the Great North Road. Initially, the signs weren't good: bottom of a hill, bright tangerine-coloured building, above a garage. But upon opening the door we were pleasantly surprised: spacious, clean and apparently new. The couple who already live there seem fine, and as a result of pushing two single beds together, we now have a "double" bed the size of a tennis court.

I am avoiding the obvious joke about "Love All"

Or "New Balls Please"

Rolling In The Aisles

Brave New World

New World on College Hill is not only the second most expensive supermarket in all of New Zealand, but it’s also one of the worst ones I’ve ever wheeled a trolley around. No New World Sympathy from me.

With all the glamour of Kwik Save, but with the price of Waitrose, the narrow aisles are blocked by undead members of staff unloading their Toyota Yaris-sized cages of Campbell’s Soup, whilst the meat fridges look like an explosion in an abattoir. Portions of meat come in two sizes: breezeblock or the entire cow, whilst the bagpackers clearly have no grasp of physics or the inelastic properties of polythene, loading up your carrier as if they’re trying to break some world record. Or at least the eggs they’ve put at the bottom the fucking bag.

All this means, then, that for a 30-something male who steadfastly rejects the Jamie Oliver-isation of his dinnertime (spinach and radiccio torte with warm parmesan squash, anyone?), for me trips to the supermarket are a perfunctory affair. A blank-eyed wander round the aisles, automatically and nonchalantly selecting items from the pre-prepared list in my head, never altering it from week to week.

Yesterday’s shopping trip, however, proved to be a little different in that three slightly off-kilter things happened within the space of about 12 minutes; nearly enough to wake me from my shopping somnolence.


Dwarves, Duncan and Drink

First, I saw a colleague from work. Not ordinarily confusing, if it weren’t for the fact that she was 6 inches shorter than the day previously. I immediately wondered if she had perhaps fallen down a pothole or had her legs severed, but since there are few potholes in supermarkets these days, and she was definitely still wearing shoes, I discounted this possibility.

No, the reason, I later concluded, was that most of the women in my office wear very, very high heels, possibly because in the world of PR, they equate height with stature. And it was heartening to see that although, at work, stood next to me she seemed a giant among men, in reality she was just a dwarf on stilts. One day, I may consider going to work wearing Elton-John-Pinball-Wizard boots to prove the point.

Three minutes later, a second thing happened. I realised, as I waiting for Louise to finish choosing an onion or something, that I was staring at someone I hadn’t seen in 10 years – Duncan. er….thingamajig….er…. Duncan....er….whassname.

Duncan, myself and a whole host of other people from various Manchester Universities helped set up Storm Fm, a student radio station in 1997. And as I looked at him packing away his shopping, I immediately realised who it was. He momentarily glanced up and looked down again. Then realizing, too, he’d seen someone he recognized, looked up and down again as if trying to place me, before pointing and saying “Phil!”.

I responded by pointing and going “Duncan!”. We had a brief chat, exchanged numbers and generally, mutually puffed out our cheeks and shook our heads about what a huge co-incidence it was.

Last, 5 minutes later and still trying to get my head around the fact that I’d bumped into Duncan, Louise and I had almost finished packing our stuff at the till, when the cashier refused Lou some cider because she looked underage.

Being nearly 32, this was obviously a shock to Louise and she immediately produced her driving licence. Yet, for the cashier, this was still unacceptable – “NZ Driving Licence or Passport only, please”. Now, I’ve never been refused alcohol in New Zealand, which meant that despite the fact that I am younger than my girlfriend, I am able to buy beer and she’s not. And the fact that despite the number of Europeans here, European Driving Licences are not valid ID seems to be ridiculous.

The upside to this, however, is that I am going out with a girl who looks young enough to be refused alcohol. And that can only be a good thing.

Some Birthday Photos

Loulou checks the menu

Blurred photo from the window. That's the camera doing that - I'm not pissed

Always room for desert

My birthday cake(s)

My Birthday

If 21 is key of the door, then I don’t know what 31 is. The key to the Volvo perhaps. Or maybe the key on the Dulux Colour Swatch - if you’re currently deciding whether to paint the nursery with Cinnamon Sunrise or Domestic Violets.

So anyway, 31…….

Lou arrived last Friday which of course is fantastic for so many reasons, not least because I get to move into my own double room free from people snoring and farting. Actually, come to think of it, that was me. Anyway, last night Lou wanted to surprise me with a birthday dinner, but ashamedly I relentlessly badgered her until she let slip the location: the revolving restaurant at the top of the Sky Tower.

As I’ve stated in this blog before I’ll go up anything high. If it’s got an observation deck, then in my eyes, it’s a winner. Thinking about it now, I’ve been up the Tokyo TV Tower, the Fuji Observation Deck, The Tokyo Government Towers, AMP Tower in Sydney, Eureka Building in Melbourne, the Sentosa Tower and then the Swissotel in Singapore, The World Trade Centre, The Empire State Building and even the Space Needle in Seattle. If I ever visit Dubai any time soon, then let me tell you……

I’m sure a philosophy student from Liverpool John Moore’s might say that, as a shortarse, it’s indicative of some subconscious desire to lord it over other people. He might call it something like “Ivory Tower Syndrome”. But he’d be talking nonsense. So I’d probably knock his beret off for that comment.

I met Louise on Queens St and we wandered round to the Tower to collect our reserved tickets. Once in the lift, however, as I was staring down through the glass floor, it was obvious that Louise was not comfortable with the ground falling away beneath her and was now peeking through splayed fingers. The actual observation deck was pleasant if unspectacular, and whilst Louise gingerly remained at a safe distance from a glass floor revealing a 328 metre drop, I failed miserably to take any decent night shots, each successive image resembling more and more the daubings of a child let loose on black sugar paper with an army of crayons.

To the restaurant, then. And whereas Lou had been a bit fazed by the height issue, after sitting down at our table, I realised my middle-ear had a movement issue. After a few moments, I felt a little queasy and as I looked across the table at Lou, I could sense I was moving I just couldn’t tell how, or where I was moving to. Similarly, one thing they never tell you about a revolving restaurant that when you go the toilet, you come out 3 minutes and 18.4 degrees later only to think your girlfriend has buggered off, when in fact she hasn’t left her seat.

Soon, however, the feeling had passed. Enough for me to order beef filler with kumara mash (NZ Sweet Potato) and a triple chocolate icecream.

Last year I was on Bondi Beach for my birthday. This year I was up the Auckland Sky Tower. I’ve set the bar high for my 30s. I only hope I can keep this up.

Photos to follow............

The Breakfast Club

A while ago now, Pink House crew members Chris and Simon launched Lunch Club.

Whilst the moniker they bestowed upon it best conjures up images of captains of industry meeting at an Edwardian high-rise in Mayfair to discuss the Gold Standard and have a spot of tiffin, it was in fact an excuse to spend the hour between 1pm and 2pm stuffing their faces with home-made burritos. And most of the time, Chris and Simon were the only two members.

One year on and here in NZ I find myself one of the inaugural members of what I am calling Breakfast Club. Not a reference to the daft-haircut-sporting, none-more-80s film of the same name, but rather a meeting of like-minded people whose only thing in common is that they have to get up bloody early for work.

Initially Breakfast Club was just Bev and I, but its ranks are slowly swelling with new bleary-eyed additions of Nick from Seattle and Benjamin from France. There are also honorary mentions for Jens who, being German, is up and gone long before the rest of us, and Manu who, despite being German, stumbles into the kitchen at 7.55am looking like he’s been woken by binmen emptying the skip he lives in.

Breakfast Club has a fairly loose agenda. If you feel like joining, here are some of the regular activities:

* Wearily watching the kettle boil as you ask your fellow member if they heard some twat in the top bunk snoring last night

* Groggily reading instructions from a Weetabix Box (“Oh look I’m getting twice my RDA of nyacine”) and missing the bowl with your milk

* Staring blankly at the newspaper. Deliberately ignoring stories about Obama vs the Superdelegates because it’s too early, and instead settling on an article about a man who crossed the Attacama on a spacehopper

* Yawning while you hack your toast to splinters with the rock-hard butter you forgot to take out of the fridge last night

I suspect, however, that Breakfast Club is not exclusive to The Brown Kiwi

Ou-es Tu?

Of late, readers of this blog, of which I sincerely hope there are some, may have noted a recent drop off in the frequency of posting.

It pains me to report, then, that nothing really has happened. I am currently locked in a cycle of alarm clock, breakfast, front door, work, lunch, work, front door, TV, curry/spag bol/supernoodles, more TV and then bed as I wait for the cash to roll in and for lovely Louise to arrive.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a routine, but I am closer than I have been in two years to recreating my past life in London. This is both a blessing and a curse: although this rediscovered “routine” rewards me financially and also career-wise, I can’t help hearing the echoes of people who have returned permanently to Blighty, their travelling and perhaps their youth firmly behind them, moaning about how they’ve found “settling down” inherently depressing.

Still, regrettably, I can’t travel forever - I am not “The Littlest Hobo” – and so at some stage a return to orthodoxy and normalcy is as expected as it is inevitable.

I can’t complain at the moment, the hostel is as empty as my work email inbox, and my bank account is filling up faster than my internet browser’s history bar. Work alternates between a mad flurry of presentation writing and frantic bash-typing of emails, contrasted with extended lunch breaks, lengthy pisses and Youtube afternoons. Feast and famine. Bella Emberg and Kate Moss.

It’s not long now though, I think, until I’ll have something blogworthy. So hang on in there…..

Brown Love

The Brown Kiwi is smashing. I liked it as soon as I arrived, and it still continues to please.

The secret to its success lies in its positioning. It’s not a hostel where you’ll find football-shirted twunts called Darren from Leicester, with over-gelled hair and meaningless yin-yang tattoo, guzzling boxed wine and bellowing across the street at some slapper with a watchstrap for a skirt.

And it’s not a hostel where some blank-eyed receptionist, themselves a backpacker working to pay off rent, hands you a threadbare set of sheets and casually motions towards your room next to the bog.

In fact, it’s more like a shared house. But with lots of people. We already have our in-jokes. Our characters. Our catchphrases. Our nods and winks that indicate so much.

We’ve already started having our little adventures too. Last Wednesday was Mini-road trip day. Stefan from Heidelberg had just recently purchased a camper van to tour NZ , but it had already developed a rather ominous rattle. Frustratingly, it was a rattle which disappeared completely whenever he was in 10 metres range of anyone with any mechanical knowledge. Our trip, then, was designed to make the rattle come back so, should we actually be in earshot of anyone who knew anything about engineering, we could get an opinion.

So Stefan, Jens (also from Germany) and I set off with no particular destination in mind and made our way North. After about an hour we decided we really should be going “somewhere” and so, as I had the map, I selected what looked like the nearest geographical feature of interest: a 4 mile long peninsula stretching out Westward from Auckland.

Once at the tip, we disembarked into the Shakespear National Park encompassing a beach, a lookout point and a hill full of sheep. After a brisk 2 hour walk we returned to find there was indeed a problem with Stefan’s van. Not a rattle, but rather that he had left the lights on and flattened the battery. So much for German efficiency.

Luckily, this is the 21st Century and whilst Stefan didn’t have any jump leads, he did have a solar powered recharger. And so after a failed bump start, we duly wired up the recharger and played Ludo in the back of the van until we thought we could risk turning the key.

As the engine coughed into life, we all breathed a sigh of relief: I don’t think I could have handled another round of Ludo.

PR Does PR

Well, as some of you may have gathered, I am now gainfully employed. A random email to an old contact yielded a temporary two month position at PHD here in Auckland. Luckier than examining a four leaf clover and finding it contained a horseshoe attached to a rabbit’s foot.

The interview wasn’t so much an interview as “what’s your name?” and “when can you start?”, to which my response was obviously “how much” and “give it to me”.

On the face of it, the position seemed pretty similar to what I’d been doing in the UK, but a few days in and the gap between my expectations and the reality appears to be widening. This is definitely a more PR-based role. “Can’t stop, I’m off to take the editor of Cosmo to a macro-biotic spa and women’s retreat”. That kind of thing.

Not only does this make me the least experienced in the office by far, but also the least attractive on account of all 16 other (female) employees here looking like they’ve just stepped out of a Max Factor advert. I can only imagine how my UK high street attire is going down here: “This season, Phil is wearing a 100% Polyester T-Shirt from Matalan, featuring some logo or other. He is also wearing a pair of blue stone-washed jeans from Primark. In his spare time, Phil likes taking afternoon naps and eating Batchelor’s Supernoodles“

There is the possibility, however, that I may actually learn something new here. Maybe PR will be my true calling. Maybe I’ll take to it like a duck to Evian. Maybe I’ll be air-kissing Nigella Lawson in no time. Maybe.

Why Are We Waiting.....?

Meanwhile, in Auckland, things have stalled somewhat.

The last week has been spent in industrious pursuit of employment, with my days consumed by a mix of glacial bureaucracy, futile filling-out of forms, elusive recruitment consultants (and their feeble, feeble excuses), queuing, more queuing and boo-hooing.

Yes, the job hunt has started alongside a wade through the mire of household chores that inevitably accompanies a move to a new country, including a chat with an Indian call centre, a suburban bus trip to a place with a name right out of a Carry On film and several pointless interviews where several pointless recruitment consultants asked questions straight out of "Interviewing For Dummies" eg "Now, what would you say your strengths and weaknesses are?"

A right grilling, I can tell you.

Had one interview so far with the Radio Bureau where, curiously, the woman knew nothing about me, or what I was looking for, despite having the email I sent her printed out in front of her throughout the meeting. Thanks for that, duck. I could have spent that time being fobbed off by Madison Recruitment. For instance:"Yes, she's just picked up the phone"; "Yes, she's just stepped out" ; "Yes, she's just accidentally been taken hostage by rogue Shia cleric, Muqtada al Sadr. Can she give you a call back tomorrow?"

Anyway, I've about done all I can do now. I just have to wait for the offers to come rolling in.