Goodbye New Zealand!!

Mr Nom Nom Has Style!

I didn't have long in Auckland before leaving New Zealand, but I made the most of it! After a lovely evening drinking wine and eating chocolate with Maia I spent the next day tracking down a bottle of wine for our evil prank on my father involving making him believe we had drank his wine. Which we kind of did, but we did get another bottle (the last one in the whole of Auckland! He had better be grateful!) I also had the chance to catch up with Jillian who took me out for some wine which quickly turned into a massive meal both of us were quite unprepared for! She showed me Auckland at night from the yaught harbour and introduced me to the maker of iwantoneofthose.com not a bad evening!

Getting a taste for Auckland Cuisine

My final day in Auckland was one of catching up on blog posts and general lounging around before briefly saying hi to a very knackered Rhiannon returning from some law conference in Australia and making my way to the airport for my flight. You can say many things about Kiwi's, but they are not subtle or indeed tactful it would seem. At the entrance to make your way through security you are confronted with a massive sign saying "This Is It Folks, Time For Final Goodbyes!". Quite frankly that just depressed me.

Me and (most of) The Freeman's (My lovely Auckland hosts!)

So, as the airport so aptly and cruelly put it, this is it. Goodbye New Zealand! The place where I made the transition between dependence and independence, between youth and adult. Oh sure the transition isn't over yet, but I've come a hell of a long way without it really feeling like I've changed at all. I guess I just understand myself and my limits a lot better now. I'm really gonna miss this country, it's amazing and I'd reccommend a visit to everyone, particularly if you're looking for a good place to do first-timer long term travel. I've met so many inspiring people on my journey, I'll remember them all and I look forward to seeing them again in future. So to all the people I've met, bye for now, thankyou for the influence you've had on the greatest adventure of my life (so far!) and make sure you stay in touch. Peace out!

The End of New Zealand

Final Week In The South Island- The Modelling Show

Trekking in Roxburgh

The week was spent preparing for a show that Monique was invited to be in. Monique was choreographing hard whilst I worked on creating her music mix for her to dance to as the epic opening of the evening. Of course it wasn't all work, especially not with snow around! As we once again took to the fantastic hot pools in Omarama for a magical evening where we saw wildfire electrical storms circling the valley on the mountains. It was unbelieveable! In the meantime I was continuing to cook my specialties and experimenting with new stuff, all good fun!

Trying Out Different Styles

The time came for us to make our way down south for the show where we were staying with the organiser ( a hairdresser called Holly from Roxburgh who runs the Belissimo Salon). We took the opportunity to have one last Roxburger and catch up with our friend Jess before knuckling down to prepare for the Tuesday night performance. The irony that it was all going to end where it began was not lost on us, it has been the perfect story. While Monique spent her days with her feet up, getting her hair done and being generally pampered, I became a general handy man fetching bits of staging and making coffee runs. Funtimes. I joke, I did really enjoy myself as I had plenty of time to head off on drives around the area and go trekking to my hearts content!

They decide it's time to play with my hair instead...

The night before the show Monique and I had an interesting experience in which we nearly died, narrowly avoiding hitting a massive cow on the road. (Thank god her car can't handle uphill drives well!) We turned round and tried to shepherd the cow off the main road, it was already dark and the cow was black, not a good combination. Unfortunately a car coming the other way didn't see the cow and despite us flashing our lights like mad, hit the cow. They did slow down on seeing us which was fortunate because if they hadn't it could have been a WHOLE lot worse! The cow was badly injured and dissappeared off down the road and these poor young teenager's car (whcih didn't even belong to them) was left terribly damaged. Never a quiet night in Roxburgh.

Monique In Action!

The Stylists In Action!

The next day was one of wild preparation. Thanks to nature providing a massive dump of snow there were many practical difficulties to overcome much to Holly's dismay (particularly as she was a tad hungover from our antics the night before!) however we pressed on and the venue was set up with the posters, staging and products in good time for the start. Monique's opening to the show went awesome (despite her insisting she forgot half the choreography) and everyone was hugely complimentary about it. The (by the way sell out) show involved 10 models 4 of whom were waitresses serving and keeping everything running smoothly. The other 6 were used to demonstrate hair styling techniques by Holly and another hair stylist called Nelson from Dunedin. The whole evening was 50's style with fancy snacks on offer, (for $45 a ticket you'd expect so...even if I did get in free...) whilst people chatted and looked at products laid out in displays I played piano which handily excused me from much of the clean up process! Hehe =)

Me In Action!

Wednesday afternoon I had a flight to catch from Queenstown. We were initially quite concerned because of the snow but we made it there just fine just in time to have Fergburger for lunch by the waterfront, where we got hassled by birds wanting a feed (much to our amusement!) As fortunately during the morning the Lindis Pass Monique was supposed to go through was restricted to only those with snow chains she could spend a bit more time with me before my flight. We drove a little down the way towards Glenorchy and used the time to transfer videos we both had of our time together. Then we drove to the airport. We must have sat outside the terminal in the car for about 45 minutes not wanting it to be over. I had never anticipated the act of leaving a car could be so damn hard. Eventually we agreed to 'just do this' and I got my bag from the boot. After one final goodbye I walked towards the terminal and she drove away. I was in a sufficient state to embarrass myself in the airport without really caring. I boarded my flight and flew north. Auckland here I come... again. Monique I love you and will never forget you, if you don't get your ass to Europe next year and come visit I will hunt. you. down. Just sayin'. =P

Leaving The South Island... Again

Travel Teething Problems

On the run up to leaving Roxburgh there were lots of maturity hurdles to overcome. The cryptic meaning of which shall remain a puzzle I'm afraid. Safe to say there was a touch of romance in Roxburgh. S'all you're getting. Jens and Benjamin went to explore the Catlins for my last week of work and most of my days were spent working, cooking and venturing off to random places in the area. It was lovely weather all week!

Leaving Roxburgh in Style

Then full of excitement and anticipation we packed up Django's Triumph 2000 (which he kindly lent us) and hit the road for our travels. Stopping off at Fairview Orchard store on the way for a quick coffee break and to grab some fruit! Anyway, we got an hour and a half up the road, halfway between Wanaka and Omarama aannnnnnnd broke down. Heart breaking. We ended up hitch hiking to Omarama to find a garage but arriving in the evening spent a night drinking Blackberry wine and playing poker in a campsite.

Style comes to an abrupt end

After long periods of waiting around, fetching the car and discussions with a couple of mechanics it became apparent that we weren't fixing this car for a reasonable price. So instead Benjamin got a bus to Queenstown whilst Jens and I hitch hiked with a random French traveller to Lake Tekapo. Stayed there a night, got a nice takeaway and had a good nights sleep!

Lake Tekapo!

Leaving

The day finally arrived, for the Griffiths to decamp to New Zealand! I spent most of the morning packing (I started at 4am) and trying to track down my phone, wallet and coat which I had lost in a drunken state two nights before. I do have the best timing sometimes.. Making a desperate rush to leave we finally pull away from the house! Only to stop literally 10 metres down the road for my dad to 'just quickly check something', he never fails to disappoint! Our journey went from bad to worse as we found ourselves driving into a blizzard avoiding the M25 like the plague! So in true British style the weather ruined all our plans and our flight has been postponed to 4pm Sunday meaning we will now be in Hong Kong for about 2 hours. Sucks to be us!