would someone explain to me what in the name of borc am i doing in westport, a scummy little town if ever i saw one. and to top it all i’m a festhole of a backpack hostel, how it got 80% bbh rating i will never know. well the bus ride was ok. nice views and stuff and the driver stopped regulaly so that we could stretch our legs and take pictures. played on the gameboy for the first time since i arrived. metroid is insanly hard. what is the point of a boss which kills you in three seconds eh eh? as i was packing my stuff yesterday i realised i hadnt seen my blue fleece around recently. after a frantic search i came to the conclusion that i must have left it at the last hut at abel tazman. hells biscu! i’m sure i had something in the pockets, but i cAN’T RECAL (woops) what it was. i liked that fleece. oh well. i had better start looking for a fleece or jacket. speaking of jackets, i went into a second hand store a momant ago to look for books(i have finnished three so far) bought shardik for about ten pence. in the corner was a couple of fine leather jackets, actually not so much fine as mangled. but they looked alright. looking at the price i was amazed to find that it was ten dollors! thats like three fiddy in pounds! i could purchase it, wair it around NZ, then chuck it away before going to tailand. an interesting thesis! i think i might see if i can get a room in this cool looking eco-lodge slightly out of town for tomorrow. 96% bbh! and it has activities and stuff wich i could do.
whak!! i just saw on eurogamer that the game cube is being sold at argos for 79 pounds!! can you get me one? i shall pay you back when i get home. don’t bother getting any games, unless liv wants to play on it, in which case he can by his own! if you see a better deal go for that. i cant really be bothered to do any activity today. i’ll probably not bother to do stuff in every town i stop at.

I think you’ll find the 9 days is a minimum and that it might take a bit longer.

Hopefully not, though, as that would delay your progress to KK and the beckoning Kiwifruit …!!!

haha suckers!
thanks for the letter mama! i just got it from the post office. much apreciated. there are ofcourse better places to eat than mcdonii but they are quite expencive. i think it possibly that it was tahuna beach. there is a massive beach party going on there tonight. and a few of us are going.
i have na had the honey nor the drink! i think i might buy something nice for tonight, what dinna ken.

so i headed into town today to get my buspass thingy. i didn’t have any leaflets so i queued for like 10 minutes got some leaflets and went away to decide. called dod up, dicided on the “magic” buses route. went back to queue, this time for 15 minutes. arrived at the minions place ,started booking. i asked if i could pay with my card. in most shops here they have this device which reads your card, then you input you pin and it sucks the cash out. no signature require. but it seems you need a newzealand account. gack! the pamflet said the pass cost $359, so i leapt to a cahs point a ten minute walk, withdrew a massive fistfull of dollors, the cursed machine refused to give me anything higher than twenties. i could feel people looking at me as i forced the wad of notes into my wallet. i charged back and leapt back into the all too familier queue, frothing slightly at the mouth in annoyance. after a plesent 20 minutes we started to book again. i withdrew my stack of notes and splayed them on the counter with a flourish. “it acctouly costs $395” the man said. “wirbles?” i gibbered pointing at the leaflet. “err… thats wrong” the man said grinning slightly in amusement as he realised that i would have to go back to the cash point. godrotting pest merchants! i fumed as i strode back to the cash point, on the verge of buying the other bus pass (run by a diferent company) though it was more expencive. i decided to stick with magic. i eventualy got the pass, the man took pity on me and let me skip the queue, which was lucky as otherwise i would have been forced to kill someone.

hmm having trouble remembering the last day and a half of abel tazman. i’ll put down as much as i can.

right we got up ate some stuff at set off. this time it was me, eva, ally, franz. the plan was for me to go to the next hut. ally would get a water taxi back to the start from tonga, the first beach we would get to. and eva and franz would head on to the pick up point i would be getting tomorrow. we had a jolly walk nattering as we went. at one point we came to a rope bridge across a casm. classid indiana jones stuff. we exchaned cameras and took photos of each other going across. very cool! come to think of it this may have happened on the second day. getting confused. anyway we dropped ally of at tonga and went on. it seems that this franz guy was a semi famous base player in band called “journeys end” i’m preppared to swear that i’ve heard that name before somplace. but they just play in clubs at the momant, and there album isnt released yet. the hut (i foget its name) is near an area which can only be crossed at low tide. so eva and franz needed to get there at a specific time so they could cross and carry on to the pick up point in totanariu. we only just made it in time. they had to wade with the water reaching there knees. after saying my goodbyes i set of to look for the hut. i slipped back into “beach” mode, almost instantly i was alone and i got a bit lost. eventualy i descovered it (very close to were i had started) and settled in. i read on the beach for a while spraying citranella oil about at intervals of a few minutes. then i went for a swim, very cold and very shallow. at one point i think i saw a ray gliding through the water. i recalled with horror the ones we had seen in kew gardens with rows of spines ready for flesh jabbing. but after a bit of frantick leaping i put some distance between me and it. supper consisted once again of pasta, tuna and a stale bun. yummy! i played sh*thead with the duch couple untill late, much fun. the next morning i had a nutritous breakfast of chocolate and water. the tide would be low at midday so every body had to wait until then to cross. i did a bit more basking in the sun and reading. at around tenish a group of about twenty people could be seen in the distance trying to cross. the entire hut gathered to watch the “entertainment” people with zoom lenses or binoculars gave us running update on the water level. the quips and jokes came thick and fast! the water was still very deep and the fools were carrying massive packs. someone with a massive camera let out a woop. they were up to there necks! how we laughed! a few of us went down to the beach and took some pictures of the strange fenomenon. eventualy these people reached the other side and emidiatly started drying there stuff. this took hours, so they saved exactly no time by crossing early and got wet to boot. me and my fellow hutites left at the correct time, the water leached well bellow our knees. the last leg was fun and not too tireing. i arrived at the pick up beach early so i read for a bit. after a while the aquataxi arrive and we leapt into it. the ride back was pretty classy, we went quite fast, around 40miles an hour, and the driver took as to see a seal colony and some wierd rock formations. the journeys end was univentfull. if i remember more i’ll add it.

right i’m off to get some stuff from the super market, which incedently is called “big fresh” i swaer some of the stuff is totaly engrish. the motto of nelson is “live the day” completly random.

The washing machine died the other day.

Today, we went on a bike ride through the mud and came across a washing machine in someone’s yard. Mama asked if she could have it; the owner said yes; she also said it was in perfect working order.

We hotfooted it back home and Liv and I jumped into Tan’s horseless carriage and sped off to collect it. On closer inspection, the crappy piece of merchandise was minus its pump and drivebelt. So we came home empty handed.

The moral of this story is have a good look in the mouth of any gift horse before returning to collect it.

Remember to read Mama’s letter below …

Dear Julio,

It appears, according to my book, that the area around Nelson is full of alternative sort of people, drawn there in the past by cheap smallholdings.
I am really surprised that in the land of prime lamb meat, bountiful fish and shellfish and a vast array of fresh vegetables, you only manage to eat at McDonald. Honestly!!
Anyway, for your birthday (if you’re still in Nelson) go to Chez Eelco, 296 Trafalgar Road and eat a bowl of their recommended fish soup or something else if you like at my expense (I will pay it into your account). The Redwood Cafe in Kerikeri north of the town is also good, in case you don’t make it to Chez Eelco.
Did you walk to Tahuna Beach 5km from Nelson? One of the nicest, apparently.
A good thing to take for your health is the special NZ honey: Manuka honey; one spoon a day. Have you tried the special drink L&P (lemon)?
You could try and buy some whitebait (small fish, bishiques) clams, mussels, crayfish, a little butter and garlic. Five minutes cooking and there you are (Bob’s your uncle).
Apparently, there is better sailing to be had in Kerikeri.
Yesterday, Daddy was so bored thast I caught him watching something at random on the tele. Dear me!
Looking forward to details of day 3 of your walk!

Grosses Bises,

Mama

Jul had trouble blogging, so he emailed:

hail

blogger dousn’t work.
heres todays blog.

hmm…didn’t have time to go to town today, so i’m useing the hostels computer. this means i can’t get the third day down today. a few af us from the hostel went to the beach today. very plessent. massive beach with a sandbar which go for mile out into the sea. it took about an hour and a half to walk to the beach from the hostel, and after a long day we didn’t fancy walking back, so we decided to hitch a lift. very strange. we split into two groups, there were five of us, and no sooner did we stick a hand out when a flurry of cars came to pick us up. daniel and i had to wait ten minutes max for our car. we were picked up by a german lady who had been a backpacker herself, so made a habit of picking up hikers. i’m looking into which is the best bus company to take me south. i will book tomarrow i think. right see you.