All Good Things...

The Josh Franco Section
Even three sentences is too much for Josh. He doesn't read these bits. I'm not going to bother writing them.

So we've been back for a couple of weeks now and we're back into the swing of things. I think the last thing I need to do is write an end for this thing. For the six or seven people who've been keeping up to date on this thing - enjoy!

So when I left you last time it was on the end of a mammoth post detailing our time working. Something we enjoyed hugely but were still happy to have finished. Over the next couple of days we travelled down the North Island from Taupo to Napier (Where we stayed in a room with an old man who seemed to be suffering with Cabin Fever) and finally Wellington. Here we stayed with now almost proper Wellingtonian Rachel and went to see our first ever ballet. It was good but I don't think I understood enough about what was supposed to be going on to enjoy it properly!

It was then a quick ferry in the pouring rain and we were once again setting foot on the noticeably colder South Island. We spent a night in Picton before spending a night in the almost completely deserted Kaikoura (We had an entire hostel to ourselves) and then driving into Christchurch. In The Church (as the cool kids call it) we returned to our old home away from home at the Around the World hostel. Our main mission here was selling the car which true to form proved an absolute nightmare with help from some dodgy mechanics desperate for us to spend even more on cars than we already had. I won't bore you, but with help from The Backpacker Car Market we managed to establish the true state of the car (which having been repaired just weeks before actually was pretty darn good) we managed to find some loving new owners. It wasn't all tasks and sorting though we managed to go on a little ski trip up to Mount Hutt. Nic glid down the slopes with speed and grace whereas my four days of skiing ten years before translated to a day spent falling on my ass and having snowboarders spray snow in my face. Still fun though.

And then the parents arrived! Ma and Pa rolled up to Christchurch Airport and within a matter of hours we were on the road in the Mystery Van aka Trixie 3. It doesn't look too much from the outside but due to some ingenious use of space we didn't spend the next couple of weeks on top of each other. Instead we drove around enjoying the freezing cold weather and beautiful scenery. The South Island in Summer was great but in the winter it was if anything even more beautiful. As well as seeing much of what we'd seen before but in the snow we also managed a trip across Arthur's Pass and a walk at the base of Mount Cook which was absolutely stunning as well as SO damn cold. Not the coldest we were though. We made it down to Queenstown for the Winter Festival and headed to watch an ice hockey match. It turns out ice hockey matches are REALLY cold. Something to do with the ice needing to stay frozen. I spent about thirty minutes sitting dangerously close to a fire with about five layers on and I still couldn't recover feeling in my toes.

We (More I) also got a bit caught up in World Cup Fever. Getting up at stupid hours to watch England's awful performances as well as watching highlight programs fronted by light entertainment presenters without even the slightest clue about the rules of football. Luckily, as the only undefeated team in the tournament the Kiwis got really hyped up about their country's performances. It'd be nice if a 1-1 draw with Serbia delivered the same kind of euphoria here.

And so it came to an end with a final night in Christchurch before the first of two flights. These were all pretty smooth and separated by a night at Singapore Airport which if you don't know is one of the greatest places on Earth and a highlight of the trip. We were sad the adventure was over but at the same time happy to be home at last. I was also pretty delighted to be away from the cold. It might be raining today but I can at least feel all my extremities.

So what did we learn from travelling? It's a tough one. I learnt some very specific things like the difference between Brazilian portuguese and Portuguese portuguese (The first is more poetic) and how Rose wine is made (Not by mixing white and red wine together). I also learnt that I'm not very good with cars which I think I already knew. I think more than anything travelling gave us more of a sense of what we want to do and which direction we want to head in. I'm not going to wax lyrical about what that is but instead I'm going to plug my personal blog which can be found here and promise that it's going to have a bit of a refurb and be updated with plenty more projects than you've seen before. As well as that check out Gallery where once again I'll be featured plenty more with more pages on film and a whole new article telling you 'How To Do' different stuff.

And with that all there is left to do is thank those who took the time to read all these and in the words of the (soon to be late) great Bruce Forsyth,

'It's nice to see you, to see you, Nice!'

Lots of Love,

Nic & Steve

xxx