Happy Christmas, New Year and all that Jazz

So it has been several weeks since i last wrote to this thing so i suppose i owe ye an update. Not going to bore ye with all the nitty details but in short the last 2 months or so have probably been the best of my trip so far. I was staying in an awesome backpackers called the Stables Lodge, the weather in Napier was class and i met lots of amazing people, several of which i got pretty good friends with, as you are want to do under the circumstances.

I was working pretty hard for several weeks and in the end i had a big argument with the boss and quit. in some ways i was loath to leave the job in the sense that i actually did not mind the work. It was often boring and repetitive but i was working with loads of local Maori guys and also two friends from the hostel. So we would just spend the day weeding or apricot picking in the sun talking about everything and anything. When you are doing nothing but that for 10-11 hours a day , 5/6 days a week you get to know people pretty well.

After a four day vacation to Taupo where i swam in hot springs, did a bungee jump and then met up with Michelle for lots of alcohol, i returned to Napier to get ready for Christmas. Getting ready for Christmas of course had to involve a night when around 15 of us found this cove around 20 miles from anywhere and spent the night on the beach, sleeping on the sand in a circle around the bonfire.

Christmas was also pretty sweet. There was 38 of us and everyone helped either cook, decorate or clean up afterwards. I made lots and lots of fried potatoes and they went down very well. Lots of drinkenness ensued. Around the 26th then i said goodbye to sunny Napier and a bunch of us made our way down to Wellington, its just a 4 hour trip but we made it last 3 days, sleeping on beaches and in forests before getting to Welly on the 30th. There was no room in the inn so most f us either slept in their cars on the street or, as what was in my case, a tent in the garden. New Years itself was a series of very late nights, average 5am bedtime, lazing around on beaches and lots of alcohol.

So all in all it has been a sweet sweet few weeks, which i why yesterday it was so hard to say goodbye to everyone i met in that time and move on on my own. They had started in the North and were moving down while i was going the opposite way. I was re-reading Sarah's now almostdefunct blog and she describes it pretty well when she says the 'sundering just makes you want to curl up and die'. I know i have harped on about this a few times, when i left Dunedin and again after Queenstown but this time was so much worse, tears were involved. The bigger the high, the deeper the low it seems. Though i am in a really nice hostel in a pretty town called Wanganui at the minute i dont actually care. Whats the point of all this if you are just doing it alll by yourself.There was one particular fella that i got on really well with, a german guy called Gerrit. He reminded me a lot of Niall in that he was 6"Huge' and big. We were working in the orchard together and i kind of adopted him as a younger brother for the two months. It psucked especially to say goodbye to him and also to two of the ggirls. We have made promises to met up in Germany during the summer and since most of the people i met were german i joined their equivelent of Facebook, called Studiverzeichnis, does not exactly roll of the tongue i know.

I will get over it I know but does not stop me feeling shit about it now. I already have plnned to meet up with some friends from Queenstown and Arcscoil Ris in Auckland so that will take my mind off things. I also have sorted out my South America trip more. I actually spoke to a very polite and helpful customer service person with Quantas ands i am now definately flying into Santiago on the 6th of February and then leaving Rio de Janeiro a few months later and arriving back in Shannon, via San Paolo, London and dublin on the 24th of April. I may also have a travel companion in the form of one of the girls who i worked with in Dolans. She is looking into tickets but if everything works out according to plan she will be meeeting up with me in Shannon, which will be nice.

So apologies for the long, rambling post, but i would think after a 2 month absense it was needed. I will try and get back to the short, regular posts from here on in. I have also put up photos on my bebo and facebook if you are interested, bebo site being

www.kernunos.bebo.com