Yesterday, December 10th, was the date I was originally supposed to fly home. But due to the many, many changes and extensions we have made along the way, instead I have another two weeks of travel on my hands... woo-hoo! It's so hard to imagine that right now I should be in freezing cold Lancaster adjusting (begrudgingly) to winter but instead am sitting here in short sleeves enjoying some bonus time in the sun. I have to be honest, were it not for Christmas, I would most definitely have extended my time even farther but, alas, I will definitely be home by Christmas Eve. And so I intend to fully enjoy these "bonus" two weeks I have here... oh, yes, I shall!
So instead of spending Friday flying back to reality, I enjoyed it as my last day in Melbourne. I spent some time in the morning in one of the coffee shops that Melbourne is famous for before meeting up in the afternoon with Sarah and Monique. For our last few hours in the city, Monique took us to Lygone Street, the "Little Italy" of Melbourne, full of coffee shops, gelaterias and Italian restaurants. She took us to THE gelato shop, Casa del Gelato. It's run by an Italian family who splits their time between Australia and Italy (also running a gelato shop there) so it is the real deal. These are the times that it really pays to know a local who can show you THE places to go.
And then, in one final incredibly generous gesture, Monique insisted on driving us to the airport. Keep in mind that we met back in India and had one lunch together, that was all she knew of us. And yet she was willing to give up four days of her time, resources and energies to go out of her way to make sure we enjoyed her city. I'm sure I've said it before, but I continue to be overwhelmed by such acts of g
enerosity from people around the globe. It has given me a completely new understanding of and appreciation for what it truly means to be hospitable. I can assure you that I will happily "pay it forward" many times over in the future. Once you have been the recipient of that kind of hospitality and experience firsthand the difference it makes in your travel experience, it would be nearly impossible to not want to be able to offer that same kindness to someone else in the same position. And so it goes...
enerosity from people around the globe. It has given me a completely new understanding of and appreciation for what it truly means to be hospitable. I can assure you that I will happily "pay it forward" many times over in the future. Once you have been the recipient of that kind of hospitality and experience firsthand the difference it makes in your travel experience, it would be nearly impossible to not want to be able to offer that same kindness to someone else in the same position. And so it goes... We made it Auckland, New Zealand without incident on Friday night and checked ourselves into a semi-grungy little hostel downtown. B
ut we weren't really too concerned with the accomodations as we had no plans to spend any real time there. Since we now have only a week here (also due to previous date changes), we wanted to spend as much of it as possible outside of the city. Mostly because a) we are kind of 'citied out' and b) everyone we have spoken to along the way has told us that New Zealand is GORGEOUS and the best way to experience that is to beat it out of the city ASAP and go driving around the countryside. Done. Fortunately, our grungy little hostel had internet (even though I'm pretty sure dial-up used to be faster) so we got online and reserved a car. I love making plans a
s you go. We landed in Auckland at 9:30 at night with no hotel reservation and no idea of what we were going to do in this country. By 11 pm we were settled in a hotel and had a game plan. I LOVE the freedom of being able to do that, to figure things out as I go and work on intuition as to what the best choices are. It may sound odd, but I find travel to be even more interesting that way, rarely knowing exactly where you'll be or what you'll be doing more than a day in advance. All part of the adventure!
s you go. We landed in Auckland at 9:30 at night with no hotel reservation and no idea of what we were going to do in this country. By 11 pm we were settled in a hotel and had a game plan. I LOVE the freedom of being able to do that, to figure things out as I go and work on intuition as to what the best choices are. It may sound odd, but I find travel to be even more interesting that way, rarely knowing exactly where you'll be or what you'll be doing more than a day in advance. All part of the adventure! We spent a few hours Saturday morning milling about downtown Auckland (a really nice town, actually. For being a big city, it feels oddly sm
all town, which is hard to explain) before picking up our car and heading south... in the left lane, I might add. I've driven on the left side of the road before but not much and figured it would take some adjusting but, surprisingly, it took very little. I think because so many of the countries we've been in on this trip drive on the left, that unconsciously I've gotten used to it just even by being a passenger. It no longer seems strange for me to ride on the left side, so I guess it also makes sense that it doesn't really feel that strange to drive on it, either. It does seem strange to me, however, that they ALLOW me to drive on the left side of the road here! I'm always amazed at how readily they just hand o
ver keys to someone from a foreign country who, as far as they know, has no experience in driving on the left side. Seems dangerous, really. And, yet, I will happily take those keys and drive....
all town, which is hard to explain) before picking up our car and heading south... in the left lane, I might add. I've driven on the left side of the road before but not much and figured it would take some adjusting but, surprisingly, it took very little. I think because so many of the countries we've been in on this trip drive on the left, that unconsciously I've gotten used to it just even by being a passenger. It no longer seems strange for me to ride on the left side, so I guess it also makes sense that it doesn't really feel that strange to drive on it, either. It does seem strange to me, however, that they ALLOW me to drive on the left side of the road here! I'm always amazed at how readily they just hand o
ver keys to someone from a foreign country who, as far as they know, has no experience in driving on the left side. Seems dangerous, really. And, yet, I will happily take those keys and drive.... .... and so we drove to Waitomo, a town famous for its glow worms caves. We found a place to stay and got settled in. We had the whole evening free and only then, when pondering how best to use it, did we realize that the caves ARE this whole town. It is set out in the boondocks, with nothing other than rolling green hills around for stretches as far as the eye can see. The entire town population numbers approximately 300 and when I asked a guy what we should do in town in addition to the caves he replied "Well, there's a pub". So there really, truly is nothing to do. Which is kind of nice. And so we chill. And we look at green all around us and realize that we haven't seen green in a very long time. And we breathe really clean, fresh, pure, non-city air into our lungs. Divine.
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