Ooo excitement! I love travelling!

After work yesterday, Ants and I packed up our stuff, and went forth to Palmerston to stay the night at Kylies to get a head-start on our trip to Auckland.  The plan was to leave by 10am and get to Aucks around 5pmish and go see my family Brendan, Keri-Ann and Emily (11months), and also Nick, Lorien (5yrs) and Liam (3yrs).

By 10am we were ready to go, however there was a flaw in our plan.  We did not take into account that Mr. and Mrs. MacMannus (Kylie's parents) would be wanting to talk for SO LONG!  I told Mr. MacMannus about my wrist bracelets that I have from Phiten, and how they help so much with my RSI/OOS (or what ever you want to call it).  I told him how they are supposed to help with arthrits and all that stuff as well.  Since he's been sick (he was critical with double neumona about 2 months ago) his shoulders have been incredibly sore.  I said how their was necklaces made out of the same stuff as the bracelets I have – they've got titanium in them, and it's mean't to sort out your electrons or something in the part of the body where you wear them.  They really work for me, so Mr. MacMannus jumped online, and ordered his necklace. 

By the time we said goodbye, and Mrs. MacMannus finally got Mr to stop talking, and he washed the tree flowers off our car with the firehose, and we left the outskirts of Palmy, it was 11:00am. A whole hour later than we wanted to be. We decided that if we'd left straight from home, we would have been more on time. ETA 6pmish

Anyway, the trip was pretty uneventful… for the first half. Ants and I talked, and surprisingly we went most of the way without music – and just enjoyed eachothers company.  I came up with an idea for a blog thing – where you can trace your route on a map, and then it will generate a picture for you to link to to show where you travelled and what places you'd been to, and then you could link your blog posts to the points on the map, and you could build up a sort of 'album' of travelling. That would be way cool.  It would have to be one awsome plugin.

Wetather was beautiful, despite the weatherman saying that it was going to shitty the whole way up the country. The trip through the desert road was enjoyable, and it had been a long time since I have been though during actual daylight hours, so naturally, I took loads and loads of pictures.

Peek-a-boo!
Mt Ruapehu

Mt Ruapehu

Mt Ruapehu

For a larger version of the picture, click here

 Mt Tongariro

 Mt Tongariro

For a larger version of the picture, click here 

We got to Taupo pretty much on time.  There was a little bit of roadworks just before Taupo, and I took these two pictures while we were stopped. The lake was so sparkling and beautiful.

Once we got into Taupo, I told Ants to pull over, and I took this panorama.  (Side note, when I was putting it together, I was amazed at the detail in the picture – you can see haybarns and all sorts. In real life, if I had it printed it would be 1.7m long – I'm very tempted to get that done, and then maybe sell it )

We wandering around the food places for about half an hour, and finally settled on KFC, which neither of us had had for such a long time.  We ate, (and I went back and got the right burger because the girl at the till stuffed up) and then I convinced Ants to let me drive.  

So we got in, Ants put the music on, and we carried on our merry way.  We got north of Taupo and I was watching the traffic with all the busses and trucks and other such things on the road, and an hour later we were in Rotorua.  I kept telling Ants that we weren't meant to go through Rotorua, but he said that we were supposed to, because we weren't supposed to go through Hamilton.  I wasn't convinced, because I knew we were supposed to go through Hamilton.  We filled up, and Ants insisted that he drive (with the reasoning that I follow to close – even though I know I don't, and that he is a bad passenger.  Silly boys) and we followed the signs – guess where to? That's right, Hamilton. 

We finally got to the turnoff back onto State highway 1, and then the realisation of our mistake hit us.  We'd lost another hour in travel time, and we wasted a whole bunch of petrol, and we wouldn't be getting to my brothers place in Orewa (which is 3/4s hour north of Auckland) until after 7:00pm which sucked big time, because it would be likely that my neice Emily, who I haven't seen before, and who was the basis of me wanting to go on this trip.  I was so upset, like, terribly upset.  I sobbed all the way from the turnoff until just before Hamilton when Brendan rang and I made Ants talk on the cell and drive. Bad I know, but I didn't want to talk to Brendan at that point, espically because Ants and I had been arguing over whose mistake it was, and it was partly mine because I wasn't concentrating on the signs, but on getting through the traffic, and he hadn't thought we were going through Hamilton – all he knew was that we were following the SH1 signs, and he missed that when he was reading the signs.

So Ants asked how long, and Brendan said we'd be there by 7:15pm or so, and Ants asked if Emily would still be awake, and Brendan said most likely.  I was happier once Ants told me that, and the rest of the trip was spent in peace.

The bright side about getting into Auckland that late was that we missed most of the traffic. There were no traffic jams, and we only went a little slower on the northern side of Auckland.  The traffic on the south side was so heavy though, I'm glad that we weren't going that way. Brendan and Keri-Ann live about 3/4s of an hour north of Auckland, past a bunch of country side too.  When we finally got there, I told him he could buy a farm closer to Auckland! Lol.

It was so great to see everyone again.  I worked out that I haven't seen them properly for about a year and a half, at least. That's far too long, but it happens when you're on opposite sides of the island.  Emily was so cute, and so big compared to the photos that I'd seen.  She has bright red hair just like her Mum.  Keri-Ann asked if I would give her her bottle.  She was happy to come with me, and we sat and had a cuddle, but she was getting brassed off because she couldn't see anything lying in my arms, so I sat up, and leant back so she could drink and watch her two big cousins get their photos taken over and over and over again. Little models.

 Emily and Me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I edited it, and came up with this, which looks way cool.  Lorien the dirctor got Ants to hold her pony cute!

 

 

 

Both of my brothers and my sister-in-law seem to be doing really well. 

Nicky is working for a business that helps guide other businesses with their goals and their future, and get what they want out of what they're doing – creating vision and all that.

Bruck (Brendan) is getting into advertising, and he was doing a bunch of stuff on the radio, and now he's doing stuff for the New Zealand Herald.  His aim is to create a well-rounded cv in adverstising, and his next goal after print adversisting is TV. 

Keri-Ann is being a mum, and getting back into work as an accountant.

Liam and Lorien are so big.  Lorien is doing really well with school, and they have both adjusted to the split of their parents. I think Nicky is enjoying it too – he's a bit of a partier that one

Keri-Ann and Bruck cooked an amazing meal of meat ("meat mate, meat") and salads.  I forget now what they were, but they were really good.  I must email them and get the recipies for Ants to cook them . 

Emily went to bed and Liam and Lorien were great at keeping quite and playing amongst themselves while we had dinner.  We chatted about a lot of different things, and Keri-Ann and I chatted about tantrums and discipline and I told her that supernanny was shit and she shouldn't watch it (then found out that she was watching it – must remember to send her my assignment on that).  But I gave her some advice and told her to look up Magda Gerber and see where that takes her.  Bruck filled me up on Corona's and lemon.  They were really good.  I had 4 and was a bit tipsy lol Later, Ants and Liam played a game of "where's Little Liam?" (Liam has a soft toy named Liam, which was being hidden in different places and then they all had to find it) and it was so cute to see them running around.

It was after 10pm by the time Nicky and the kids left, and I forgot to get a photo with them *slaps head* so I got one with Keri-Ann and Bruck.  Earlier in the night, Bruck was telling me all about buying houses, and then I told him to talk to Ants. So he gave the big brother talk to Ants about buying houses and how he should do it sooner rather than later, because the earlier you get in the game, the better off you are.  Ants's counter-argument to that is you also have to take in the ability you have to pay your mortguage, and the conditions of the loan/interest rate etc. Oh well, hopefully soon.

 

We left their place around 10:30pm and headed to Glenfield, where we were staying with one of Ants's geek mates (Drew), and his two flatmates – Yayoi and John.  We didn't see Yayoi and John that night, and Drew showed us around.  I got ready for bed, and let Ants and Drew talk geek and it was midnight before Ants got to bed as well.  We had to be up early if we were going to see everything at Armageddon tomorrow.

Tags: Holidays, Road-Trips