First day of work today and it was really awesome. It's strange enjoying my work so much, but it was really great to get right back into something and get stuck in. Can't wait for tomorrow!

Tim

Wow time flies when you're busy and we've been busy the last two weeks. At the moment we're in our car, driving up to Auckland. Short summary of last to weeks: We flew into Auckland, went to Craig and Fiona's wedding, went to Napier and sorted through our stuff, drove up to Auckland in Peter's car while ours got looked at, moved into our new apartment, went to Pearl Jam, realised we had too much stuff for our tiny apartment and drove a lot of boxes back down to Napier to put in our storage locker.

So yea, lots on! Our new apartment is good but it's very small and it came with hardly any storage space. There's a storage locker (which the landlord still hasn't given us the key for) and space under the bed, it's part of the bed design. But yea, it's small, smaller than our apartment...

On Friday night (27th November) we saw Pearl Jam at Mt. Smart Stadium. Here's the events of the day as I remember them!

We set out to meet Sarah's friend Craig who'd bought the tickets for us while we were in Rwanda. He's a member of the Pearl Jam fanclub "Ten" so he also had two special tickets that go you into a gate that opened 15 minutes before the main gate. We drove out, met him and then drove out to the venue to pick up the tickets. Once done we dropped him off back at his work and went home to get ready. We couldn't decide if to bus or to drive, while we were at the bus stop waiting ages we thought "stuff this!" and I went and got the car. The traffic out of Auckland was bumper to bumper but we made it to the venue...

Hello from Sunny Napier! What a busy time we’ve had since we got back, though that’s to be expected I guess as we’re trying to get our lives sorted out and back into the “real world”.

We’ve both got our phones back which is nice, you can see our updated contact details here (login required) for our numbers and new address, though my mobile is only temporary until I start my new job.

We’ve also got our laptops back and have managed to use up all of Peter and Mary’s broadband allowance for this month with all the updates they required!

Being back in New Zealand still seems strange, though I’m slowly getting used to it. I’m a bit concerned about the price of beer, a 6 pack of my favourite brew is now $16! That seems about $5 more than it ever used to be, which is very sad...

We're in Auckland airport at the moment waiting for our flight down to Napier. We've had a productive week, given the short amount of time we were there.
I got the GPS back yesterday, I carried the thing around Africa for 3 months without losing it and I left it in the cab we caught from the airport to our hotel in Auckland.
I went for my job "interview" on Friday, that all seems to be sorted and in order.
We looked at a property yesterday and today and we've taken that, it's just a 6 month lease which should give us enough time to get a feel of the market and what we like. So c'mon house. The exclaimation key is broken on this keyboard, annoying.
So yes, busy week. We went to a wedding last night too which was nice, but we're a bit tired and grumpy today...

We're back! We got back late on the 10th and checked into our hotel/self catering accommodation. Since then we've been flat out! We went shopping yesterday while struggling to get over jetlag. I now have a new suit ready for my job interview on Friday and the wedding we're going to on Saturday.
It's strange being back, everything seems SO expensive because we're used to London prices. So it seems strange to be getting charged $3.50 for a coke when in a small restaurant. We'll get used to it though!
Ok, I have to ring around trying to find somewhere to live!

Here we are in Port Elizabeth! We got up nice and early yesterday, checked out of our hostel and got a shuttle out to the airport. It was a nice painless flight and everything was going great until we got to the B&B we'd booked. They didn't have our booking, even though 3 weeks earlier I'd confirmed it all and even given them a credit card number. A bit hard to be too angry though, given the owner's mother had recently passed away. She was very apologetic and rang around for a while to find us somewhere else to stay.

The place she found us is only 200m from where we were going to stay anyway as is probably nicer than the original booking, so we're really happy. They couple who run it are very nice and it's a really neat little place. It's called abeach cottage.
They have...

It's over! Yesterday morning at 10am, our 90 day overland adventure came to an end. Today, we waved goodbye to Colin and Sam as they drove off in Gunga, as the Big Yellow Truck was named. A sad day, but we're also glad I think to be over it, because the last 3 days of the trip were spent camping in the pouring rain.

And I mean serious pouring, thunder and lightning like I've never witnessed and probably never will again. Thankfully the tent stood up to all the rain, it was only when you touched the sides that you got wet. Which meant that mostly the ends of our sleeping bags got wet quite often, but otherwise it was OK.

I'd like to write a bit more about our last few days, but I'll save that for another time when I have a bit more Internet time. Suffice to...

Finally! We got to go surfing today, what a great day it turned out to be. A lovely sunny day and decent waves. They weren't the best waves, but we were only learning in the whitewash anyway, so it didn't really matter. We had the best surf instructor, he was really good and taught us a great technique, so much so that we were both getting up on the board by the end of the 2 hours. It was so much fun, we really had a great time.

Otherwise, not a lot happening! We leave here tomorrow, which is fine with me because we got to get some surfing in. We're both looking forward to getting our board out in NZ and catching some waves.

I've also been offered a job in NZ, which is great! Will have a think about it for 24 hours before saying yes, but it...

We're still in Jeffery's Bay and it's blowing a major gale at the moment. The windsock is striaght out to the side with a massive onshore breeze. The group's decided to spend one more day here, we had the option of leaving a day early and spending one extra day in Lesotho but some of us want to try surfing here, so we're staying. I hope the surf is better tomorrow, even if it's not I might just get in the water anyway.

Apart from that, not a real lot else is happening. We've found a really nice cafe/restaurant here which we've been hanging out at. Which is a bit sad really, but it is really nice and we've been missing normality for the last couple of months. Is that wrong? It seems a bit wrong.

So all good here, we're getting blown away by the wind, but it's still...