Bach Home
Tomorrow we leave New Zealand for Hawaii (tough life eh?), this means we're technically coming home.

Given I'm writing this, with all of my fingers still intact, I'm assuming my behavior in and around the family was OK (unless they have plans for tonight!). We've spent quite a long time doing not-a-lot, which I think is referred to as relaxing. We've been to a BBQ and met lots of locals, we've driven around the Corramandel peninsular in a car Susie named 'purple monster' belonging to Jenny (Susie's aunt) and stayed with Julia (Susie's cousin). We've stayed in a Bach (rhymes with snatch), owned by my partner's aunt's partner's aunt Lorraine (isn't there some theory that suggests you have a connection with every 6th person?) Anyway a bach is a NZ cottage / beach house, rustic rather than regal, which served as a base from where we visited lots of little places we ordinarily wouldn't have ventured to. We've seen the real NZ.

Midway through 'relaxing' I needed to do something, so off to the East coast and NZ's surfing capital Raglan. The waves here have the longest left point break in the world, not of any importance to us, we were still on the beginners beach. After a couple of hours, we were both confidently standing up on the boards (in the waves) and doing that nonchalant surfie walk.

Today we sailed an America's cup yacht around Auckland harbour. Light winds were a bit disappointing (or relieving if you were Susie), but a fantastic experience all the same. Despite the size it felt as easy to helm as my dinghy back home. Perhaps one day I'll get one, anyone have a few million dollars they don't want?Throughout our travels in Australia and New Zealand we've encountered tension between whites and natives. In NZ there seems to be a much more integrated population, where the Maoris and Europeans have interbred (less so with the Islanders from the South Pacific). So why haven't the Australians done the same? I think its simple - Aboriginies are really ugly. If they looked less prehistoric the settlers might just have interbred and the problems they have today wouldn't exist. Guess passing a law to forcibly re-model the Aboriginies might not be very popular. I'm not that familiar with Darwin's work, must have a look when we get home to see what he said about survival of the fittest.

Next stops are Hawaii, Las Vegas, Vancouver, New York then home. Sorry to be leaving, but we had to come home one day.
- posted by Adrian @ 5:01:00 AM