100 Days, 100 Things: Days 81-100

Wow. At the time this post is published, I should be in Iceland. It seems both ages and no time at all since I started planning this and it still doesn't quite seem real. I managed to freak myself out towards the end of last week wondering if maybe I was just imagining the whole thing and come Monday it'd be back to work as normal. Don't ask - I was half asleep at the time.

Anyway, here are the last 20 of my 100 sometimes interesting, but more often mundane things.

81. Tuesday 24th May - envelope stuffing
Yes. That's how thrilling my day got. I spent the day stuffing envelopes with our apprentice. Fun fun fun.

82. Wednesday 25th May - venison sausages
Because once again, food is the most interesting thing in my life. Seriously, though, venison sausages are delicious.

83. Thursday 26th May - invigilating
Which lead to me being overly amused that it's a decade since I took my GCSEs. Aww. Also, I finally managed to offload the Chomp bar that's been sitting on my desk for the last seven months onto Molly. FINALLY.

84. Friday 27th May - ESTA
Following the successful application for my Canadian eTA last week, I tackled the USA's equivalent. It asked me whether I was planning on engaging in terrorism and I was oh so tempted to click yes just to see what happened. Don't worry, I resisted the temptation.

85. Saturday 28th May - Shakespeare overload
My sister and I took a weekend trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, home of the Bard. Two plays in a day - Cymbeline and Hamlet, plus the first time I've eaten Thai food at a restaurant. Very nice. Also, Stratford is pretty.

86. Sunday 29th May - sunshine
Second day of our trip to Stratford mostly consisted of me buying a few bits for my trip (mosquito net, finally!) and then enjoying the sunshine outside the theatre. Amy got sunburned.

87. Monday 30th May - surprise surprise...
Family farewell lunch which my dad had intended to be a surprise until my mum, not knowing this, accidentally gave the game away. Nice though, especially the amazing cake from Patisserie Valerie.

88. Tuesday 31st May - tech support
My grandad is finally attempting to join the internet age. Unfortunately for him, his router isn't behaving and my mum volunteered me to have a look at it. My usual ability to fix basic tech things failed completely, but I'm going to blame the old line he has instead of my inability to work out what was wrong with the damn thing...

89. Wednesday 1st June - lunch with Wendy
Wendy effectively managed me in my previous office and since she's away at the moment, we thought we'd best meet up before I left. That is all... see how my life is thrilling right now?

90. Thursday 2nd June - minor freak out time!
Today I realised that I will be in Canada in three weeks' time. Oh good god. I also discovered my phone is not unlocked. Fuck.

91. Friday 3rd June - "smells like weed"
Molly tried my oolong tea. I love oolong. It's lovely, but it does have a slightly unusual taste and smell. As demonstrated by Molly casually stating, in the middle of the office, that it smells like weed. I hadn't really noticed the similarity before but thinking about it... maybe.

92. Saturday 4th June - even more Shakespeare
Toddled over to Manchester to see my mum and catch yet another play - this time King Lear. Very good. In other shocking news, I bought clothes. Not just any clothes. I bought shorts. It is a well-established fact that my legs are not just white, they are blindingly pale, so this may turn out to be a bad decision.

93. Sunday 5th June - Nandos and puppies
I'd never understood the appeal of Nandos but I've been a few times now and I think I'm falling in love. Yummy chicken. The afternoon was spent lounging in the sun, attempting to get some sort of colour onto my aforementioned blinding legs and watching the dogs pretending to be hot dog sausages because it was just so warm.

94. Monday 6th June - umm...
It looks like nothing interesting happened on this day. Second to last day at work? Uh... nothing booked. Nothing interesting cooked... yup. Supremely normal day.

95. Tuesday 7th June - last day
My final day at work, most of which was spent either in a minibus or at work's Skegness site invigilating another GCSE exam. 3 and a bit years I worked there and that's the first time I've been to the Skegness site. Hm.

96. Wednesday 8th June - WASH ALL THE THINGS!
Yeah... I probably didn't need to wash everything, but I did. Because... oh, I don't know. The washing frenzy was followed by a lovely evening with the folks from my previous office, eating tapas and then toddling on down to the pub for a pint and a quiz.

97. Thursday 9th June - towel of doom
Ah yes. The fabled towel of doom has made a reappearance in my life. It looks like it's had a body wrapped in it, courtesy of 3 years of red hair dye stains. I found 3 bottles of the aforementioned dye in the top of my wardrobe and figured, what the hell, I'm going to dye my hair again. Took all three bottles because either a) I missed quite a bit or b) the dye's that old it wasn't taking properly, but I think it's sorted now...

98. Friday 10th June - I drank how much?
Actually, I didn't drink that much. I went out with the most recent set of work colleagues and had a couple of pints of cider (not a problem). Unfortunately, I also had a JD & coke and a shot of sambuca and that was enough to make my stomach hate me.

99. Saturday 11th June - WHERE TRAIN?!
Even with the slight hangover from the above night out, I managed to drag myself out of bed early on Saturday morning to go and see Flying Scotsman with my dad. Unfortunately for us, the timings given last week turned out to be no longer accurate and as we were walking up to the track we saw steam billow up above the houses. No glimpse of the fabled Scotsman. Most pissed off. Somewhat made up for this with cheap but yummy breakfast at Tesco's cafe...

In other news, my phone is now unlocked. I think. Huzzah.

100. Sunday 12th June - DON'T PANIC!
AAAAAAARGH. Actually, I haven't done much panicking. Which is nice. Dad had to drive me to Doncaster, but aside from that my trains all ran on time and I got to spend a lovely afternoon in London with Claire. Claire, who has gifted me this lovely little koala called Harold, crocheted by her own fair hands.

Someone pinch me?

Oh good god. What am I doing?

The Grand Tour: The Final Countdown

Wow. Just 10 days from now I'll be getting on a plane to Iceland to start my round-the-world trip. Time to get the last few bits of preparation sorted.

Visas

Technically, I don't need to apply for a visa proper until I get towards the Australian leg of my trip. I say technically because while I don't have visas to apply for yet, I have had to apply for an eTA for Canada and an ESTA for the USA. The perks of being a British citizen! Surprisingly, both applications were pretty straightforward although I had to laugh at some of the questions on the US one.

"Are you coming to the USA with the intent to engage in terrorism, espionage or genocide?"

... because, yes, of course, if I was planning on doing any of those things, I would declare them on my ESTA application in the interests of honesty. Umm...

Vaccinations

A few weeks ago I got stuck full of needles. Hep B, Hep A, Typhoid, Yellow Fever... nice. Fortunately, I managed not to have any serious reactions to any of them and they came in a lot cheaper than I had expected. I'd rather have to pay a bit and face my dislike of needles than catch some sort of nasty while I'm away.

I also have a nearly two month supply of anti-malarials. Also much cheaper than anticipated and again, I'd rather have them and not need them than not have them and catch malaria.

On a similar note, my mum has kindly donated her diarrheoa management kit, so I'm fully stocked on rehydration sachets and the like.

Basically, I'm turning into the walking chemist I so disdained before I went to New Zealand...

Communication

In addition to the aforementioned diarrheoa kit (isn't diarrheoa a funny word?), my mum has also given me her old tablet, so I can keep up with the sporadic blogging and more importantly I can book hostels and flights and all the other things I'll need to book while I'm away.

My mobile phone is also going with me. I plan on using local SIMs in it if I'm in a country for more than a couple of weeks (looking at you, Canada). Good plan, yes? Should save me some money, yes?

Yeah...

Naively/stupidly, having read all the bumpf I could find online about whether Virgin Mobile lock their handsets, I came to the conclusion that my phone was more than likely unlocked and I could just pootle over to Canada and slot a nice cheap Canadian SIM in it. No worries.

Which means I left it until yesterday and 11 days until departure to actually test this theory. Take a guess at what happened when I put my sister's SIM into my phone?

Ooops.

This should be pretty easy to sort out, thinks yesterday's me. I'll just go to the shop in town and ask them to unlock it. They say, no, you have to ring customer services and kindly put me on to them. Customer services man goes "uh..." a bit and does some tapping on his keyboard for good measure and then tells me that while the number belongs to me, the phone is still registered to my parents' account and that therefore they'll have to ring Virgin to get my phone unlocked.

My parents. Have to ring Virgin. To get MY PHONE unlocked.

This is ridiculous. Whoever came up with this system is a fucking genius.

So I might just be without a phone for the first couple of weeks in Canada. I'm sure I'll cope - I barely use the thing anyway aside from for tinterwebz.

Other bits and bobs

I have currency. Hurray. Actually, I'm planning on using my cards as much as possible, but there's always going to be times I need physical cash. So I've got a small stash of Icelandic krona and Canadian dollars to keep me going. I fear the dollars will mostly be spent on Tim Hortons... you'll probably hear more about that in a future post.

Shopping has been done. I am now the proud owner of a very compact mosquito net, travel wash (yeah) and a new pair of shoes which I am frantically trying to wear in so they don't eat my feet while I'm away. Woop.

Anything else? Had a farewell lunch with the family. Plans are in place for work leaving do (both current and former offices). And then... well, then next Sunday I get on a train to London and from there...

Adventure awaits.

The Grand Tour: The Excitement of the First Booking

So... I told my manager last week.

Yesterday I booked the first flight.

Today I formally handed in my notice.

Yeah.

Now it has to happen.

Remember how I was a little bit freaked out about this trip being six months away? Definitely freaked out now.

Not by the cost, or the planning or even the thought of spending a year travelling (mostly) on my own.

It's the fact that it's real now. It has to happen. No going back. Of course, I could retract my resignation, I suppose, but where’s the fun in that?

So it’s going ahead. The flight is booked to take me to Iceland on June 13th.  It leaves at 6:30am so I’m going to be knackered, but it does mean I’ll get to spend most of the day actually in Reykjavik. Hurrah.

That first booking was also a bit terrifying. I don't know... telling my manager I'm leaving was weird enough, but booking the first flight means I have to at least start on this trip. You never know, I might get to Iceland and freak out and decide I want to come home, but because it's booked, I have to go.

It keeps hitting me at work that this is actually happening. I catch myself smiling for no reason or the iconic theme from The Lord of the Rings will suddenly start playing in my head. I've been planning this for so long and now it's only a few months away.

It's going to be amazing.

I'm going on an adventure!

"My bum is burning!"

To any family/friends who were still wondering where this post was: blame Amy. She was supposed to write it. To any other readers: enjoy.

Our day began with frost in Taupo. It seemed to be much colder in central North Island than anywhere else. That said, it seemed to clear quick - the roads were fine heading north out of the town towards our first stop of the day. Let's face it - most of New Zealand is beautiful, so me saying this drive was gorgeous doesn't actually mean a lot.

[IMAGE]

The funny shaped hill, by the way, is Mount Pohaturoa (I think). Geologically, it's a volcanic dome or plug, all that remains of an old volcano. Historically, there is an old pa on the top, a Maori village site. I'll admit I only looked it up because of the weird geology, but I can see why you'd put a pa on it - it looks pretty secure up there.

Amy had a weird reaction to Backstreet Boys coming up on shuffle... But we'll skip over that bit because first stop of the day was Hobbiton.

Well, Matamata, with it's excellent Hobbiton Movie Set. Yes, it's sad. Yes, it's geeky. But I am a massive Tolkien fan and it was something that had to be done. Look, there was a bus called Legolas.

Ahem. So the tour was amazing. Here, have some photos.

I won a leaf from Bilbo's tree. Amy and Claire filched some fallen ones. Thieveses.

Another member of our tour group landed in a heap trying to recreate that iconic "I'm going on an adventure!" leap over the fence.

And then we got a free pint in the Green Dragon. Pretty good, that cider, actually.

Altogether now...

You can search far and wide.

Basically, Hobbiton was amazing.

After that, another scenic drive through the Waikato countryside to the little town of Rotorua, famous for its geothermal features. A quick stop at the hostel to dump bags and then on to Te Puia.

Here we hit a snag, because I left my camera at the hostel and as yet I still don't have any photos from Claire or Amy. Let's have a go though.

Te Puia takes in a geothermal area on the outskirts of Rotorua and a Maori cultural centre including the National Carving and Weaving Schools. Our experience there began with a walking tour of some of the main sights, including Pohutu Geyser and the Kiwi House. The geyser was impressive, as were the bubbling hot pools of mud. Our guide was most informative and as with many of the guides was a member of Te Awara, the group of tribes who are traditional owners of the site.

Following our little tour, we stuck around for our evening Maori cultural experience, Te Po. This began with a hongi, the traditional welcome between people. Claire has some excellent photos of this, somewhere.

This was followed by a performance of poi (a dance), haka (a war dance) and Maori song. Brilliant stuff but once again I have no photos.

Then it was time for tea, with delicious food cooked in the Maori hāngi style. This involves putting stones in a pit, heating them, placing the food on top (wrapped) and then burying the whole lot for a few hours. Some really delicious dishes and the staff kindly found us to let us know which dishes had nuts in, since Claire's allergic.

Much delicious nomming followed. I tried mussels and crayfish for the first time and discovered they're yummy.

Our evening ended with a trip on the waka (read: giant golf buggy) back down to the geysers. Hot chocolate and a seat on hot rocks while our evening guide told us stories about both the area and his experience of growing up around the valley were a brilliant end to the day.

The highlight, though, might just have been Amy jumping up in a quiet moment yelling, "My bum is burning!"

Planning - how much is too much?

When I went to New Zealand last year with my sister and my best friend, we planned almost everything to the last detail. Hostels all booked before we got there, most activities, all the transport... We even had a spreadsheet to keep track of who had paid what and how much the whole thing was going to cost.

Planning? What planning?

But when I travelled for 3 weeks around Australia with my friend Paul, we didn't go into nearly as much detail. Sure we booked most of the activities ahead, but only by a week or two and while we booked some of the hostels by the time we'd done Tasmania (where we'd stayed at my student house) and Alice Springs, we were only booking a few days ahead. Indeed, when we flew into Adelaide from Alice, we'd only booked one night in the hostel, figuring we didn't know how much there was to do in Adelaide and Paul already had some more student accommodation lined up in Melbourne. I'm not really fond of not knowing where I'm going to sleep so I wasn't best pleased when we decided to stay another night in Adelaide only to find that our current hostel was booked up. OK, so we managed to get into a YHA, but I'd rather not experience that again.

Madness sets in in Adelaide. (Sorry, Paul)

The upcoming Ireland trip has also been planned to death - most of the hostels are booked, car hire is in progress (more on that in a future post) and we've started looking at what we want to do while we're there. Once more, there is a spreadsheet, budgeting for every little thing.

So the question is, how much planning is too much?

I actually enjoy the planning that goes into a trip - it makes the excitement last longer. You'd think it'd get old after a while and then by the time you actually got on the plane you just wouldn't be that interested any more. From limited experience, that just isn't the case for me. I first decided I was going to New Zealand a year before we actually flew. All that planning that went in beforehand just made it all the more real - proof that it wasn't just another daydream and that we were actually going to do it.

Never mind the fact that in the case of New Zealand and of the upcoming Ireland trip, the group planning sessions we had once a month or so were brilliant. Well, I say planning... more like spending half an hour or so actually planning and then degenerating into idiocy and over-excitement.

But still, sometimes I wonder if we're losing some of the fun of the actual travelling by spending too much time working out exactly where we're going to be each day and what we're going to be doing. There's always going to be that feeling of lost spontaneity.

Which is why, for The Grand Tour, I'm trying not to do that. Sure, I have a spreadsheet, but it's more about budgeting than planning. Sure, said spreadsheet has the amount of time I think I'm going to spend in each place, but it's all subject to change. I might end up somewhere and decided I need more time and I'm happy to just change the Plan if that happens. It's just a plan.

More important, with regards to The Grand Tour, is the budget side of things. Flights, transport, food, hostels, activities. Then there's all the things that I'll need to sort before I go like travel insurance and vaccinations.

Oh yeah. It might not be a set in stone "be here or else" plan, but all of my planning fun is still there to enjoy.

"Whales and dolphins and seals, OH MY"

The day began with a beautiful sunrise over the Seaward Kaikoura Range. My photos do not do it justice.

The car was frosted over. There was no scraper to hand so Amy scrounged a scrap of wood from the firewood pile and used that instead. It worked. In fact, it's still in the car, just in case.

First we drove into Kaikoura proper and took a stroll on the beach. We claimed part of it as New Grimsby for which I think Claire might have the photos.

And then the real excitement. Whale watching. Sea sickness tablets taken (just), wrapped up in many layers, we set out on the good ship Aoraki. We obviously wanted to see a whale, but didn't expect too much.

We saw a whale. A massive damn Sperm Whale, just lying there on the surface, bobbing in the waves. Many pictures were taken.

And then another one appeared. There. In the distance.

And then another and I couldn't work out where to look so I just videoed it.

And then they all dived, but I missed it because I was on the wrong bit of the boat.

So we motored away and a few minutes later we saw yet another whale. We are now up to 4 BLOODY WHALES. His name, apparently, is Manu and you can tell by the shape of his tail. And this time I managed to catch it as it dived. Just.

Pootled along some more and yup, just bobbing about, is another whale. Which I also managed to catch diving. WOO!

And then, just to top it all off, we came across an enormous pod of dusky dolphins which were quite happy to show off for us, leaping about and splashing and swimming in the bow wave. Didn't get many reasonable photos, but hey, the moment is what matters.

So, yeah, 5 whales. Apparently seeing 3 on the surface together is pretty much unheard of so imagine our glee.

We then tried out Kaikoura's fish and chips. It's good, but not as good as Grimsby. If we move here, we'll have to do something about that. We have also developed a taste for L&P which is sort of like lemonade and generally delicious. Mmmm.

Day ended with a fairly long drive to Motueka. I think I rode the endorphin high from whale-watching most of the way. Best day yet.

"I would appreciate a manky sock"

The day started badly. The ladder of the bunk bed slipped and I pretty much fell out of bed. I've got a bump on my chin to prove it. Oops.

Anyways, once we actually got going it was fine. The sun was overly bright, but the views were nice even if the air was freezing. We grabbed a couple of bad pictures of the pretty side of Dunedin train station.

We had a quick stop at Shag Point, because it sounded funny and it had a lookout. Turned out to be pretty cool because there were fur seals basking on the rocks. I especially liked this poser.

The first proper stop was at Moeraki Boulders. These things are amazing - almost perfectly spherical and no one really knows why. Claire and Amy decided we need pictures of them standing on the boulders so took their socks and shoes off, not thinking that we didn't have a towel to hand. This resulted in them drying their feet off on one of Claire's old socks. Nice. I just giggled and took photos.

We had breakfast in the cafe at the top of the cliff. Very nice and filling, even if the tea went cold really quick. Om nom nom. Egg and bacon pie. Mmmm.

And then there was driving. And driving. And more driving. We finally stopped for a proper break (a while after switching drivers) in a layby to eat yesterday's lamb and mint pies from Arrowtown. They were delicious. Om nom nom again. No need for tea now.

Then there was a weird song about New Zealand on the radio. I will find a link to it when I have chance.

At last, and not as late as we'd expected, we arrived in Kaikoura. Parents will be glad to know that we did some laundry. Hurray for clean clothes. Tomorrow, WHALES.

"Diversion Not Applicable"

HURRAY!! Haast Pass wasn't closed, which means we didn't have to take the 12 hour detour. We still got up at a decent time though, which meant we got to have a nice leisurely drive.

The views were amazing. We started off on the coast road down to Haast Township, which took in temperate rainforest and massive cliffs.

Then we hit Haast Pass itself. Huge mountains, beautiful forests and the Haast River winding alongside the road.

As we came to Makarora at the southern end of the pass, the sun decided to make an appearance. We attempted to get some photos at Lake Wanaka, but we got bitch-slapped by nature again, so we fled in the car.

Fortunately by the time we got to Lake Hawea on the other side on the range the rain had stopped, the wind had dropped and the sun was well and truly out. We want to live here.

What should have been a 4 and a half hour drive turned into about 7 hours with all the photo stops we took. It was just that amazing.

We weren't so taken with Queenstown. The hostel there remains our least favourite so far. Cramped and full of drunk people. Ugh.