3 Days To Go: "So Evil They Named It Twice"

What the title says.

ARGH! After so long in the planning, take off is just 3 days away. This time on Saturday we'll be at the airport. I will be having my usual worry about getting earache when we land. Believe me, I will start worrying about this before I even get on the plane - landing earache is painful. I will also be strongly resisting the urge to make highly inappropriate remarks about what might be in Amy's luggage within range of Security.

A soundtrack is also in progress. Mostly consisting of musicals and Howard Shore and Disney and general ridiculousness.

So, 3 days to go. Let us attempt to get Amy and Claire involved in the blog. 3 things we're most looking forward to?

Zoe:

• Hobbits
• Kiwis (the birds and the people and possibly the fruit)
• Catching up with an old friend from uni

Claire:

• Kayaking
• Whale watching
•  Sand boarding

Amy:

•  SNOW!
•  MOUNTAINS!
•  MORDOR! MORDOR! (so evil they named it twice)

Note that Claire has the only serious answers. Coming up in the ever-awesome world of this ridiculous blog: 2 days to go. Also, Beak is excited to be jetting off. Obviously.

"Are we going the right way?"

We went to Whitby today. Look how happy Amy was:

As you can see, it was gorgeously sunny and nicely warm. Managed to find our way there OK - didn't really need the sat-nav until we got into Whitby proper, so we're figuring it's going to be at its most useful when we have to drive in places like Wellington and Auckland.

We had fish and chips for lunch. Extortionately expensive fish and chips - think we get a bit complacent living in Grimsby where it's relatively cheap. Claire almost lost hers to a seagull which divebombed her head and then clobbered her with its wing when it flew away. It had the same sort of evil look as this one:

Had a nice little walk down the harbour wall. Snapped a picture of Beak the Kiwi:

It was supposed to be attacking the abbey on the clifftop, but I kinda failed with taking the photo. Ah well. Look how happy Amy is still. Then we did what we'd actually planned to do and found a Whitby sign to take a photo of. We're so myspace.

Selfie fail. Went a bit wrong on the way home, but managed to find our way - damn sat-nav got me confused. Note to self: trying to pay attention to the map and the sat-nav at the same time is not a good idea. Also almost got stuck going up a massively steep hill and we could just tell the guy in the van behind us was going "bloody women drivers".

So now we just need to get to Whitby, NZ and grab a photo of their Whitby sign. Because obviously.

Shawn the Prawn and his delicious little friends...

Our first planning session in months is underway. Well, I say underway. This is Amy and Claire doing useful stuff:

They're looking up useful things like hostels and things to do at the many, many places we're going to visit. This is what I was doing:

Because all of our planning sessions need to be soundtracked by the brilliance that is Howard Shore. And then it all just degenerated into silliness. Beak the Kiwi got a mind of her own (or rather, Claire gave up doing serious bits):

And then I found the most excellent thing ever when trying to find things to do in Taupo while Claire's throwing herself out of a plane. (Have I mentioned about Claire throwing herself out of a plane? I'm going to wait at the bottom and take pictures of her screaming). It is called the Huka Prawn Park. We are amused:

"If learning about a day in the life of Shawn the Prawn doesn't fire your imagination, dine on some of Shawn's delicious little friends in the adjacent riverside restaurant." Gotta love this Rough Guide.

And then we adjourned for lunch. Which lasted about 3 hours. Then the fun of booking began. So far we've managed to get the hostels and most of the activity/additional things booked for the first week. So the first few days look like this:

• 28th July - Arrive at Christchurch. Be jet-lag zombies.
• 29th July - Slob around Christchurch. Continue to be jet-lag zombies.
• 30th July - Catch the TranzAlpine Scenic train from Christchurch across the Southern Alps to Greymouth. Pick up the car, then do some sightseeing - up north to the Pancake Rocks and then south to spend the night at Franz Josef.
• 31st July - Trip to Fox Glacier. It will be epic. And cold, probably. Very, very cold.
• 1st August - Drive down to Queenstown. Spend the afternoon wandering around the town and admiring the cold, cold views.
• 2nd August - Take a day trip down to Milford Sound (not booked yet). Try not to squee at all the pretties.
• 3rd August - Drive east over to Dunedin. There's not a lot there, so it'll be a nice relaxed day.
• 4th August - Drive north up to Kaikoura. Various stops on the way, including the Moeraki Boulders, which are awesome. It's a 6.5 hour drive, so Amy and Claire will no doubt collapse when we get there.

My debit card doesn't know what's hit it and we've only just done the first week! All the excitement.

The (Un)official Mascot

Did anyone else have Beanie Babies as a kid? Stupid question - loads of people did. I was just one of those people who kept them all in a box in the hope that one day I'd have a use for them. So when we decided to go to New Zealand, I decided we had to have this little guy as our mascot.

Its name is Beak, it's a Kiwi and regardless of what Claire and Amy might think, it's coming to New Zealand with us. I intend to take photos of him everywhere we go, because I'm just that sad.

In other news, planning resumes tomorrow, so maybe we'll actually get round to updating this blog more often. Woo! Let the countdown to July 26th commence.