Well over a month and there is plenty to talk about. As always apologies are offered for not updating this more promplty. But in my defence my mother has been here since new years day and she requires a lot of babysitting. And in answer to the prosecution, yes I could have updated it in the nine solid days of alone time before she arrived, but i didn't - it's my blog, I'll do what i want.

Christmas turned out to be not quite so depressing as it could have been. In the end I went to my CD's house for chirstmas lunch and met his family. I was immediately introduced to Mia, his two year old daughter, and had to play a farm animal domino game with her. I'd only managed to match two lions before she wet herself, took her pants off and handed them to me telling me they were wet. Not a great deal you can say to that. I spent the evening with Chris and Andrew from work (only slightly more grown up!) drinking and eating. And then it really was some Robin time as I watched the sun come up to the right of my balcony and go down to the left. In between things happened but I can't remember what they were.

I looked after Chris's kitten for new year and it was definitely easier than a two year old. Same sort of mess though. And then my Mum turned up. 5am New years day and I'm pretty much the only person at Auckland International. I was back at work by the 3rd and Mum left for a North island tour. Then I flew down to Welly to meet her and travel the south island. I have some fond memories of the rugged west coast and all the nature that is down there from my first trip now 11 years ago. And indeed the west coast is still rugged and there is a lot of nature, but what a load of racist hicks. I don't think I had a single conversation down there without someone bringing up "the asians" - and it wasn't even always me. Down in Haast where we managed to find a kind of chalet based motel a helicopter was hovering outside my chalet at about 6am and I was quite impressed that they had that sort of technology down there (as it turns out they have lots of them to fly tourists around as they wouldn't want to be on the ground and to drop poison to kill possums) so I got up to have a look at it because I've been in New Zealand so long that seeing a helicopter actually is a valid reason to get excited and this particular one has a couple of deer carcasses hanging off the undercarriage. A particularly nice illustration of Southern Man doing what he does. Saw plenty of other stuf - glaciers (but tiddly ones really), rocks layers like pancakes (in any other country this wouldn't even be on the map, but here there's a visitors centre), dolphins (but god forbid we disturb them so lets just enjoy the spurt from their blowholes from 200m), seals, albatross, penguins and plenty of ther birds and beasts. All in all a plethora of unusual creatures that almost make the 2500km I drove worthwhile. What did top it off was a trip to Doubtful Sound. They built a power station here 2km underground and it supplies 15% of New Zealands electricity. Yet it's in a UN World heritage area and you actually wouldn't even know it's there. Quite an engineering feat.

But some of the places down there are actually scary. Take Gore for example. It looked like we would be staying there one night as we left Manapouri late and wouldn't get to Dunedin till quite late. I'm normally easy going and will lay my head anywhere, but I draw the line at Gore. I know nothing of the residents and I may be doing them a disservice but as we cruised through what they describe as the town center at 9pm I had no problems driving all night if it meant I didn't have to stay there.

Christchurch is another interesting place. Originally you had to get a letter from your church in the UK if you wanted to settle there as it was supposed to be the elite. Now it's a bunch of inbred southerners who just think they are elite.

I'm back in Auckland at it feels remarkably like home. But I can't see myself staying. I can't see myself doing anything much at the moment. I need to actually have some long term goals and figure out what's important rather than living like a drifter (metaphorically - I don't actually smell of urine or anything). My latest vague plan involves working a container vessel to tahiti, jumping on a supplu ship to French Polynesia / Micronesia and eventually working my way to Easter Island, where I will discover what the lost people of Atlantis were trying to tell us with the carved faces and I will reach enlightenment. Or I might just fly. Or not. Who knows.