You velly handsome Mr. Paul

'one night in Bangkok'


I would like to have 1 penny for every erection there has been in Bangkok in the last twenty years, I would also like to wager all that money that none was more unwanted than the one I got last Saturday.
I arrived in Bangkok last Thursday night and within two hours of landing I was eating my dinner by the roadside talking to two midgets, as you do. They approached me and got talking and within 5 minutes they offered to have sex with me; I assume I would have had to pay but I politely refused explaining I was very tired from the journey but if I ever got an urge for a midget orgy they would be top of my list. Bangkok is that sort of place.




No thanks Ladies (it was'nt these two but u get the idea)

Friday I was up early and ventured out on my own around town doing all the touristy stuff, shopping malls, temples, tuk tuk's and boat journeys. All my food was purchased roadside and even with the heavy humidity and pollution it still tasted wonderful.
In the evening I went for a wander in the more, how shall we say, 'gentleman’s area', where I surprised to find women grabbing me by the arm and wanting to have sex with me, id never been so popular. I did have a wander into one of the go-go bars but was bored within 7 hours, nah actually it was 30 minutes but in that time I got talking to a Japanese professor who seemed very knowledgeable about the sex industry in Thailand and he invited me to join him and his cronies on a tour of the wild side but I sensibly ventured for the down under sports bar which was to become my home, more than the hotel I was staying in.

Saturday I went for a wander and thought id indulge in a massage, Thai style. Two hours costs seven quid, a bargin in my book so I took off my clothes, entered the uniform of shorts and tee-shirt provided and waited for my masseuse; sadly she wasn’t the Lucy Lui look-alike I had been hoping for, more a Thai Pat Butcher.
Although a very big women and no oil painting she had the most wonderful manner, laughing her head off from the moment she jumped onto the bed and started massaging my legs. I say massaging but that’s an exaggeration, she was grinding my bones to dust and had I not screamed I may have been minus one left leg.
From the leg she moved to the feet and that’s when it happened. Maybe it was the heat, maybe the thousands of gorgeous women I had seen in the streets earlier, I think more likely it was a build up of pent up energy’s that were awakened by some massaging of the foot, whatever it was I felt the old familiar twitch followed by a slow rising of my little friend who wanted to take a peek at what was going on. Having reached my 40th this year I was happy to 'be unhand cuffed' from the lunatic that is my libido. I was enjoying penile control, the peacefulness of not constantly having to worry about when he would show up so Christ knows what possessed him to show up at this time.

I really so wish I had a camera because Pat Butchers face was a picture when she saw it. After the shock she absolutely pissed herself, she shouted out something in Thai which resulted in all the other masseuses coming in to take a gander at the bloke who got a stiffy with her, I’d imagine the 1st man to do so for many a year. My blushes excuses apologies and tears did nothing to stop the laughter and the next hour and half where the longest 90 minutes of my life. When leaving the whole shop came out to say goodbye and even 1 or 2 customers, they were even shouting things as I walked down the street, I’m glad id made someone’s day.

Rejuvenated and well away from the scene of the crime I followed on from the day before with more sightseeing. The only disappointment I experienced in Bangkok was the beggars, they were incredibly sad and destitute, I suppose that’s life and there but for the grace of God etc.
I have also discovered I’m absolutely shite at bartering, I just crack too easily. Some of the merchants even wanted to start the whole bidding thing again I was so bad, just to give me a second crack at them which often ended in me paying more than the original price quoted.


Dinner, lunch and Brekkie

Saturday evening’s meal was served to be by the most exquisite and sassy women it has been my pleasure to be served by, she oozed sex appeal. She asked me my name and was constantly bringing me a beer even if I hadn’t requested one. Between serving customers she would come to my table and stretch out, resting her head on her arm in a very feline manner. I gazed at her in awe and then she remarked 'you velly handsome Mr. Paul'. Now I’ve been around long enough that I have a face only a Mother could love and I’m not exactly at my fighting weight these days, it could mean only one thing, I was a mug and her target. It's a sad fact of life that everything has a price and had I not rushed off to the sports bar to watch the Australia S.A. game I might have wanted to find out what that price was.

Sunday was my last day and was spent mostly in a sports bar watching the Spanish GP, football highlights and the cricket, not very cultural but fuck it, I needed a sports day.
Monday I got a train to Chang Mai in northern Thailand and what a journey that was. Fourteen hours on a train can seem like a long time but not if you get a bottle of vodka and sit with a load of students. At the station I decided to have one last splurge after a few months of hostels, smelly people and noisy nights I decided to book into the Novotel at the princely cost of 18 quid a night and it was like heaven on earth. Mini Bar, 30 TV channels, room service, hot water, toiletries, air con, telephone, I have stayed in a 7 star hotel but it was nothing in comparative luxury to this.




I choose to come to Chang Mai to get out of Bangkok and also a mate of mine from Stan James has been here for a while and it was great to catch up with Marcus. He was the right back in our cup winning side and a top bloke to boot.
On my first night here he took me to the greatest nightclub ever, a club that would have exceeded all of any normal mans dreams. 3-1 women, vodka ice about a quid a bottle, sport on a massive screen and pumping dance music that had everyone in the joint rocking. Sadly no Mrs. Spillane on the horizon but it’s a numbers game.

The next night went to another bouncing club and met two lovely ladies, Jane and Emma from Manchester. The 3 of us danced away and were joined for a little while by a very tall lady with very big hands who seemed to like Emma out of the 3 of us I’m pleased to say.

Today I moved out of the luxury and into a hotel that costs 3 quid per night. I also went out shopping for a few things, I’m getting Thai phone card, renting a motorbike and investigating the chances of getting a job.
Marcus has introduced me to a few of his friends and they have all said the same thing, I must go to the mountains and stay in the temple for a few days. It involves getting up at 6 am for brekkie, meditating till 12 when u have lunch (and then no more food till brekkie). Talking is a no no as is TV, radio, reading etc. It may be the greatest windup of all time but I’m gonna give it a go, everyone has said 3 days is probably the minimum, though I cant go next week as the Masters starts on Thursday.
Other activities I have penciled in are Thai cookery school for a couple of days, trying yoga, maybe try the odd workshop that are held by western hippies who live here and are all about 'finding yourself'; though I think I found myself along time ago I’ll give it a spin. If I find one that prevents unwanted erections in the company of a massive Thai Masseuse sign me up.


The Temple of doom?

A Bender in Queenstown

The best thing is as it was St. Patrick’s Day hundreds of optimistic Oirish punters would have backed them

Another day, another country, I said Farwell to the land of the long white cloud and returned to Australia but not for long, tomorrow I’m off to the land of smiles and ladies with adams apples, yep Thailand, for the concluding part of my jolly up. As much as I will miss Australasia I will not miss the hostels and some of the people I have been sharing with.

In my last dorm in Queenstown the cleaning lady actually came in with a camera one day to take pictures of our dorm, claiming it was without doubt the messiest room she had ever had the privilege to tidy. The room stunk of sweaty socks and any innocent traveler who happened upon our dorm was certainly entitled to think that we were holding some kind of ‘dirty protest’. The bizarre thing was out of the eight occupants six were women!

Things changed quite dramatically upon my arrival in Sydney though, I have ended up in a dorm with 5 blokes, a mixture of German and Swiss and they are the absolute complete opposite to the Queenstown gang, so opposite I’m starting to wonder if their not, you know….
They all wear white belts which makes me suspicious, they constantly do press ups sit ups and squat thrusts and by Jove men’s grooming has changed since I was a teenager (quite a while I’ll grant you).
I awoke today for example to witness 3 of them staring at themselves in the mirror; nothing else, just staring at themselves. They could only be looking at their faces because although the mirror was a full length job their view would have been obscured by the amount of men’s grooming accessories on the table. The only other place I have seen such an amount was in the Boots superstore on Oxford Street!


They all look like Bruno!


Back to my last week in New Zealand and a funny one it was too. First off if you are a regular reader you will remember the bungee story I repeated in my last dispatch, about the guys that give you an extra rush just as you are about to leap. I happily relayed this to my roomies and all of them looked at me like I was some soon of idiot and explained it happens all the time; they then relayed me a story I don’t think I have stopped thinking about since, its so sick its hilarious.
Apparently the operators at a bungee in South Africa decided to add to the fun of a young woman’s first jump with one of them shouting ‘Wait!’ just as she’s about to leap. Now think about it for a second, what you would do in this situation. Well that’s exactly what she did, she grabbed the nearest thing to her to stop herself, you guessed it, the unfortunate bloke who shouted wait and no he didn’t have any safety gear on. The good news (even though he died) was that the girl survived, just imagine the photo!

The Kiwi’s have a great sense of humour I have discovered. The two rascals who terrorize punters at the Nevis Bungee are not a patch on the bloke/blokesses who work for the road signs department. I say this as last week I was driving to Wanaka and decided to take the mountain route which involved navigating my way up a zig zagging road with no crash barriers, no road markings and at an incline of approx 80 degrees, in other words fucking scary.
Now there are a million road signs you would expect to see on such a journey, the only one I saw was about halfway up, it said, ‘towing not recommended’.
I was laughing so much I nearly careered over the edge but what a way to go, I bet I wouldn’t be the first.

I received an email from my Mother (happy birthday btw) last week saying how much she was enjoying following up on the places I had written about but that she could find out much info about Mangamuka Bridge, having thought about it there is only one way to find it from Ireland and that is with the wonderful tool that is Google earth.

http://earth.google.com/

then download it onto your desktop. It does take a while but it’s the most addictive tool for checking places out.

Whilst I’m on the subject of the earth I also went to the exhibition of Yann Arthurs –Bertrand, if you don’t know about this bloke or his works follow this link

http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/index_new.htm

to see the most amazing pictures of the planet, plus its all done for a good cause, saving the planet so we can forgive him that’s he’s French.
Both these tools will probably be great ways of seeing Milford Sound, though of course the best way is to hire a car and make the 5 hour journey in 3 hours and then buy a ticket on a sightseeing ferry. I could go on and on about it but its easier if you look at the pictures.


Plenty of the ‘Lords of the Rings’ \Trilogy were shot here

If you like waterfalls that are higher then Niagara falls this is your place.

All the greenery and sounds fired up my Celtic blood which was just as well as the following day was March 17th, a day one or two of us have been known to celebrate. It wasn’t the only big celebration this week either, go to Google and enter march 14th, or click this link

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=march+14th&meta=

oh yes Ladies its our special day, you have valentines, now its our turn, I hope you all celebrated chaps the way I did, a steak dinner and errrrr an early night ;-)

Back to the 17th and I decided to buy myself a new top, a green one, for the days festivities. I entered a trendy looking place with 50%off stickers all over the place and thought I would impress the assistant with my street talk

Me: Fo shizzle, my nizzle, bizzle, dizzle some threads my sis, word up street, yo, u down wit dat!

Assistant: Certainly sir, what size?

Me: Err Fat please.

New top on I was ready to rock.

More Milford Pics

Actually that reminds me as a quick aside, no messing about over in NZ if your caught having a lash in the street, no fines, no jail time, oh no, guess what they do? They make the offender clean it up with his tee-shirt and seeing as they carry guns I doubt anyone is stupid enough not to comply, now that is quality justice in my opinion.

Back To the 17th and my good friend the Swan has a few rules that have made him the man he is and rules which I have been trying to follow;

Paul he would say, never back odds on away, water is your friend, you can’t get drunk on Guinness. Well I proved rule no.3 incorrect in sensational style on Saturday night. I went out strangely with a couple of American chaps who were sensationally funny and great company even though the afternoon started a little unhappily for me when one of them asked my age, 34 I replied, “Dude, you should be in a museum or something” he replied, after that I pushed my passport a little deeper into my pocket.

We began with Guinness, middled with Guinness and ended with Guinness with a few Guinness shots in between. To be fair to Queenstown the whole place was decked out in green and partied like they were all born in Dublin.

For a while we hooked up with 2 Japanese couples who couldn’t speak a word of English, I met them whilst they were trying to get served at the bar and naturally the English barmaid just kept raising her voice to make herself understood until I intervened. They all managed to get a pint and all drank it down without the little need of letting it settle.

We all kicked onto the world bar which was some experience even for a hardened nocturnal animal like myself and then left there to do some impromptu busking with some bloke playing the bagpipes (yeah I know but the Japanese assumed they were Irish) and then I cant remember.

I do remember the hangover the next day and the shock of watching a replay of Ireland beating Pakistan in the world cup, marvelous stuff.

I have been doing a little youtube watching lately and must link a couple of excellent things I spotted this week. Firstly that Inter Milan Valencia punch up. The thing that will disappoint any Inter supporter is the 3 missed tackles after that punch; I mean the blokes in a shell suit carrying a towel and he’s a defender yet he evades 3 lunges, count em

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHtDTqqHmaA

And to conclude the finest clip comic relief has ever done, if you don’t give money after this you never will, Ricky Gervais we salute you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ia__1d_rM

Adios Land of the Long White Cloud, final shot of Milford

Rumbled in Queenstown

This is the view from the top of the cable car. The land mass on the top right is a golf course.

I took off from Auckland last week and embarked on a flight to Queenstown on the South Island. Everyone I had spoken to in New Zealand had strongly recommended that I make the journey down South sooner rather than later and they weren’t wrong. The flight here was undoubtedly the most amazing scenically I have ever embarked on. Snow capped mountain ranges, the bluest lagoons and valleys even greener even than Ireland. The captain got himself into a lather coming onto the intercom every 2 minutes and telling us to, “Look out of the left window” and following up with “Quickly, look out of the right window”.

Queenstown is a ski resort (surrounded by a mountain range called the Remarkables) in the winter but there’s plenty to see and do in the summer. It has a small vibrant community, the most liberal licensing laws in the world (basically there are none) and the main street has a statue of one William Rees, by the look of things he was married to a sheep or was a professional sheep worrier.




Where is he going to put that hand?

I seem to be injuring both mentally and physically a lot of children on this journey. For instance on my 2nd day here I took the ski lift up the mountain range here (2500 ft above sea level) and had a go at lugeing. The point of lugeing is to get into a small sledge like vehicle and career down the mountain side at breakneck speed without dislocating too many bones. I actually didn’t break any bones myself but I may have been responsible for injuring a small child. Flying down the hill I didn’t remember how to brake so I did what any self preserving person would do and ran my luge into rear end of the 10 year kid in front of me shunting him into the crash barrier but more importantly slowing me down enough to not hurt myself. I heard his screams but I thought it best to get out of there before a parent turned up. I hope he was alright.


A spectacular view. I didnt see any helicopters so the injuries were not bad enough to be air lifted anywhere.


I heard a great story from a fellow backpacker the other day about bungee jumping. For those of you who don’t know The Kawarau Bridge Bungee in Queenstown was apparently were bungee all started so they now a thing or two about it in these parts. The Nevis Highwire Bungee (at a 143 metres, one of the worlds most fearsome) has a couple of employees with a devilish sense of humour. I was informed that they amuse themselves constantly by waiting until the petrified jumper has taken the final step over the edge, the one where there’s no going back and one of them will shout in a panicked voice, “No! Wait!”….My friend informed me they still do it even though last summer one of the jumpers had a heart attack after being told to “Stop” just as he leapt, I love the Kiwi sense of humour.

I also love the Kiwi attitude to wine, they love the stuff and the pinot grape is the particular speciality in this region. I have already done a couple of tours but they have something in Queenstown far more suitable to wine junkies like me. The ‘wine tastes’ shop in the centre of town is a little wine tasting tour all of its own. Hopefully the picture below explains how it works. You purchase an amount, put it on your card and then off you go to try one of the 84 wines available. These enomatic machines are the nuts, have a look at the website http://www.winetastes.com/





These machines are wonderful if you need to get drunk quickly on a wide variety of wines.



The only downer I have had since arriving in Queenstown has been the hostel, more specifically the tossers I had to share a dorm with for the first few days. I generally don’t have a problem with people called Rupert but when they a 19 year old trustafarian who cannot shut up about themselves I get a little narky.
Now this pleb wasn’t just born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was born with the whole fucking crockery drawer, so when he and his mates kept discussing how many drinks they were stealing in the bar in the hostel each night I eventually lost my cool. As most people who know me understand I am not always at my best first thing in the morning, so on Monday morning when these wankers started chatting about it again I jumped up, walked over to his bunk and explained to him that if I heard of him or his boyfriends stealing another drink I was personally going to shove that drink somewhere where the sun didn’t shine.
It was on the long walk back to my bunk that I realised all 4 of these 19year olds were old fit rugby types who no doubt could have given me a bloomin good hiding. Thankfully their nerve cracked before mine and I was able to cover myself with the sheet and not let them see how much I was shaking, hurrah.
I didn’t hear a peep out of them until they left, though I did keep my Swiss army knife under my pillow, just in case.



He looked something like this this bloke.

After that incident nothing could really phase me, the snoring in the dorm (which is synchronised to sound something like the frog song) didn’t bother me, nor the fact that when I got into my bunk last night some drunken Canadian was already in there. Had it have been a female they would have had a chance at staying but sadly he wasn’t and so was forcibly removed at 5.30am this morning.

The reason for the extremely late night was that I was sat in an internet café listening to my horses get close but not win at Cheltenham. Sadly I cannot seem to get pictures of it anywhere but there is also something even more exciting about listening to your selection get beat rather than boringly just watching it.
The same cannot be said of the incredibly exciting FA cup match between God’s own team and the loathsome Spurs on Sunday. When we scored the equaliser with 3 minutes to go I proper lost the plot, it was another Spillane shirt off and run round the bar moment.
The local brew Monteiths seemed to hit the spot once again and the staff in the casino bar seemed amused but the 2 Tottenham fans I was watching with didn’t speak to me after that, no great loss I guess.


I end this week’s blog with another remarkable story that you just couldn’t make up.
I arrived here on Thursday I immediately located a casino that held poker. I had a bit of a laugh and made out I had never played before (fill in any joke necessary here) and kept asking for advice, tips etc.
I do this when I can partly to throw people of the scent that I may have some clue as to what I’m doing, but the main reason is so I can take the piss out of the players that deserve it but then can hide behind my innocence.

This façade had been working smoothly until Sunday night when a couple sat down and began to play. The husband sat next to me and we got talking. His name was Jason and seemed a decent bloke; in between hands we chatted about a number of subjects, anything but poker in fact. That was until I asked him what he did and he replied ‘professional poker player’.
I was a little stumped and asked a few more questions and realised he was Jason Grey, one of Australia’s top players, someone I had watched play in the poker ashes in Australia 4 years previously and I made the mistake of telling him so. We continued chatting and realised we had many mutual friends in common, it was then he asked me my name and after I told him he stopped the table dead with the following line.
“Paul Spillane, you wrote that that article about the Monte Carlo Millions, I love your poker articles”.
Though flattered it wasn’t the flattery that made me go beetroot coloured. Fortunately all but one of the players saw the funny side and no one liked him anyway. I suppose it was only fitting that after they rumbled that I was an ex pro they completely skinned me that night.


The only 'Monty' i like.

Mussels Maori's and Artemis

Total Gridlock In The Town Centre


The point of my journey around these parts was not only to visit places I have not seen before but to experience life in these parts and meet people who might interest me, New Zealand has given me all these things in spades.
Thursday saw me meeting my Mothers sister Maura and who would have guessed that the most drunken I would get on this entire trip so far would be with my 63 year Aunt!
We met in Auckland and went straight out to Waikiki Island, about a 30 minute ferry ride from Auckland Harbor. Here we hired a cab and did a tour of the wonderful island, took in all the views and still had time for a visit to a a vineyard. Apparently the Island used to be a hippy commune until the builders and estate agents discovered it, they have moved on but their spirit remains.
Our exertions were rewarded with snapper and chips followed by a few beers. A few beers turned into a fine wines a few whiskies and before you knew it we were bribing the barman to serve us aftertime (he did). We said our goodbyes and ended a great day both absolutely lashed.

After nursing a hangover most of Friday I did manage to pull myself together by the evening and went to meet Ade (Sarah’s husband) and kicked on from the pub to Eden Park, home of the Auckland Blues and a test venue for the mighty All Blacks. I decided to spice up the evening by enjoying a little punt; I managed to track down the Dragon for his views and a little handicap and half time full time voucher was ensconced in my pocket by kick off. A tight first half was the order of the day and that’s just what we got, a few tasty tackles and the odd elbow had things boiling up nicely. Sadly the second half got away from us with the excellent Isaia Toeava scoring two tries and destroying my betting slip in the process.
A decent game, a few more beers, another fish n chips and it was off on the town for another night out. Watching rugby in New Zealand is akin to visiting a Buddhist temple in Nepal and I enjoyed the buzz around the stadium. In Auckland town centre they have not one but two clocks counting down the seconds to the kick off of the Rugby World Cup. The All Blacks have surprisingly only won the world cup once and they are obsessed about winning it again, more than even Australia were about winning the ashes and if Ireland don’t win it I will funk hard for them.

Saturday I hired the cheapest car possible (about a tenner) and took a 6 hour drive up past Whangarei, past Kaikohe and then got lost at Mangamuka Bridge where I took a 12 kilometer drive up and around a gorge before turning round and descending it. I eventually turned up at my desired location of Kohukohu about 30 minutes late after having driven past some of the most amazing landscapes, no wonder they call it ‘God’s own country’.
I walked into the remotest bar I think I have ever been in and met up with my old muckers Hugh and his partner Hera. He is a good friend from my years in Rochdale, she is a Maori Princess and one of the loveliest people I have had the pleasure to meet.
I got stuck straight into the local brew and proceeded to have one of those nights you can only imagine. I really didn’t know what to expect when I had arranged to meet Hugh but I hoping for an adventure and I most certainly got one. The town (if it can be called that, it consists of one shop, one pub and a post office, that’s it) is predominantly a Maori town so most of our drinking companions were Maoris which suited me just fine. I was chatting away and followed a couple of the chaps outside where I was offered a cigarette, I refused explaining that I no longer smoked tobacco; they both laughed and commented that “there aint any tobacco in there cuz”. Being a firm believer in the ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do” school I took a drag on the ‘herbal’ cigarette and immediately understood why this particular bar was so chilled out. Everyone it seemed was in a chilled mood, from the bar staff to the animals roaming outside whilst we drank, chatted, smoked, played pool and had a most fascinating evening with Mozza, Billy, Vance, Pete South (Pete North had gone east for the weekend) Glen and Ricki-Lee. I felt honored to be in these peoples company, listening to Maori tales and folklore from Staf, a local who was also entertaining everyone with tales of his youth, “I was a bit of a rogue at 13 and my 14’s and 15’s were a bit of a blur” should give you some insight into how the night was going.
After closing time we had to drive to Hugh and Hera’s (H&H) place, drink driving was not an issue as the road was private, what was an issue was we were driving up a mountain road covered in gravel and with no crash barriers. Somehow we all made it (Glen the local bee-keeper had joined us) and sat on the veranda overlooking green mountains that had been lit up by the full moon smoking the local leaves. It was here I got to meet Artiemis, H&H’s pit bull terrier cross; she was barking mad and we got on famously.





The perfect place for Mussel fishing

Sunday saw us drive to Mitimiti and have an afternoon on the beach which we had to ourselves, no better time to put Artie through her paces; she ended up chasing our four wheel drive on the beach for about 2 hours. Hugh had heard that this might be a good time to go hunting for mussels (due to the full moon, providing exceptionally high and low tides) and when two local Maori’s turned up with buckets we knew he had heard right. We waded into the ocean and were taught how to pick green lipped mussels from the sea by our new neighbors and not only did we pick them, when we were offered a knife to cut them open with I got stuck straight into eating them. Slurping raw mussels and washing it down from a bottle of Deutz (a champagne type drink that Hera had kindly bought) I had the gourmet experience of a lifetime. We picked a huge bucketful and went back up the mountain to watch Hugh prepare a spicy tomato sauce and a garlic onion sauce for us to mix with the mussels and dip our fresh bread into. Finally stuffed full of both raw and cooked mussels we hit the sack.

HMMMMM cooked or raw

Monday saw us drive to KeriKeri, more leaves, lunch at a winery was a magnificent plate of antipasto and of course a tasting of the wines to see which one would suit lunch most appropriately. This was followed by a refreshing swim in a lagoon and then a walk in the mountains followed by another swim, this time in the sea. We had built up an appetite and so dinner was in the town itself, Lamb culets; Lamb Shanks and Venison were all devoured as was the sumptuous bottle of local red. We were still enjoying the benefits of a full moon and sitting on outside listening to H&H’s travel tales I found a sense of tremendous peace and wellbeing. More leaves and more history on the Maori followed before I crashed into my tent in the early hours feeling wonderful.
Tuesday was my last full day in Kohukohu so it was only fitting we sat around chatting, smoking the leaves and drinking coffee. Artie lived up to her namesake (the goddess of hunting) by catching then slaughtering a possum. The possums are pests and everyone is actively encouraged to kill them, which perhaps explains the multitude of possum carcasses on the road in the mornings.

He didnt look this cute after Artie had got hold of him

I awoke at 6am on Wednesday to make the long journey back to Auckland but it did mean I got to see the legendary mist smothering the mountains. It’s been hard to write and clearly explain what a fantastic time I had at H&H’s, I cannot thank them enough. I saw a part of the world not readily accessible to many and was fascinated by what I saw and experienced. I always thought Australia was where I should have settled but New Zealand has overtaken that spot already am I not even in Queenstown yet. Every single person I have met in New Zealand has advised me to get my ass to Queenstown ASAP and who am I to disagree.

Finally, as im missing an Artie so much, here’s a link to my favorite youtube clip featuring a dog, don’t worry, its not that kind of link. What I find amusing yet frightening is why do they feed him on a tile floor? You work it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbmbQkX7czo

Until next time Kohukohu