Daily Grind Wonderings, wanderings and waffle

I watched Juno on the flight from Fiji to Auckland. It’s a great film, very Garden State-esque - leaving you with a smile on your face and lots of laughs. The main actress is superb, bit like Natalie Portman in Leon (N.P was also in Garden State….).

Just come back from watching ‘Once’ at a local art-house cinema in Napier. It’s also really good.

Check ‘em out!

I’m now in Napier, an Art Deco town. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s and re-built in an Art Deco style. It’s pretty strange.

Feeling flush with my bungy success of 47m jump, I’ve been looking at the Nevis jump in Queenstown, which is a 143m jump out of a gondala!! Crazy people.

Off to see if I can get a parachute jump in today, otherwise will go for a bungy jump.

Post-edit: got my bungy jump in at Taupo Bungy. Was good fun, had an audience of a bus-load of Japanese tourists, who weren’t jumping. The jump-cameras weren’t working, but I’ve got a video of my jump, which I shall try and capture some images from. Anyway - my neck-crick seems to be a little better now, for some reason!

It smells in Rotorua. Reminds me of being back in Iceland. There are lots of steam-vents around town. I’m staying in a place called the Funky Green Voyager.

The town is in a caldera produced by a volcano. Why do I persist in visiting volcanic places?

Yep, I’m in Auckland, New Zealand. Really couldn’t cope with any more mosquito bites (I had to go into hospital when on Ovalau, as my elbow swelled up).

Steve - tell Mr Three Piece Suite than NZ sucks. Ok - it doesn’t, but it’s fun to wind him up.

Yes sir, there are a lot of mosquitos here and they love me, despite my best efforts to evade them. It’s making me reconsider moving my flight to New Zealand forward by a few days.

Anyway- arrived in Nadi about five days ago (seems like ages). Everybody was talking about going to the Yasawas and I decided I’d go elsewhere. Went to a really nice island called Ovalau.

Highlight, so far, was watching a bird (heron?) attacking a black and white sea-snake.

Today finds me, after a good sleep, in Toronto doing some gardening and playing darts. Staying with some friends here, who I haven’t seen since 2004, when we travelled up to Quebec City and back.

Not very exciting at the mo.

I’m all packed and ready to go. Think my books take up more space (certainly do in weight) in my bag than clothes.

Not looking forward to the 11 (ELEVEN!) hour layover in Los Angeles. Might hire a car and go look at some sights.

Route:

Heathrow-> New York -> Toronto-> Los Angeles -> Nadi (Fiji) -> Auckland (NZ) -> Melbourne -> Perth -> Singapore -> Heathrow -> Reality.

I’ve started reading - On Photography, by Susan Sontag. First off - one thing that surprised me is that there aren’t any photos in the book. The first chapter has been really interesting about the first photography taken. It’s something that I’ve noticed a lot travelling - that tourists all have cameras, taking pictures of every single moment; yet they’re not really looking at what’s around them. Ok - I take quite a few pics, but I tend to leave my camera in its bag most of the time.

It’s quite strange reading about somewhere you’ve been before. Three children have been killed in Merritt, B.C (Canada), according to The Globe and Mail. I was there, not so long ago on my travels through B.C.

Not long till I’m back in Canada now - be in Toronto on the 12th April.