I arrived back in Auckland on Monday (yes this means that my blog is now actually up-to date!), and it was not a good day.
Let me recount:
Firstly I had to look for a post office as my van was actually no-long road legal (something like road tax and some other thing which I don’t quite understand – miles for diesel). While looking for a post office I dropped in at a travel agent to get a plane ticket to Melbourne. This was all going fine, but it turns out that you have to get some fancy visa thing if you get a one-way ticket, so I got my return ticket from Sydney to Auckland for Saturday 25th April – yes this means that hopefully I’ll be back in the UK on Monday or Tuesday of that week… Haven’t sorted that trip back yet so we’ll have to see.
Anyway that was a lot of faff as there were refunds and re-payments as these details became clear.
Then my card got cancelled, because I was using it in NZ. Yes despite the fact that I’ve been using my card in New Zealand for the past three months didn’t seem to matter one jot.
On the plus side the bank sorted it very quickly, so it’s not all bad.
Then I had to go to the post office and queue up three times throughout the morning. Once to find I couldn’t pay by card, once to find that I hadn’t filled in one of the forms fully and needed to get an address from one of my documents and lastly to actually get the damn things.
Back at the hostel I met with my new room-mates and we went out for a drink together. Things are looking up!
But because I hadn’t eaten all day while sorting out all this junk I got far far too drunk and was sick in the room, promply alienating two of the three other guys.
Tuesday I did nothing other than watch films, I was feeling quite sorry for myself.

I hope this doesn’t come across as too much of a massive winge, things are good now, but this travelling lark isn’t always sweetness and light 🙂