When the Cheshire emerges...

Being Australian, I always imagined going to NZ would be cheap. I'd come back from Europe twice with a good amount of money to spare, so for a fortnight across the ditch I thought I'd be rolling in it. It was the first time I'd ever gotten MORE for the Australian dollar on a large scale. Staying with friends for about half the time was also going to save me a couple of hundred or so right?

Weird money

I did take a skydive into account, that it would cost about $500 or so with photos. The money just felt lighter... seriously, it IS lighter now since they changed it a few years back. The 10c piece so often confused with ours can't be anymore because it's changed colour!

But it didn't hit me until three days in that I would really be pushing it with the money I'd brought over. I struggled to stay away from vintage clothes in Auckland on day four - I regretted putting down a $5 top only to have a girl carry it around the store some two minutes later. Bad afternoon that was.

By the time I got to Wellington and my friend Laura said that it shouldn't really be a problem because I WAS still getting more bang for my buck. She was totally right. I ended up splurging on about NZ$100 on clothes that day and didn't feel bad for it (read my full purchase wrap when you can). And later on plenty of coffee and cake. I was getting 25 per cent off everything after all right?

More where that came from... how else can you best observe a city?

In Queenstown, the skydive did cost me about what I thought. And then I did the canyon swing (read my first entry of the NZ makes you series on that). I had to transfer more money with four days to go - and then I didn't realise that could take three days. To say I was worried for about 24 hours was an understatement.

But all came through and I survived. And I DID come home with money! Just part of the backup I didn't intend on using. Oops :D

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Check in the same time tomorrow for how I dealt with the NZ summer!

I had my first roadtrip with company yesterday (Saturday) when I drove to Narromine with fellow newbie sub-editors Orlaith (from Ireland) and Jess (NSW). Now, Narromine is only 30 minutes away but on the highway it still feels like it takes a while. Once the nice drive leads you into what is an industrial entrance with the silos(?? still getting some lingo), you eventually hit the main street which is lovely, lined with palm trees and a an interesting statue of a baker.

A couple of nice boutique/giftware shops were trading (luckily, otherwise the trip would've been quite pointless), and we satisfied our hunger with some fried grub at the local pub. The childhood home of Glenn McGrath, we honoured his great contribution to cricket by admiring the statue there in his honour (and explained to Orlaith the 'ooh aah' phrase for future reference), before heading to something we stumbled across on the Information board. The Andonbel Alpaca Farm and Coffee Shop - we had drinks in a train carriage.


You can tell how excited I was by forcing the girls into a photo! It was the most interesting concept you could ever think of in a town of Narromine's size (almost 4,000 I think). You looked out the window and it was farmland. We didn't get up close and personal with the alpacas in the end, but I had a mean strawberry milkshake. The service was incredibly friendly, I found an alpaca pin that I'll make part of the travel collection, and the Mars Bar cheesecake is why I will be going back. It looked incredible and life won't be complete until I try it. The girls said it's a bit far to make our local hangout... half an hour, half a schmour.

We saw a mother and two kids cruising down the road in a carriage pulled by a pony as we made our way back through Narromine. A pony. I actually slowed down the car on a road you could drive at 90km/h to get a better look as they went past. We were all too excited to get a photo in time though!

I still can't believe how cool that coffee shop was. Where's the coolest place you've ever eaten or had a coffee? Or do I win?