gone living

we arrived in the town of rotorua yesterday via the "magic bus", one of the several backpacker-oriented bus lines that run through the country of new zealand.

very few countries are attuned to the needs of backpackers in the way that new zealand is. it's good stuff here.

jean and i ate out at a restaurant called stonegrill and cooked our own raw food (400 grams of steak in my case, la-a-a-a-mb in jean's), on hot stones. it was actually really tasty and good fun all around.

then we went drinking with a mix of locals, italians, and irishmen. needless to say, we barely made it to the bus then next day. but we did, with 5 minutes to spare.

so here we are in taupo, with off-and-on rain and the tonganairo crossing closed for the forseeable future, so we're pressing on in the morning to wellington, and then christchurch, where another array of hiking, extreme sports, and llama farming awaits us.

vive new zealand!
PS: i just finished posting a bunch of older blog posts to the fiji section written on paper when I was offline and had no internet access. check them out at http://www.goneliving.com/fiji/