Home Again

Well, here we are, home again, and with mixed feelings. It is nice to be back amongst all my own things, and no longer living out of a suitcase. An added bonus is that the lawn is not as long as I thought it would be and my lovely pink and yellow daffodils are still in flower. I wasn't really ready to leave New Zealand, though; there is still so much I would like to see that I could have stayed at least another month, and it was sad to be at the end of our holiday with Catbert and DSoK. It went so quickly!

The journey back, although long, passed quite uneventfully, and I am now experiencing the usual bewilderment at being on the other side of the world to where I was yesterday, and confusion about whether it is day or night. Mr Knitbert senior has a theory that when you travel as far and as fast as you do when you fly long-haul, your astral body can't keep up with your physical body, and the link which binds them together is stretched out very thin for a few days until your astral body catches up. It's as good an explanation of how jet lag feels as any I have heard.

Anyway, if you will all bear with me, I shall be able to relive the last week of my trip here.

First of all, just a few more pictures from our journey down the North Island. On the way we stopped to look at the Huka Falls. I imagined a nice, dramatic but scenic waterfall such as one finds in the Lake District. Instead I saw this!



These falls are at the end of the Waikato River, which is part of New Zealand's hydroelectricity generating capacity.

The rest of our journey took us about four hours, and included a yarn store where we stopped so I could buy some possum merino yarn. This combination is one I have only ever come across in New Zealand. Possum fur is very warm and soft, and as possums are a pest in New Zealnd, introduced from Australia and destroying native plants and attacking native wildlife, they are destroyed wherever possible. Sadly there are apparently 70 million possums in New Zealand today, so not likely to be eradicated any time soon. The mix of their fur with merino wool is soft, warm and light and now some of it is mine, all mine!!! Ahem.

Our last stop was at beautiful, semi-deserted Waikanae beach, which you can see in Catbert's photo at the top of the post. We played frisbee here for half an hour to stretch our legs and enjoy the peaceful sand and sea before continuing to Wellington, where we were to stay the night with some friends of Mr Knitbert's family, before taking the Wellington to Picton ferry the following morning.