Happy trails to you, until we meet again!

Well, the honeymoon is definitely over. We have put the paperwork in, it has been accepted, and the divorce is over. Final. Fin. My brother has left my side, and is now travelling around the north island of New Zealand. Somewhere.

We left on Sunday morning, early, to take the LONG road to get up to Picton, where he was to catch the ferry to Wellington. We drove all the way to the west coast, via Arthurs Pass (where we stopped to get a bite to eat at a local shop and a wild Kea bird flew up to us, the curious thing that it was!) to Greymouth. Our first major stop was in Punakaiki, where the strange rock formations of the Pancake Rocks are found. We walked around here for an hour or so, then balked at the price of two real pancakes for lunch and hit the road. We kept going on up to Westport, where we refueled and started the long trip through Lewis Pass. Eventually we ended up at Motueka, where we bunked for the night. This was the longest day of driving of the three days we were gone, and we were all bushed as bears from it. No one more than me, I think, as I had managed to pick up a nose and throat cold from somewhere along the way.

The next day we were heading up to Farewell Spit, the northern most point of the south island. Basically it's this sandy bit of land that sticks up from the sea and just sits there, with loads and loads of migrating birds using it as a nesting site. Unluckily for us the migrating birds were migrating elsewhere, so we didn't see much wildlife. The drive up to the Spit was an exciting one, with the car rarely getting over 60km/h as the road was windy as all hell. We stopped on the way to walk through a beautiful beech tree forest to the largest cave in the southern hemisphere, Harwood's Hole. Let me tell you, this thing is massive... And very scary when you stand on the edge of it looking down! Hopefully photos will follow shortly. The day ended back at the same hostel as the night before, which we all were very happy to stay at again, especially since it was pouring down with rain and we were all pretty beat from another long day.

Day three was definitely the least enjoyable, since it was the day that Geoff was leaving us all. We drove to Picton in near silence, if you can imagine. Basically it was two and a half hours of looking out the window remembering all the cool stuff that he and I had been doing for the past seven or eight months. I think everyone in the car was thinking the same thing, that it will be sad to see him go. We dropped him off at the ferry terminal, checked him in, and said our goodbyes. It was pretty sad, and I'm not afraid to admit that I had a lump in my throat (I held it together though... wouldn't want to show too much emotion in front of my two lady friends, would I?). So off the two ladies and I went, but again it was a pretty somber affair, the drive back. We got through it though, and when we got back to Christchurch we unpacked the car and sat down for a rest. Tam got her ears candled, we all had a bite to eat, and that was it.

It was a good mini-road trip, for the most part, but there's still something missing back here in Christchurch. It'll never be the same again...