The lovely Lisa Mansel was pushing for a trip to Rotorua and I finally obliged and asked the girl from the other night, Sheavaun, if she fancied a jaunt.....she did! I booked everything on the Monday and while I was still in PJ's at midday my host, Nick, decided to put me to work and I spent the rest of the afternoon bleaching and washing the decking on the front balcony and afterward felt I had earned my first beer so far on the trip, which due to the lack of activity felt very good.
I woke up on Tuesday after some fairly vivid gangster dreams and met Shevaun in Auckland for lunch in the Elliot street stables. While waiting for my bus in I got soaked through in one of the random but heavy Auckland showers but the chicken fettucini at De Niros soon cheered me up. Lisa had gone ahead on an earlier bus but Shevaun was working so we caught a later one. I tried the drinking underneath a jacket thing and it was going so well until I got a little bit pissed and dropped the bottle on the floor, it didn't break but loads of people looked, to which I announced loudly nobody saw that, and everyone just looked away, great success! This trip reminds me very much of my 2008 Havoc and Chaos tour of the USA, the idea was to hit the polynesian spas then get intensely drunk and up to whatever mischief we could find. We managed to upgrade our room for free as the one we were put in was already full. We had a few of the cheap beers at the hostel and went to the polynesian spa. It was unbelievably refreshing, hot water mineral baths, loads of French and Japanese but amazing views and I managed to chill out nicely.
After that refreshment we bought a box of wine and went back to the hostel to get squiff on the cheap before heading out to see what the night could bring. We shared our room with an Aussie Army tracker who had some amazing views on left wing backpackers but had a genuinely cool job learning how to hunt and track animals or people in the bush. After getting considerably intoxicated we went to Lava lounge round the corner for more refreshment but the atmosphere was dead so I returned to the hostel. In short I was El Bollocko, ARP serviced and I behaved as badly as I can when Mr Hyde had taken his wonderful elixir. I woke in a highly groggy state and quickly packed up before continuing my Hydesque tendencies on the bus before passing out. I got back to the North Shore and passed out for four hours before a much needed roast dinner with the family, including Katie, Toni and Jasper.
My only concern now was whether or not to fork out a mere $100 to see Wales versus Australia in the 3/4th place play off, I really want to but thats a lot of beer money. I have the promise of champagne from Shevaun if Wales win....and probably anyway if not because in short I have the moves like Jagger (*disclaimer - I am full of shit). So while I was deliberating I got an email from my former employers saying the project that I basically came up with the base idea has received funding and now has a position available paying well FML. My Hawkes Bay trip also got cancelled as my boy Ben was ill, I went shopping and then had sushi before Chardonnay in the sun.
I then received the call granting me a ticket, it was a good day, Gaddafi was dead and I had a Bronze Final ticket. I sat back down to finish off my wine in the hot Auckland sun. I went to the game and we lost, it didn't seem like their hearts were in it.
I went off to a party in Mt Eden and crashed there, was good, plenty of champagne and cider...was most intoxicated!
The next day I left Mt Eden and was supposed to meet my hosts but as there was no response I got in touch with Deano for some shenanigans. We went to the Queens Wharf fan zone and had a beer before trying the kicking game (slotting one this time) and the Heineken drink driving game (I crashed whilst trying to drink whilst driving). We then went off to get cheap beer at a Japanese off license and messed with the guy until he asked us to leave. As Auckland has a liquor ban we couldn't drink on the street so we decided to try and drink in a hostel, fortunately we were next to Nomads hostel so went in and as we weren't guests we sat on the stairs at the top and boozed. A member of staff walked past while in mid chug and we thought we were busted but the lovely Dutch girl covered her eyes and told us she hadn't seen anything, nice one! After the drink we went looking for Leanne, Deanos mate from Kiwi experience, while we were looking Deano spotted this stunning blonde and casually went over and insisted he had met her on the Kiwi experience, she said he couldn't because he had just got off a cruise (her bags had P&O all over them) but he still pushed that she had been on the bus, very funny! We got chatting so we decided that this may be a good meet and greet until Deano tried it on this stunning brunette and scared the poor rabbit away.
We met Leanne and had some more drinks before meeting Deanos other mates, drink was free flowing by now so I dont remember everything but Deano used the gang rape joke while trying to chat up a girl, while my line was 'you have alot of teeth, and a jokerish smile' smooth I know. We met some girls who worked in pharmasuticals, one in botox and during the binge we somehow managed to form a botox for bollocks campaign, don't as me how! I also started telling people I was an underwear model and even managed to convince Deano, but still got the amazing phrase 'no chance in my pants but I like your company' from Leanne. After that bar we went to 1885 an upmarket bar and as it was the night before the final it was rammed out, it was good for a while but I was way too drunk by then. Deano and I went outside, found a police bollard and scrummed down with it, needless to say we went straight to ground and I hit the floor hard and stayed down until the police showed up. We moved the bollard back and they told us to behave and we asked them to scrummage, they said they would like to but were on duty so couldn't. I said goodbye to Deano and crashed back at Mt Eden again.
I woke feeling rough and got the bus up the North Shore where I wallowed in my own crapulance until the world cup final. Town was already rammed when I left so I decided as there was no way to get back from down town Auckland and as I hadn't changed and was feeling rough faux home was better than staying out. It wasn't the best final but the better team won and hopefully we won't have the twenty-four years of hurt comments any more. Key memorable moments of the final didn't happen during the game, an interviewer called Thierry Dusautoir, Thierry Henry, Richie McCaw saying 'I'm totally shagged' in his post match interview and the embarrassing England 2015 promo. My issue is if Wales made that final I think we would have had a very good shot at winning it. So after seeing 46 out of 48 games, attending 9 the world cup was over and I fell into a great nights sleep.
The next day after Nick calling me a 'little shit' several times, his term of affection, we looked online and found out that Marco Simoncelli of super bike had died, just days after Dan Wheldon died in F1 in Vegas, not a great week for motor sport. I FB chat conferenced with Pen and Stones to organise our New Zealand travels and then got a call from Mugsy offering me work on his dairy farm in Whangarei and then a place to stay over the weekend while he was in Australia including use of a car and hot tub.
We got up at 5am to drive up to the farm, which is the earliest I have gotten up for anything since Cape Cod, what feels like years ago. On the way up Mugsy was pulled over for speeding, we unfortunately were caught during a police sting after the holiday the previous day. To Mugsys suprise he actually had a suspended license as he hadn't reapplied when his previous suspension was over, meaning I had to drive to the farm and I managed to annoy Mugsy by not speeding for fear of a fine that I don't have the means to pay, turned into good banter though. When we got to the farm we milked the cows and then walked the vast expanse of the farm trying to fix fences.
At lunch we got Mugsy his license back and went for a cheeky pint or three before returning to the farm for afternoon milking. I had the unpleasant experience of witnessing Mugsy deliver afterbirth, which although the medical side of it didn't bother me, the smell was outrageously overpowering. Mugsy isn't happy with his helper up there who appears to be lazy, deceitful and actually works against the process, things and livestock go missing and things that are on the to do list don't get done and get forgotten about, I don't know a lot about farms but even I could see this.I got to ride the ATV/Quadbike and got a bollocking off Mugsy as in my attempt to not get told off for driving too fast I drove too slow and off the path. We stayed with a lovely Maori family in Whangerei and had take away for dinner, with plenty of beer.
We woke again farmer early and heading across misty Whangerei in the pre-sun cold to the farm, where a message from the night before had sunk in. A pipeline had burst in Maui in Taranaki meaning that all milk processing had to be cancelled meaning millions of litres of milk had to be poured away, including all our hard work from the day before. I helped Mugsy jump start a tractor down a hill by scrummaging with it. We then ran tractor errands and did the morning milk (which due to the failure to mend the gas main was poured out again). We also had to put three calfs out of their misery as 'they gave up on life.' I was offered to kill one and as it was a farm I would have if it had been a knife or gun but it was a blunt object to the head, and I didn't fancy doing any bludgeoning that day. We fed the calfs and I had to catch a stray cow that got out of the yard and in between wearing me out in the chase managed to electrocute me as well. We put a calf in the boot for a lady in Waipu to raise and we came back to Auckland. I cooked Nick and Joy a ridiculously hot curry as a thank you and moved my stuff to mugsys to house sit and feed the cats while he was in Australia.
I woke early again to give Mugsy a lift to the airport but he informed me that he was parking at the airport, so I got up for no reason. I gave Deano a lift to the airport and settled in for an evening of Halloween prep tv.
Just going to house sit and enjoy some tv and the hot tub until the boys turn up over the weekend and our party starts for Halloween and rolls into our road trip.
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