Aha! Finally I can get on this page.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear, um, me-ee, happy birthday to me! Though that was yesterday (thanks for the texts people - you know who you are). I stayed the night at Fox Glacier which had no phone reception and my webmail was down :( Stunning view though and the stars at night - I've never seen so many! :)

I'll properly do an update when I can add some photos because I've got some great ones - the west coast is amazing. Suffice to say that yesterday I drove from Queenstown to Fox Glacier (with Julia, a german hitchhiker I picked up along the way) and today I drove from Fox Glacier back to Picton (7 more hours) to drop the car off. Traffic meant I missed the 6pm ferry by 5 mins so I've got ANOTHER 4 hour wait at a poxy ferry terminal for the 10pm one. Gets in at 1am, where I have 3 hours to kill until check-in and then I fly to Hong Kong at 6:30am. Get in!

I'm going to miss New Zealand though, it really is beautiful.

But while I'm here, if there's any NZ drivers reading this - everyone drives at 100kph because that's the speed limit and we all behave ourselves, I don't have a problem with that. However, when you approach a bend that recommends 85kph that actually means that you don't need to slow down, 75kph means you need to lift off, 55kph means you need to slow down and 45kph means you need to brake shortly before the corner. What it does not mean, and I cannot emphasise this enough, is that you NEED TO SLOW DOWN TO 45KPH TO MAKE THE CORNER. All this does is mark you out as a wanker who likes holding up people trying to make a ferry.

That feels better... :)