halfway home

right now i am supposed to be doing research for my trip to australia.  i've been on the computer for over an hour, and i have to say, i think i've made decent progress.  i mostly just have to decide on my itinerary now, and then i can start booking my tickets.  fortunately, most of the travelling i want to do (ferry to tasmania, train to alice springs) run at night, thus giving me extra sightseeing time.  i bought my tickets last week, for may 20 to june 19, return nelson to sydney.  and this week i heard on the radio that air new zealand is raising airfare again because of another rise in jet fuel prices--they've already raised them once, recently.  (petrol is $1.82 a litre now, or at least it was last time i checked.  that's over $8 a gallon.)

anyway, amidst all of this, i am coming up on six months in new zealand on thursday.  time is so warped sometimes, and it goes faster the longer i am here.  i remember distinctly my first day in auckland, and it doesn't seem like that long ago.  (and i remember one month gone, it seemed to take forever!)  but now i am realizing that my initial thoughts were right; one year is not enough.  especially with one month in australia, and i'd like to go back a second time before i leave to do more travelling there.  but in six months, i'm realizing how little i've actually seen.  i haven't done much at all here on the south island, and on the north island i'd like to go back to half the places i've been (wellington, the east coast, napier) and i still haven't hit the northland yet.  *sigh*

this just reconfirms that despite rising travel costs and increasingly worsening exchange rates, i'm never going to be through with the south pacific.

(oh yeah, just to make you all feel better: it snowed on the mountains across the bay last night.  i have yet to see it with my own eyes, but paul saw.  it was 5C/41F last night, so i don't doubt it.)