Rome September 2009

New toys

Mount Etnea

Taormina part 02 (Bar Turrisi)

Taormina part 01

Catania

In and around Catania

Syracuse

Couple of pictures at Syracuse as well as some pics of Oedipus at Colonus

It's training

GRID training in Catania. Fun fun fun.

Home is where the heart lies

All done flying, here are some photos of New Zealand

Dawson falls

Mount Taranaki

Misty wind turbines

Taupo

Get some fresh fruit next to the cemetary

In and around Auckland

If it wasn't for me wellies

Napier, Wellington to New Plymouth - one day.

Mount Taranaki - nice hikes around. Wanted to do the 8 hour summit hike but the weather was a bit dicy so the parks people said no :_)

Heading up to Hamilton in the next couple of days so I might be able to go and see India beat New Zealand again.

Following distance

NZ has a speed limit of 100 km/h. Ok, the little lawnmower I'm driving in NZ is not the quickest vehicle but it can still do 100 kph on the speedo.

So why is it that low and high class yobos, in a Ford Falcon and BMW 745 respectively, still feel the need to sit 2cm from my rear bumper in heavy rain at 100 km/h?

Anyway Rotorua turned out to be a quick drivethrough destination. The sulphur smell from the hot springs got to me. Quick sidetrip to jade place for some presents.

Five day forecast

Showers followed by showers

Schedule for the next couple of days
Rotorua
Taupo
Napier (mmm wine coutry)

All flown out

02 March:
Billy Connolly show last night. Funny stuff, glad I came over to come and see him live. Couple of days into my holiday trip and I am already thinking of going home sooner. I use to be able to do these trips on my own, but I think old age has finally caught up to me. A couple of days in Auckland then I'm off to the countryside. Maybe my mood will improve.

Took a drive to some of the forests here around Auckland. Amazing stuff, did a couple of hours hiking and promptly forgot the camera. Took some after shots. Will upload pictures when I'm back in SA.

Of course the motorcycle people contacted me and said that they could not register my motorcycle as I still owe some money for speeding fines. Damn, just when I though that I paid everything.

I see that my sleeping patterns have followed me across the timezones :) In bed by 0:00 and up at 04:00.

01 March:
Landed in Auckland, man flying is not made for people flying cattle class. After 20+ hours of flying and 12 hours hanging around at airports I am sort of disconnected from time.

Adding numbers

Ok, finally got the courage to upgrade my f650gs to a 1200gs. Fun part is - I'm only going to have it for a week before I'm off to see Billy Connolly in New Zealand and touring around for 3 weeks.

Life is hard:) Although I have to add that I have not seen daylight in 6 months because of work.