Plan...Z
So...now that my nervous breakdown is over and things have shifted back into appropriate perspective (I mean I won't DIE if I don't travel this year will I?) I have come up with another plan. It just so happens that even after cancellation penalties I will have just enough points for 2 free tickets to the land of the Long White Cloud and that I can give one ticket to a family member. The only person who is perfect for the position of travelling companion is my mother. Yes, I know, the same mother who went rigid with culture shock in Nepal and I swore never to go travelling with again. THAT ONE. But believe me, this just might be a plan to surpass all others. For one thing, my mother has never stopped raving about New Zealand since she spent 9 months backpacking around it in her early twenties. She goes on and on about New Zealand ice cream as if it will usher you into gastronomic Nirvana with a single lick. Before you know it, she is holding up dusty 35mm slides of miniscule landscapes and attempting to convey just how happy she was before she got tied down with children...get the picture?
Plus lately, my mother has been getting a bit of the old suburban housewife syndrome. She appeared at my house without warning the other day with a desire to just 'get away from it all'. Considering I could only offer her a coffee table book to peruse and a cup of chai she must have felt, well, desperate.
So she really is the perfect person...I hope.
Plus, I can leave all the planning in her hands because after spending brain-burning hours reworking my doomed itineraries to India and Nepal I am inclined to snarl at the sight of a travel guide.
Now, there is the small issue of money. Failing to win an essay competition of the importance of global corporate social responsibility (a serious travesty of justice in my opinion) we have to find a means of doing New Zealand as cheaply as I would have done India or Nepal. The difference in costs between developed and underdeveloped destinations is disheartening. A meal in India = $1 A meal in New Zealand = $10. So, there is no option but to don some gumboots and go in for a good wwoofing about.
Wwoofing is Willing Workers on Organic Farms (for accommodation and food). It sounds a bit hippie with over a thousand hosts in New Zealand it is almost status quo for budget travellers when staying for more than a few days. And it is less feudalistic than it sounds and it is worth the effort to experience the warm hospitality of a family rather than the cold, commercial breeze found on the tourist trail.
Mum and I agree that January and February would be perfect as we would escape the potbelly stove which is our town at that time of year and enjoy the gentle warmth which is the South Island instead.
Well that's the plan anyway. At the very least I can rest assured that I am not responsible for the preparations for this trip. It is in my mother's hands. What an unusually good feeling that is!
Plus lately, my mother has been getting a bit of the old suburban housewife syndrome. She appeared at my house without warning the other day with a desire to just 'get away from it all'. Considering I could only offer her a coffee table book to peruse and a cup of chai she must have felt, well, desperate.
So she really is the perfect person...I hope.
Plus, I can leave all the planning in her hands because after spending brain-burning hours reworking my doomed itineraries to India and Nepal I am inclined to snarl at the sight of a travel guide.
Now, there is the small issue of money. Failing to win an essay competition of the importance of global corporate social responsibility (a serious travesty of justice in my opinion) we have to find a means of doing New Zealand as cheaply as I would have done India or Nepal. The difference in costs between developed and underdeveloped destinations is disheartening. A meal in India = $1 A meal in New Zealand = $10. So, there is no option but to don some gumboots and go in for a good wwoofing about.
Wwoofing is Willing Workers on Organic Farms (for accommodation and food). It sounds a bit hippie with over a thousand hosts in New Zealand it is almost status quo for budget travellers when staying for more than a few days. And it is less feudalistic than it sounds and it is worth the effort to experience the warm hospitality of a family rather than the cold, commercial breeze found on the tourist trail.
Mum and I agree that January and February would be perfect as we would escape the potbelly stove which is our town at that time of year and enjoy the gentle warmth which is the South Island instead.
Well that's the plan anyway. At the very least I can rest assured that I am not responsible for the preparations for this trip. It is in my mother's hands. What an unusually good feeling that is!
