Gabrielle

So here I am once again about to start the second part of my world backpacking trip in New Zealand.

My proposed plan is to see as much of New Zealand in a month then move on to Australia, followed by India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and China. From China I want to take the trans-siberian rail to Russia and travel back through Europe via Poland, Hungary, Austria and Italy. Well this is my plan - I only planned to stay in Buenos Aires for 4 weeks and ended up staying for nearly five months so we will see what happens this time!

It has been a crazy few days trying to do all my last minute organising after spending the last two weeks splitting my time between London, Somerset, Brighton, Austria and Manchester saying my goodbyes to family and friends. This time was very sad because the last few weeks have been the best since I’ve been back, so it was more difficult to leave this time. Everybody has been great and very supportive. I will miss them all.

I woke this morning with a rash on my face very similar to the one I had when I returned from my last trip. So now I'm convinced that it must be due to lack of sleep (having only had 15hr in the last 4 days) and not a skin allergy as suspected by the pharmacist.

I didn't get to bed until 4.30am and was awake again at 9.30am. A nagging feeling told made me double check my flight time. It was a good job that I did because I was convinced that I had to be at the airport at 1.50pm but I had made a mistake and needed to be there at 12.50pm. So my last couple of hours passed by very quickly and before I knew it, it was time to leave for the airport. I checked in for my first connection from Manchester to London, went through security and passport control and into the departure lounge. Then there was a security alert and and we were all made to evacuate to another part of the airport! We had no idea what was wrong and were made to wait for 40 minutes and with no explanation we were directed back through security and passport control and back into the departure lounge. I only had time to but a book and make a few phone calls before we were boarding our flight.

The first flight was only one hour and when I arrived into Heathrow I had to transfer to Terminal 3 and wait another hour for my next connection to Hong Kong.

It was great to finally be on my way and I could relax a little. I was sat next to Fiona a girl from Dublin who was going to Australia. We spoke for a while until dinner was served and I had two glasses of red wine that I thought would help me sleep. It didn't work very well because I had an aisle seat and could not get into any comfortable sleeping position. I must request a window seat in future.

3rd November 2006

We landed in Hong Kong at 7.30am british time and 3.30pm Hong Kong time. I now had six hours before my final connecting flight to New Zealand. i did consider leaving the airport and going in to the city but I didn't think it would be enought time to do anything. I wasn't too disappointed because I have been before in 1992 when I flew into Kowloon airport which was more scary than Hong Kong International becuase the planes would lfy between the high rise buildings!

Instead, I went for a coffe with Fiona because she had to wait eight hours for her connection, then freshened up, had a look around the shops, visited the smoking room and also had something to eat.

By the time I actually boarded my 9.50pm flight to Auckland I was so tired and was asleep before we took off and had to be woken to be given my visa application and then fell back asleep and had to be woken again for dinner.

4th November 2006

I woke at 9.30am feeling rotten because I didn't sleep well. I spoke to Tanya, a chinese girl i sat next to on the plane. She lives in new Zealand and told me all the best places to see and where not to miss.

We landed at 1.30pm and I took the city bus to Auckland Central Backpackers hostel which is in an excellent location right in the middle of Auckland. It's a huge hostel and Im sharing a dorm with Catherine from London and two other girls. First of all I had a quick walk around the hostel and went to the balcony bar for a cigarette, beer and something to eat. It has a great atmosphere and there are backpackers from all around the world. As i was leaving catherine came to the bar so I had another and then went for a shower and decided to go to bed so that I will have a full day tomorrow. Also my rash is worse today and I don't know what i can do to get rid of it other than get a decent nights sleep.