Life in Instagram: October

My last couple of weekends could only be described as completely exhausting: two weekends ago I spent Saturday morning and all day Sunday doing my Q-Ride course and obtaining my motorcycle licence, and squeezed in a trip down to the Gold Coast on Saturday afternoon for the first leg of this year's Rugby Sevens world tournament. Firstly, a picture to sum up the utterly maniacal atmosphere of costumes, drinking and sport unique to Sevens events:

As you can see, I opted for an easy costume and wore my sailor dress and a Fijian flag men's shirt I received free with a stupidly expensive rugby shirt purchase I made over there earlier this year. My workmate Martin was excited to get a chance to wear his Wallabies shirt. Speaking of Wallabies, I went to their match last weekend (not to see them but the All Blacks of course). Unfortunately, it resulted in a draw, but I did meet this handsome young man in the city the day before:

(DAN CARTER!!!!!!!!)

Of course, last Saturday was my birthday also but seeing as I chose to prioritise (union before everything) we celebrated in sort of an ongoing fashion all month, which included a Snog, Marry, Avoid? themed do:

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Plus plentiful cake, outings and pressies:

I came home from work to find my brother had bought this little guy for me! (My last beloved fish died a couple of months ago and if you have teenaged brothers you can understand how thoughtful a present this was.)

Before I go I have to mention that after about six months of hard work weekly, our trivia team The Expendables finally won the grand final - the same night we won the weekly event - and walked away with $550! And to prove we weren't flukers, we backed it up with another $50 win last week. To see what a winning trivia team looks like, see below:

This wasn't what I was going to write about when I began my post, but I think such an overall quality month should be added to the record! I'll be spending November and December with my head kept relatively down low, as I'll be saving for a trip to Asia for Christmas and New Year. Of course we have Melbourne Cup coming up next week so I'm sure there'll be some interesting attire to make comment on then. I'm currently looking into buying my first motorbike so I'm sure a wishlist will be on it's way here soon!

Kia ora, Aotearoa!

Almost two months have passed since my last visit to beautiful New Zealand, so what better time to finally post my photos up?

When my (now ex-) boyfriend and I visited the Land of the Long White Cloud last year we did a fairly luxurious trip down the coast to the bottom of the South Island and back on an inland route via Queenstown to Christchurch. We drove a brand spanking new Toyota Corolla, and stayed in some rather expensive hotels (by NZ standards at least - so about $4.50/night in real money). This time for a change my friends and I opted for the cheaper alternative and drove a Jucy camper van along the approximately 1,300km drive from Auckland to Christchurch.

Living in a van was a 'interesting' experience and all I can say is, if you don't mind holding your wee in for five hours until the person sleeping in front of the door wakes up you'll be fine; otherwise, you're gonna have a bad time. If you value personal space - you're gonna have a bad time. If walking to the public showers/toilets in freezing temperatures isn't something you feel you can deal with - you're gonna have a bad time. Anyway, it's an experience I can now say I've done and never have to do again.

Aside from that, highlights of the trip included: doing the 192m high Skywalk around the outside of the SkyTower in Auckland, extreme Mario Kart-esque luging in the rain at Rotorua (sadly I didn't get any pictures but you can see the luging track here), wandering through the middle of an active volcano (which erupted just a week after we visited!), visiting some bloody impressive gardens in Hamilton, snowboarding and me accidentally stumbling across a group of seals while I was taking photos at a coastal lookout. 

Bula mai Viti!

I went on a mini-holiday to Fiji last week over the Easter weekend to spend some quality time with my grandma (or bubu - pronounced 'boombu' in Fijian) and other relatives in our village on the island of Qamea (pronounced 'ngamea'). I was there at the start of the year but had to come home early due to family circumstances here, so it was my first trip out to the island since 2005.

Although my trip had some maddeningly low points (my bag going on a day-trip of its own across the country being one), it was mostly five days of sun, sand, delicious home-made food, boating and adorable little girl cousins shadowing my every step.

How sweet is my bubu in her awesome retro shades?