New Zealand trip, day 10: Change of plans and a lazy day

Monday, October 10

One of the biggest lessons I learned while in youth ministry is to remain flexible at all times.

Last night, Josh and I plotted the rest of our time together in New Zealand. We decided we'd hop on a bus first thing this morning and spend a couple days in Wellington. Then we'd hop on another bus and finish up the trip with a couple days in Whangarei (about 2 hours north of Auckland) so I could make it to the airport on time for my 2:00-something flight on Saturday afternoon. We did last-minute laundry, packed, perused The Lonely Planet for activities in Wellington and Whangarei, said goodbye to flatmates, and went to bed.

This morning I rolled out of bed, finished packing, and headed out to the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast, only to be met by Josh who greeted me with, "Okay, we need to change our plans." Due to bus route funkiness, Whangarei is not going to be a good option after all. The bus ride from Wellington to Whangarei is a beast (option A is a 15-hour all-night ride, and option B is a two-day trip with an overnight somewhere between Wellington and Whangarei). Also, the earliest bus from Whangarei to the Auckland airport on Saturday is a little too tight for comfort. So we're nixing Whangarei altogether (disappointing, since there are a lot of good-sounding, low-budget activities there) and are going to just do Wellington, with a Friday night in Hamilton and a Saturday morning bus to Auckland.

So the choices this morning were these: 1) spend an extra day here in New Plymouth and go to Wellington tomorrow, which would give us half of Tuesday and all of Wednesday and Thursday in Wellington; or 2) get on the bus this morning to Wellington, and have half of today plus all of Tuesday through Thursday in Wellington. And since I'm the visitor, Josh put the decision on me. For a number of reasons, I chose to stick around New Plymouth today and head to Wellington tomorrow.

So today has been gloriously laid-back and agenda-less! I threw some pictures on Facebook while internet usage was still unlimited, then crawled back in bed. When I got up the second time, I leisurely went through the rest of my pictures from days six through nine (so they're ready to upload the next time I have access to unrestricted internet), puttered around on Facebook, made another loaf of beer bread with Josh, caught up on email, revived dormant Words with Friends games, had a couple cups of hot tea . . . it's been a good day!