Dunedin done

Hey guys,

Thought i'd add a quick entry to my blog as we leave Dunedin in the morning and head back on the road so god knows when i will be online again. Dunedin has been fairly kind to us. It's not what i would call a typical city but by NZ standards it is pretty big. It has a real Scottish heritage which we noticed as soon as we arrived here and went to the local farmers market. A dude playing a bagpipe ushered us into the market where we did our usual thing of being impressed with all the local fresh produce without actually buying anything. It's a trick i have learnt from Kate. There are also lots of touristy little Scottish shops scattered around where you can buy tartans and haggis. We have even seen dickhead tourists wearing tamoshanters (the little tartan hats). They look like something from the Russ Abbott show from back in the 80's! The city is a university city and has the oldest uni in NZ. Both Tee and Anna went to school here, as do most Kiwis, and they spoke about a city full of vibrancy and fun. I guess when you are a student and out with mates on the piss all the time, most places can be seen that way. I beg to differ. Yes there are a lot of bars and there is a live music scene here but it is in no way as lively as Qtown was.

We have only really ventured out of the apartment at night once to be fair. We were walking along the cities main street when we noticed a NPPL poker tournament being played that night at an Irish bar called "The Bog." We decided we would give it a go as we have played a fair bit of poker over the last few months. I may have mentioned it? Anyway, we got to the bar and it was dead. We nearly about turned and scarpered but we got a beer and signed up for poker. Similar to Qtown games, at 6.55pm, 5 minutes before the game was supposed to start, about 30 people suddenly appeared. I got chatting to the barman who turned out to be an odd little fella from Fleet. Elvetham Heath to be exact who had also lived in Guildford. He was bizarre so i dodged anymore conversation with him and got stuck into the game. My table was probably the quietest poker table i had ever been at. Lots of guys taking it all way too seriously. I didn't get any hands and before long i was left with only a few chips. It didn't help that they did a raffle where you bought numbers which would be drawn to win chips. Just buying numbers got you 5000 chips for every 5 bucks you spent. After the first raffle some guy on my table suddenly had over 50,000 in chips! I sat opposite him with a mere 3000. It struck me as a bit unfair. I mean we did raffles back in Qtown but you won maybe 15,000 at most. This guy had gone from nothing to chip leader in the space of 5 minutes, and there were 2 raffles! It takes a lot of poker out of the game but as i have always said about poker, cream rises to the top. I was patient. Probably the most patient i have ever been at a poker table. I bided my time and got a run of cards which saw me turn my 3000 chips to around 120,000! When we both got to final table i was the chip leader! Kate took great pleasure in informing everyone that i hadn't played the raffle either as everyone was in awe of my huge stack whilst i went to the bathroom. I played a bit sketchy on final table after Kate got knocked out as i felt she just wanted to go home. After one bullshit call i made she had a go at me and told me to tighten up. I told her i thought she wanted to go but she said she'd prefer a bar tab. I then went on a tear, knocking out 3 people and regaining the chip lead. When it got to heads up against me and this one eyed dude called Eden I was already stoked. It already felt like a win. I was down to just 3 chips at one point and had got to heads up. I was way tired though and got beat. I am still on a high from it though even though the $25 dollar bar tab has long been spent. It proved to me that i am pretty good at this poker malarkey. In Qtown i got to a point where i was just playing the same faces week in and week out and i got a bit bored of it as i knew i had already beaten them but here in a new place with new people and up against the stupidest raffle system in the world, i played awesome! I don't think i have a gambling problem or anything but i love playing Texas hold 'em. Be it online or in a dingy pub, as long as it is free, i love it. I have only played a few cash games and have had a fair bit of success in them but playing for money holds a sort of fear for me. Probably for the best anyway.

Especially since we got our final payments into our account this week. Kates last payslip and holiday pay was more than we thought it would be and we got pretty much all of our security deposit back on the house (the oven needed cleaning which cost $80) but our bank account is far from what i would call healthy. The money we have in there now is supposed to see us through from now up until we leave NZ. Apart from our tax rebates which we can apply for next month, we will not be getting anymore money in. It is super scary in a way, especially since i drained my UK bank account too whilst in Qtown. Money that was supposed to be used for things like Birthday and Xmas cards. So for the first time in years i feel skint. I mean we have money locked away in UK accounts for when we get home but for know we actually have money worries. The cost of living out here is way more than we thought and the pound has spiralled down in value against the Kiwi dollar. We heard the other day that NZ groceries have increased in price the 3rd most in the world after only Korea and Australia. It shows as well with huge discrepancies from place to place. Avocados were nearly $3 each in Qtown! You can buy 2 for $1 here. It all comes down to NZ only having 2 main supermarket companies and them charging ridiculous prices for stuff. The farmers here are getting shafted too as they are paid pretty much the same for their goods as they were 10 years ago but the mark up on them is insane. Groan. So nights out and poker (unless we can keep winning bar tabs) are probably things of the past for us now as we are really gonna have to tighten the old purse strings.

That said we did go a little crazy on our Cadbury factory tour. Man, even by NZ standards it was shit! They had these little animatronic dolls making chocolate in the main foyer. It looked like a really naff version of it's a small world after all in Disney. Like they had made the dolls themselves from an early 1970's edition of Blue Peter! We got some freebies though but nothing good like Dairy milk or crunchies. We went to the shop on the way out though and bought a few bars which lasted all of about 15 minutes once we got them back to the apartment.

It seems i have fallen back into my old ways of pigging out on lots of rubbish food. The week we spent in Biff i obsessed about food but stuck to just noodles, rice and peanut butter sandwiches, or Pikey food as i call it. In Dunedin i have already had 2 burger kings. It doesn't help that it is quite cheap. When we get back in Biff i am seriously going to have to change my ways again. I have also started waking up at the butt crack of dawn again. A common family ailment is that a few of us are natural early risers. My Nan used to work in a newsagent so was always up and out by 6.30am but in comparison to my mum, her 6.30am is considered a lay in! I am not quite that bad yet but rarely sleep past 6.30am. The last few weeks i have had what i consider lay ins and not woken until 7.30am but i am now back into the old 6.30am wake ups. It's not that I'm not tired but no matter how exhausted i seem to get i always wake up at 6.30am. Shit, even if i don't get home til 3am, i still wake up at 6.30am, or ridiculouso'clock as i call it. Maybe i need some warm milk at night or some sort of herbal remedy. I have no trouble getting to sleep, i just wake up stupidly early. Oh well.

So we leave Dunedin way (where i lived as a kid strangely) and head north tomorrow. Probably up the coast to check out the Moreaki boulders on our way to Oamaru to go see if we can spot more bloody penguins!

Peace

D

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