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I thought I would take this opportunity to write a Blog - but this isn’t an ordinary Blog. It wasn’t written in a Hostel Dorm Room. It wasn’t even written in a Coffee Shop. This Blog was written from the Geographical Centre of New Zealand. Yup, that’s right. I’m sitting on top of a mountain (well, maybe it’s technically a hill, but you try climbing it – when you do, you will realise that it is actually a mountain). So how did I get here? Well, this morning I checked out of my room at the ridiculously early time of 9.00am! I then made myself some toast and... a packed lunch. Don’t laugh. I know how sad that sounds, me making myself peanut butter sandwiches, but I was feeling very, productive this morning. I’ve decided to stop wasting money on food! I suppose if I can make it myself, then I should! Anyway, I packed my sandwhiches, apple and water into my rucksack and after selecting some tunes – today it’s Maroon 5, I set off on my epic adventure. Basically the walk starts in a public park, so I headed there and started my “20 minute” walk. Which so doesn’t take 20 minutes. it didn’t take me that long, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t 20 minutes. It was really just an uphill walk, with twists and turns and a few breaks because my legs were really quite sore... People who say, “pain is just weakness leaving the body” have it wrong. Pain is pain. Pain hurts. Why hurt yourself? Self-harm isn’t the answer.

I was glad I did the walk though, for what it was, the end result was definitely worth it. Right now I’m sitting on the viewing deck, the view is amazing. To my left there are mountains. To my right there are mountains. In fact, there are mountains all around. If I look directly ahead I can see all of Nelson. I see churches and houses, businesses and rugby pitches, I can see huge houses that probably belong to the richies in Nelson. To my right I can see water, the sea actually. Vast amount of water, with mountains as a backdrop. I think you get the picture – Nelson is beautiful and being at the geographical centre of New Zealand really is as cool as it sounds.

That’s pretty much all I have to say – it’s only 10.54am, how much can a girl do before lunch? I’ll write more, probably from a less beautiful setting, when I actually do something of interest!

Update: After my walk I went back to Fern Lodge and collected my stuff, then I started walking to “The Green Monkey”. I walked here last night and it took 15 minutes. Today it took at least 30 minutes. Probably more. My bag is so huge and so heavy. It’s horrible! As if the massive bag wasn’t bad enough, the stupid wheel broke! So I was basically dragging the beast of a bag across the pavement, making so much noise! It was horrible, plus I had my food bag and my rucksack, both are ridiculously heavy. Not fun. Not fun at all!

The Hostel is actually really nice. It’s small, but nice. They have real carpet too and you have to take your shoes off, just like at home! The rooms are nicely decorated and colourful, which I never realised was so important, but it really is! It’s really nice to have a bit of colour around you –the while walls in Base are nice, but they are kind of, sterile, now that I think about it! The room is really nice and each person has their own p`ersonal light, which I’m really excited about. I wish I could have stayed for longer, but I can’t because the only bus out of Nelson is on Friday, the next available one is on the 8th of April, which wouldn’t been too bad, but at the same time I want to see the rest of South Island! I’ve only been here for a few days and I still have so much to see!

The Wireless internet is free here, which is amazing, so I started uploading my pictures and videos. Turns out Videos really slow down your upload time. Really. So now I’m only uploading pictures and I’m nowhere near done! I think I’m just going to leave my laptop on all night, that way they will all hopefully be done – I hope the Hostel man doesn’t turn off the internet at night! That would ruin my awesome plan! I took a break from picture uploading and Blog writing for dinner, which was a microwave meal and it was really quite gross. I’m regretting eating it, not fun! But what was fun was that the guy made a cake – and was giving it away for free! So I had myself a nice bit of cake after dinner and it was actually really, really nice! I was very surprised! Normally cake that someone makes themselves is gross, especially if it’s free, but this was beaut! Now that I’m fed and watered I’m going to upload some more pictures and post a few Blogs and then I’m going to sleep, which sounds really amazing right now!

Xx