New Country. New Adventure. New Currency.

So I have offiically made it to Auckland. Yesterday. And now that I am here I realize how much I was so focused on just getting here, on preparing to get here, on planning, thinking and dreaming of getting here that I completely missed the point on what it meant to be here. It never really entered my mind that I would be travelling to an entirely different country. Sure, I KNEW that New Zealand was it's own country, but it never clicked in my head of what that would mean once I put my feet on its solid ground... or as solid as it could be after fighting off a major earthquake in the south island.

Regardless, I have made it and the fact that I am in an entirely different country has begun to faze me. I mean, first off - I have to learn an entirely different currency. I'm just thankful we're still talking in "dollars and cents." But, yet again, I have to remember which color notes are which and whether the big gold coin is worth more or less than the smaller one. I'm at the point where I struggle to remember what color Canadian currency is. That being said - I do have fond memories of our Loonies and Toonies, if only for their names alone.

Just today as Alex and I regrouped at our temporary homebase and set up our tent on the lawn of a local backpacker hostel (with permission of course), we shortly discovered that the bottom of my beloved 2-man tent has worn away the waterproof layer and thereby all the wetness from the ground is now able to seep through. Not exactly a great start to our whole getting-all-the-ducks-in-a-row plan. Needless to say, we're trying to keep our cool hats on and not think about the pain and suffering that went into waiting for the tent to arrive all the way from Canad only a few months ago. For those who are questioning our ability to notice this beforehand - well, when the tent was set up in Broome, the ground was dry and stayed dry due to my tent's super ability to remain waterproofed on the outside. That being said, the floor of the tent rubbed against Broome's hard and rocky dirt surface for the past 4 months which is where our issue here-in lies.

As such, today I called Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), where the tent is from, in order to see what the options are. They said it would be no problem to fix should I simply drop by a MEC location and hand the tent over to them. I then informed the gentleman on the other end of the phone that I was calling from Australia. Apparently my trip to New Zealand has yet to set in.

So - as my brain attempts to refocus on the fact that I am no longer in Australia - Alex and I have our fingers crossed that maybe, just maybe the department of MEC that deals with warrenty's, malfunctions of products from overseas and all things related will be able to help us with a solution. Tomorrow. As there would be nothing worse than starting our 5 month trek with a tent that seeps water up from the bottom. Particularly when rapid weather changes and a large amount of yearly rainfall is known among these parts of the world.

On another note - tomorrow will be mine and Alex's Christmas. Tomorrow we will receive most of our stuff that our sponsors have so generously helped us out with.... I wonder if they've thought to tuck a spare tent in one of those packages.....................