………Then where’s the sex, drugs and rock and roll. I’m in a major tourist resort and it’s like heaven on a Saturday night, (Sorry, Mr Cohen), I struggled to find a bar, and saw only a couple restaurants, no wonder the motel room is fitted with a good kitchen. However they’ve almost exonerated themselves…the picture below.

Looking at the little timber frame houses it’s easy to see that people built what they had left behind. I can remember houses like that when I was a kid, but we’ve knocked ours all down while it seems to have become the style of building here.

My first day of driving was like going through Scotland in the rain, but with Agapanthus and tree ferns growing at the side of the road. But today the weather has been fine and the views wonderful, and I have come down from the Bay of Islands, north of Auckland, to Rotorua, famed for its smelly sulphurous water.

When I get wi-fi again, I will post three blogs at once, so you’ll have to scroll back to find out about my visit to Singapore and Auckland. Still, something to read on Boxing Day between the cold turkey, cold turkey sandwiches and oh-no-not-turkey-curry-again.

I keep filling up basins just to see the water go down the plug in the opposite direction, and have worked out why our clocks go clockwise……any other anorak come up with the answer?…….