quick and dirty

This update will be of the variety spelled out in the title, since the Internet at tonight's hostel is slow and expensive.
We've been slowly working our way north along the top of NZ, and tomorrow are scheduled to get up to the very top - Cape Reinga, via a bus tour along the 90-mile beach. The beach is an unbroken expanse of hard sand along the west coast of the top of the country that is used as a highway for the adventurous.
We've had free places to stay along the way - a friend's beach-front house in Russell, in the Bay of Islands, was last weekend's accomodation. A week ago we got even luckier - stopping at a small local brewery by Taranaki we struck up a conversation with the brewery owner, who ended up letting us stay in a small cabin he had. Our most random social interaction so far - I'm hoping we end up beating it.

(and on another note, I've just passed 100 posts on this blog. Which seems like I've been seriously slacking. So, sorry.)