In praise of mishaps

When you're writing about your travels, everything going right is pretty much fatal. Last year I backpacked around Europe and got a fair bit of mileage in my emails home from language barriers, the Eurostar breaking down twenty miles from Paris, the night I got shitfaced with a lad from Manchester and realised the next morning that I'd spent a week's budget in one evening, the morning I was presented with a bread roll and assured that that was my lot as far as the "continental breakfast included" was concerned, and the downright horror of being caught on the Rome subway at rush hour with another night in the world's worst hostel to look forward to. See? I'm still getting mileage out of it now.

But I'm struggling with what to write here. The flight was fine - god help me I even enjoyed the food. The refuelling stop in LA was roughly 243% less painful than I was expecting it to be (although it was three in the morning back in England, and after ten hours on the plane I had one hell of a Kubrick stare going on - think Alex at the start of a Clockwork Orange, or Private Pile just before he quits the army: I was blinking only when I could feel my eyeballs shrivelling up from lack of moisture - so it's possible that the Immigration Officer was mildly alarmed and decided that waving me through to the transit lounge was the quickest way to get me out of the country without incident). Arrived in Auckland and checked into the hotel, all fine and dandy.What can I say? Hell, I even checked my tent to see if I'd forgotten the poles or something so I could give you all a giggle, but no dice. Sorry. Stay tuned though, because I never set up the afore-mentioned tent while I was back in England* so there will be much hilarity as fate decides to pitch a snowstorm at me on the first night I need to use it. And I'll find out that I've forgotten the poles after all. And then my map will blow away and my trousers will fall down, and the group of attractive girls that have gathered to watch my titantic struggle will giggle and whisper. It will happen, mark my words.

Anyway, tomorrow sees my first hike in New Zealand - Rangitoto Island, described in my guidebook as "a freakish land of fractured black lava". Sounds nice.

* I tried once, but I was hungover and just as I'd laid out the groundsheet and inner tent a great gust of wind blew them into the hedge, which was the cue for a heartfelt cry of "right, fuck it!", a violently quick repacking of the various bits and pieces and a moody retreat to my bed until I felt better.