Dreamyoga.co.uk Blog

So, moved from the madness of Ingrid’s House to Treea’s place in Melbourne. This is in one of the classiest locations in Melbourne. The house itself is three story’s and opposite a large park, it was great to stay there and was very quiet and calm, even though a few days before a possum had broken into the top-story room that was to be mine and made a bit of a mess. It had climbed up a very tall tree and in through the window and settled until the Possum-catcher turned up, charged $200 and departed with possum. Treea and her freind Sky are great company and have been really, really kind to both Louise and I.

So I arrived late evening, very tired after my sleepless stay at Geelong, and Louise was turning up at 2am.

We had to share a bed because there was no other spare bed in the house. So still laughing at 3.30ish we turned the light off.    Almost straight away there was a rustling in the handbags, light back on, and two very small, dark mice dashed back to safety.

Had a brilliant day, so lovely to see her, though she has changed since she’s been with her new man and is now more herself than ever - very refreshing!

That night off to sleep again, no night time disturbance, or so I thought, but when I woke Louise said “do you want the bad news?”. It seems she’d woken in the night to find a mouse in her hair - eek!

Next day she was back on the four hour trip to Perth, its a huge country isn’t it? leaving me alone with the mouse.

I cleared everything away from the sides of the bed and during the night I heard some rustling on the bedside table - they were obviously trying to build a bridge across, but didn’t succeed.

The next morning off to Tasmania.

The road from the airport to Hobart is one of the most beautiful I had been on anywhere. The autumnal shades of the trees, lots of oranges , yellows and reds against dark navy mountains in very bright sunshine, with a big expanse of sea(second deepest port in the world -46 meters) in the middle was simply stunning. Hobart itself has a lot going on, brilliant art galleries, a demonstration against the chopping down of the rain forest and two very good charity shops, what more could I ask?

I’ve got a woofing job with the Swanns, so David Swann picked me up after he finished work and we drove the 20 kilometers to their home in Aussie-bush-land. The house is stunning, high up with views over the North bay (ie facing the sun here), one of the loveliest gardens I’ve seen and a beautifully appointed house. I have my own suite with beautiful old iron bedstead and lots of lovely antiques. Outside the door to my room is a living area with a great massage chair, I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying it out already. Jacqui Swann is lovely and here where I stay is very near Kettering (this will impress a close freind of mine) Did quite a lot of hard gardening today, buggered my back - but hope they were impressed.

Here until the 18th, looking forward to seeing all the fabulous native birds, there is actually a very bright red robin, and today I saw a wren with a navy blue tail, there are sea eagles here too. David has promised to take me out with the torch tommorow night to look for wallabies and possums. Its 4 degrees tonight, the coldest I’ve expereinced in a couple of years.

Lots of love to all of you

I actually had an absolutely marvellous time at Kerri’s house in Melbourne, it was all creamy-clean and calm and beautifully quiet, we also had lovely chats about astrology, food and girl’s stuff, and I did her feet and taught her the 5 Tibetans. Went to see a great band called the Black Eyed Susan, it was in a little pub and was packed out. For the last number I asked a nice man with fabulous long curtain like hair to dance, then I also asked another man, until eventually there was 20 of us in a circle with our arms round each other dancing, it was lovely, sometimes having 3 large glasses of red wine can move things along socially.

Off to Geelong the next day for a bit of wwoofing (world organization of organic farming, where you swop 4 hours labour a day for bed and board) The write up in the wwoofing book said that Robert and Ingrid were looking for someone to play board games with Ingrid (who is in a wheelchair), it said Robert likes a bit of a green-political chat and they were both naturists!

After the calm of Keri’s house this was sheer madness. Ingirid is a fabulous woman, born with cerebral palsey, she’ s very smart and bossy, extremely compassionate and a definte queen of her own household. Robert is a masseur. Other household members are Mungi  a delightful Korean wwoofer who has the most beautiful smile, Kim is the cook, a large amazing female from Queenstown, who removes her own teeth with a hammer rather than go to the dentist, she’s worked on fish trawlers, eventually replacing 3 members of the crew because she was so strong and fast at her job, she also ran a Karrioki bar in melbourne - fabulously funny woman.  Also Jen was in the house - another lady in a wheel chair, but a bit depressed, the cleaner Stacey pops in now and again and someone else is turning up tonight, a family freind.

There’s a little fat dog called Ruffle, when the phone rings Ruffle starts barking in a very high pitched, but very loud style, so there’s a rush to the phone, wheelchairs whizzing out of the way and those of us who can speak English rush to answer, just to stop the noise! It is a living nightmare, its lovely to be here for a few days, but any longer and it would do my head in completley.

I’m camped on the floor of the massage room, all other bedrooms being taken, its nice and quiet and at least I can close the door to keep Ruffle out of my bags, she’s an expert thief!

Ingrid is an expert Scrabble player, she’s very good indeed and teaching me lots.

In 2 days I’m going to take the bus trip down Ocean Road, I’m told its not to  be missed, its a 9 hour trip. Then I move into Treea’s house in Melbourne. Treea is sister to one of my Lancaster reflexology clients, she’s kindly letting me have a room in her house for a few days and I’ll give her and her freinds Reflexology in exchange, the bedroom I will have was recently visited by a possum, just jumped in the window from the roof, he left a bit of a mess it seems.

Anyway my freind Lovely Louise is coming to stay there with me, I can’t wait, so looking forward to seeing her and hearing that much-missed Preston accent, we have one problem, only one double bed between the two of us, I can imagine it will be a nightmare with the two of us laughing all night - what fun!

Then Tasmania, Yes I’m finally going to make it, didn’t get the job with ice cream man, instead with Jacqueline and David doing a bit more wwoofing, they are environmentalists and into animal welfare rights and need a hand with the large garden, bottling produce, cooking etc. They also go to market, second hand shops and tip shops (whatever they are) but it all sounds very interesting.

Then home to Lancaster on 21st, really looking forward to coming home. I’ve got Helen’s flat to stay in for 2 weeks during which time I’m going to move the truck back to its original position, and if its all in one piece move back in! Hurray!

Well awful is the only way I can explain my first day here…

I left Great Barrier Island and the sound of the lapping sea and the sunshine and smiling faces etc and after a pretty choppy ferry ride stayed at good friend Vickies overnight in Auckland. The next night up at 1am to catch the shuttle to the airport and off to Oz. I’ve not got anything at all against Chinese people and I try not to be racist, but honestly my flight was full of extremely rude,loud, aggressive and, I’m afraid to say, quite smelly Chinese people. The woman behind me on the plane constantly stood up and leaned her elbow into my head and the man in front had his seat so far back his (very greasy) head was 12 inches from my nose. I was really glad to get off the plane.

Then we all waited in the passport queue, me and 450 Chinese people( I know it was 450, I had an hour to count them) Then another hour in baggage claim, by which time it was 8.15am, I got a shuttle to the city and phone Keri - but no reply.

I had written to the Keri, who I was staying with in Melbourne,  three weeks before to give her all the details of my travel (she got this letter the day after my arrival). Keri is a high powered executive at IBM. When I talked to her on the phone from the Island she had said to text her as soon as I got in. I sent many texts all day - no response - by 3pm (14 hours after I’d got out of bed after 4 hours sleep) I was still no nearer any response from her. I walked and walked and walked all through the city.

At one point at around mid-day there was a crowd of people collected in the street, when I asked  what was going on they said a man had just jumped out of the (very) high rise building opposite, the police was putting a cordon around him, poor soul! It made me feel really sick. I went and sat in cafe and read the paper to take my mind off it, the first article I came to was about a woman who got a leech in her eye while she was gardening and it grew to 4 times its size while she was trying to get it out.

It was all getting a bit surreal now!

I was afraid of spending too much money on food etc as when I changed my $100 NZ at the airport I got $66 Australian  in exchange, which near enough halved my funds, and everything here was more $ than it had been in NZ, Oh dear.

Eventually I went to the internet and checked Keri’s number I had been texting the wrong number! She was just going into a meeting, when I did get through, and wouldn’t be free till 6pm. I was totally exhausted by this time and when we did meet I had in so much pain in my back and was so tired I just burst into tears.

She was lovely and bundled me into a cab, ran a lovely hot shower for me, fed me on dippy things, lovely red wine and after a nice chat I was fast asleep by 10pm.

When I woke up this morning  there was no sound of the sea - though there was some lovely hot sunshine.

Applied for a job today, there were a few, a lady who wants me to live in for a couple of weeks and play board games with her, a wild life park who wants someone to clean out the cages and the one I’d like is a man who advertises thus….    “I grow  berries and fruit trees which end up feeding the birds, I’m putting another orchard in, so the birds wont’ starve, I have a veggie garden, when the possums let me. Work here includes firewood collecting, weeding, orchard work, ice cream eating, competitions….anything! If you can cook I will worship you forever. I play the piano and the pipe organ. I am  also a botanist and can tell you about plants and trees. This job is not about work but meeting people, sharing and fun”

So of course I’ve applied for the latter which is in Tasmania, I’ll let you know how I get on.

I had a fabulous birthday

Friend Elaine and her husband Richard came from Lancaster and the first thing I heard of the outside world was them singing a kind of Old English Happy birthday in two part harmony, it was very beautiful. I had literally loads of gifts and presents to open, thank you so much to all those people who wrote and sent.

We went for a swim and lunch, the water is beautiful and warm, though there is a bit of a chill in the morning as we come into winter.   Elaine left as Debs turned up with a bottle of fizzy, so I lay in a warm bath listening to her news. Then off to the glamourous party at the Thai Resturant, the food was excellent and I made a little speech and handed over to Elaine, who got everyone singing in 4 parts, then the German contingent struck up with their version and I gave them an Irish rendition, it all went very well indeed. After that off to my friends bar at Tipi and Bob’s then down to St Patricks night at the Currack, the Irish bar. Things had all got a bit out of hand by now, I’d probably had far more wine than usual and I remember several people, I didnt know that well kissing me on the lips (excuse me) and being whizzed around the room-  a bit too fast - by the ex. Got home at Iam, now fully 60!

A couple of days before my freind Jude invited me to release some robins, Jude lives in a huge community (landwise not people numbers) which she has cleared of rats and pests. Last week her and her team and three bird experts (including my landlady Karen) went to a small island on a lake in Rotorua and caught 50 North Island Robins. Some of you may know Robins are my favourite creatures. The birds were caught on a Tuesday and put one to a cat box. They were boated back to the mainland, taken in a truck to the airport, then a plane to Auckland, then a plane to Great Barrier Island, then several cars up to the community of Windy Hill. Then us helpers got 2 boxes each and off we went into the deep bush. What a pace! Through impenatrable paths, over large rocks, tree stumps and mini ravines underfoot, I was breathless and sweating in minutes, with no hands free to stop myself falling.

I was doing my best - honest- when Karen said “Grace those birds can hear every sound in the boxes so try not to let anything touch the side” This meant walking backwards when there was no seeable path or break in the bush, holding the boxes above waist hieght, all at 100km an hour and being unable to moan - everyone else was used to the bush and they all seemed so TOUGH, didnt want to appear the “whingeing pom”

After not very long my shoulders and upper arms were screaming, there was also a nice little shower going on that was making the rocks and paths very slippery indeed. I prayed to every being that I could think of not to fall over, kill the birds and spend the rest of my life in conservation prison. After 90 minutes (I told you it was a big piece of land) my bootlaces were undone, there were bits of verbiage in my hair, all my clothes were stuck to me, possible posionous spiders in my underwear and a bright red face - not a good look, we found the place of release. The birds were of course delighted and flew off every which way with all of us in awe, I took some wonderful pictures, mostly of us all open-mouthed!

Wouldnt have missed it for the world - it was fantastic! 

The one thing New Zealand isn’t good at its rain. Its soft and wispy and usually accompanied by a warm wind and we get days of very accurate warning days before hand. In the UK , I find the metrological office tells us it will be a beautiful summer day, so we go off to work in appropriate clothing, come lunchtime the sky is black, its lashing stair-rods with sharp cold winds with no let up for days - I miss it.

I was on my way to the Thai Restaurant (12km distant) to meet some friends the other night, a tropical cyclone had been predicted, the week before, for 6pm that night. As I stood trying to hitch a lift I noticed every bit of traffic was going in the wrong direction. A few tiny drops of rain appeared, next thing there’s someone reversing back towards me, tyres screaming “Do I need a lift, or taken to shelter?” I said I’d be fine. Then 2 people stopped and turned around and took me all the way back to Claris where they’d just come from. They turned out to be aggressively proselytizing off-island Christians. They would hardly let me out until I promised to read the New Testament, through which, they thought, the Lord would speak to me and I would be saved!

The rain and wind picked up during the night and it was also high tide, the sea was sloshing about all over the place.

The next morning I was watering my only plant and realised there were literally thousands of ants in the pot. I popped it all into a bucket of water and the ants all came rushing out with little white bags under their arms (they did this all day). Then the windows became totally full of flying ants. I checked my washing on the line later and wasps, bums in the air, were attacking my bra. I’d been reading Ruby Wax’s autobiography all day which was full of angst of a bad childhood and several nervous breakdowns, though wittily written. I’d felt I’d have quite a strange day, so went to the pub for the first time in months and months. Got bitten by mosquitoes and picked up all the local gossip.

I know some of my blog focuses a lot on the word stingray, I keep telling people there are a lot and they are very aggressive. Somebodies dog was killed yesterday by a stingray. The dog owner, Fred Simpson, has only one arm and the other consists of a big articulated hook leading from lots of metal rods. Fred it seems is out at the moment killing stingray, five big ones already. So its been a strange day of seething and biting and stinging.

I want you to help me make a decision. I’m a Piscean and two good arguments are too much for me, should I go to Tasmania or not?

Fors- 1) Darren the barman for Birmingham says it the most fabulous place he’s ever been to. The people are lovely, he says and its very beautiful

2) I’ve been reading a lot of Tasmania history and guide books and there is a lot of fantastic things to do and see.

3) I’ve contacted the Tasmanian WWOOFERS (willing workers on organic farms) and there is some work , so I could swop 4 hours work a day for accommodation.

4) I’m leaving to come back to the uk via Melbourne which is a 10 hour ferry ride from Tassie, so its not too far out of my way and my ticket is flexible so I can change it any time.

Againsts-

1) I have very little cash just now, it would be more economically viable to come home end of April and miss Tasmania altogether

2) I have an amazing tan just now, after a month in T it will be all gone, cos its colder , and I wont be able to show it off.

3) I’m anxious to come home and see my grandchildren and friends, because I do miss them very much.

So any thoughts on all this please contact me on graceyogi@hotmail.co.uk. Also any contacts in Tasmania could be very welcome.

Blue skies, fabulous warm weather and always much to do on Great Barrier Island. Over the weekend torrential rain - so good- we really needed it for the gardens and water tanks as its ages since we had any rain.

My friend Stessie and I went to the Brockie Horror Show at the local Irish Pub (named such because the landlord is John Brock) Stess won the best dressed, I brushed my hair really hard and ended up with it sticking out at least 12″ all around my head , I looked really horrible! One of the particpants got so drunk that he came out of the pub into his car and just kept driving, crashed into a large Pahutakawa tree, flew out the door and bashed his skull far below on a large rock on the beach, poor Harry. This time last year he was dressed up as Peter Pan and “flew” out of a high tree and broke his rib cage, shoulder and pelvis. There are some benefits to having hardly any policing on the island but stopping people drunken-driving would definitely be a plus.

Once a year the Armed Defenders turn up with helicopters checking for marijuna, they always find some and the next thing you know they are pouring poison on to the land out of buckets from the helicopters, this may seem a good plan to get rid of the drugs, but as most people get their water from the roof and grow vegetables in their gardens its a disastrous plan for the locals, particularly on such a beautiful, pristine Island as this.

I swam across the bay last week, not a huge swim but it took 25 minutes one way and was a huge challenge to me, only this time last year I wouldn’t have gone out of my depth in sea water because of sharks, stingrays and whales. I generally swim off the boat ramp because it has a lovely deep entry into the bright turquoise sea, most of the beaches here have really shallow water and you can go out for ages and only be knee high. So, I was sitting on the ramp with two other women saying that I’d always wanted to swim across the bay, they stood up and said “come on then”. So off I went, with a caring woman either side and giving me a nudge whenever I was going off in the wrong direction (I had to have snorkel and mask so that I could look out for the monsters of the deep). I thought my arms would give out but eventually we landed on the other beach and had a big hug. Back on the ramp and tired we watched as a HUGE stingray (the width of the 8ft wide ramp) sat under the water, shimmered there for a moment and floated off like a cloud moving slowly - so beautiful.

Was feeling very strange about my impending 60th birthday (March 17th) , uninspired and kind of lack luster, I didnt think it had to do with my age, as the older I get the more I like it. (This seems to be the one ‘problem’ with doing the 5 Tibetians every day, as they reverse signs of aging, even down to darkening grey hair, what a shame I was so looking forward to grey hair, think of the amazing colours it could be dyed once it was all white! Anyway couldn’t suss out myself what was wrong and went to see a fabulous Homeopath here on the Island, I do love Homeopathy it always does the business for me, so I’m taking a mixture for my heart, which was quite sealed up against all-comers, and we’ll see what happens. Feeling so much better today, laughing and enjoying life and being my usual sociable self again.

So far in the birthday plans - my brother may come from Madrid, which will be fabulous, he’s such a dag!   Elaine and Richard are coming from Lancaster, but I’ve done nothing apart from ordering a marquee for the front garden (£18) a huge one that will cover the whole of the front of Ollie’s Cottage and lots of solar-powered fairy lights coming from friends, and absolutely nothing  else, no invites gone out and no plans- feels very different to my usual organizing of events. But of course if anyone wants to send card, cheques or presents my address is The Outpost Tryphena Great Barrier Island New Zealand.

Let me know how you all are and what you’re up to, can’t say I miss U.K very much but I definitely miss my pals.   lots and lots of love Grace

Its been a trickey couple of months. I arrived on the Island earlier than usual to help Christine have her baby, not realizing that there would be few of my usual clients here and consequently nearly starved to death! All the people that told me, via internet, that they were queueing up for a treatment, were terribly busy all of a sudden. Prices have gone up, a lot, on the island due to the rise in fuel costs.

After five weeks I’d completely run out of cash with just $20 (£8) in the bank. I became extremely depressed, kind of really suddenly, and felt very low indeed. I mean REALLY low. Everything was totally abysmal and my back packed in and I could hardly walk.

Within a day or two I realized the depression was due to some antihistamines that I was taking and as soon as I stopped taking them it all came right.

Then I talked to my freind Louise in Australia and she told me to get on with it and use my magical powers and manifest what I need - she is such an inspiration!

I was awake all night - what to do?

In the morning I contacted four good freinds who had promised to help, should I get into trouble, and asked them to help out, within days there was £300 in my account and then £250 and, hopefully the rest is on its way. I’ve paid my rent until April and all my debts at the store and telephone company.

But there were lots of other changes too. I started practicing The 5 Tibetian Healing Rites (you are all going to hear a lot more about these) and began to feel brilliant and much more positive. The I read Florence Scovel Shinn, she is a Christian metaphysical teacher ( but I don’t hold that against her) and some of her advice was just the perfect information I needed.

So I put all I knew now into process yesterday. I asked for $10,000 or more in the bank and a good man. This looked too much, even in my now new positive frame of mind, and I’ve decided just to go for the cash, one thing at a time eh?

Since yesterday I have got $460 worth of clients this week and another $600 coming in. When I went online I was told there was a cheque waiting for me in Lancaster for about $450, I’m not good at percentages but it would seem to me that I’ve already got 15% of the required $10K in 2 days! So watch this space - maybe I’ll be coming back in my own plane!

Had a fabulous Christmas. Marc and Dave stopped at Great Barrier for the holiday season and we had a fabulous time, so much laughing and so lovely to hear that Lancaster accent. They are two wonderful chaps and I felt it a real gift that they came to stay.

Just one little story before I finish……

I was in the garden one evening watering my veggie garden, the tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers, lettuces and peas are coming on a treat, some in fact eaten by now.

There was a strange, continual sound coming from the front of the house. When I came to have a look there was a Tui sitting on my front porch looking as if it was choking. A Tui is a really magical bird that has irridescent green/blue feathers and a double voice box, so that when it sings it can sing two songs at the same time..the sound is stunning. Bit this Tui was dying. My landlady Karen is the Bird Woman of the Island, so I rang her and she ran down. After crawling under the house (its disgusting under there) where Tui had dissappeared we eventually caught it, seconds before it died. karen took it away and sent it to the Moari Weavers, who will use its feathers in a huge Moari cloak or a bag (Kiti) both used for Moari rituals in processes such as birth, death and marriages. It acutally felt a great honour to have this magical bird dying on my doorstep

The baby arrived in style - it was all supposed to be natural but ended up with a helicopter trip and an awful lots of medical intervention - but now we have the amazing and beautiful Lily-Rose, she looks like a wonderful delicate little pixie and we are all now an awful lot wiser!

This morning I looked out of the window and the whole bay was filled with dolphins, I rushed out took lots of pictures and then thought why not just get in. Rushed back to the house, cozzie on and out amongst it. I was swimming away towards them, not sure of my intentions when suddenly five big grey smiling faces were swimming towards me full pelt, I backed off pretty damn quick and then they didnt want to play later on when I did, so next time I will be braver, hopefully tommorrow.

There was a big, brown dead-looking rat outside Ollie’s Cottage a few days ago with a long, thick ringed tail, the eye I could see was open. I though I better leave it there for a little while, I didnt want to pick it up and discard it in case it was only playing dead and would swoop towards me and rip out my jugular as I bent over it.

The next day it still being there in the same position, I phoned my landlady. She said she’d put some poison down in the shed next door a there were rats in there.

I thought about what she said……why would a family of rats want to stay next door in the backpackers self-catering and hunting,shooting and fishing, when they could move into my house and get full bed and board and really get into the major task of producing progeny.

The next day there were a fews flies around the now flatter body and a kind of internal movement. I bravely decided to get rid of it . I assembled several thick tissues and keeping my body as far away from the action as possible, I picked up the very tip of the long ringed tail. I had expected the tail to have quite a lot of movement, to be fairly flexible. But now as I carefully selected the tail tip and lifted it high, the tail was long and hard and rock like and the whole animal swung towards me …..eeeek . My whole body went into a massive squirm, but I squared up again this time lifting it up and swinging it over into the waste land next door.

I went back into the cottage took my remedy for shock, fear and upset and had a lie down. Being a pioneer isnt easy you know

I live in a cream weatherboard house with a massive Pahutakawa tree hanging over the top of it. This tree is revered by the ancient Moaris for its healing properties and will be covered in bright red spikey flowers come Christmas time.

I am in a farly isolated place on the beach, my nearest neighbours about 10 minutes walk away each side. There’s a nice old bench on my front lawn made of a large tree cut in half that says Ollie’s Cottage on the back of it. Ollie bought the cottage in Auckland in the 1920’s cut it in half and rowed it across the Haruki Gulf half at a time, it takes 5 hours to get to Great Barrier Island on a fast ferry - so goodness knows how many days it took Ollie to get his home here.

There’s a small one-car road at the front of the cottage on which I see one or two cars an hour. It seems Little Blue penguins cross the road at mating time and make even smaller Little Blue penguins creating an inordinate amount of noise and fuss under the cottage - can’t wait!

I have two porches, one front and one back with doors sideways on against the wind, the one out the back leads to the most important part of the house - the sun deck and a large garden. Inside two 15×15ft rooms, the bedroom with a big bed and old-fashioned mirrored dressing table and a living room with all kitchen requirements and sofa and a very high table and chairs, my feet don’t touch the floor when I sit to eat. I believe the height is to enable the dweller to see the ocean from the eating place. On my first night, just as it was getting dark I saw a large, dark fin sail slowly past, it came backwards and forwards several times, I’ve been told it was an Orca (a killer whale). I had planned to swim from here, but maybe I’ll give that a second thought!

I have a big bathroom out the back with bath and shower and two huge wooden washing troughs on the wall. For all this I pay the princely sum of $100 a week, thats about 35 pounds! Mind you I didn’t realise ’till I got here that there was no electricity, instead a very polite solar power system that stays alight five minutes after you switch it off  allowing you leave the room without breaking a leg in the dark!

On my first 24 hours here I counted 14 different species of bird, Oyster catchers, Tui, blackbirds, sparrows, lots of Kingfishers, a heron, Welcome swallows, Gulls, Indian Mynah birds, Massive colourful New Zealand Pigeons, Kaka, Banded rails and the rare Pateke duck.

So now I’m just sitting here waiting for Christine’s baby to arrive (due tommorrow )- really looking forward to it, it will  just be me, the happy couple Bruce and Christine and Adele the midwife, we’re all really excited!

I want to say thank you to everyone in Lancaster who supported me in the Refloxology Emporium, I wouldnt have made it here with out you. Thank you so much.

As I came into Great Barrier Island last sunny Friday afternoon on the ferry there was a dolphin on each side of the prow skimming along really fast, and though some of you may think this funny, when I looked up  I saw my soul hanging over the Island !

If you would like to contact me re my blog please get in touch with graceyogi@hotmail.co.uk

I left Lancaster at 6am on 23rd Ocober for my 10am 14 hour flight to Singapore at a speed of 1,000 km an hour and an outside temperature of 51 degrees.

We flew over Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Kiev the Black Sea and Astrakhan. Through the plane window the Astrakhan area looked like a freezing desert with icy white gusts blowing across the tundra. There were several giant fires burning and a small square of industrial lights and nothing around for miles and miles - maybe some kind of oil collection, how horrible to work in such a place.

Somewhere between Russian and Tehran the little screen in front of me failed and disappeared for hours, maybe we’re lost!

The moving map is on again and we are crossing the Caspian Sea then Kabul, Lahore and Karachi with a tail wind of 170kms an hour- 6hrs to Singapore, pitch black from the window which prevented me seeing the Plateau of Tibet , the Himalayas and Kathmandu.

The plane is very cold I have got gloves, a scarf and 2 woolly thicknesses of clothes and two blankets. Over Patna and the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean. We’re going into a head wind now of 27kms and hour - seat belts on it’s quite bumpy! Only 2014kms to Singapore and 10 hours from Manchester.

Hot towels coming around which means we will eat soon - 1′m starving haven’t eaten for 15 hours.

Down over the Strait of Malacca at a height of 11,887kms.

Arrive Singapore at 6 am for a three hour break. Singapore is a HUGE airport there are many internet facilities, perfume shops, bars, computer tech shops, cake shops and burger bars, what I’d give for a crunchy organic apple! Would also have loved a shower but a lot of the airport venues were shut due to the early hour. After many directions and escalators and miles and miles of carpet I found a massage center that did reflexology for $48 an hour (exactly 20 pounds) went off to change the 20 - it took 15 mins - came back and was told there was $3 tax. Flew into a temper tantrum then and stamped my foot and eventually got my feet done by lovely little deaf and dumb lady, she hadn’t heard me making a fool of myself in reception and gave me a lovely, firm treatment.

Back on the plane, nice young Spanish couple next to me spent most of the flight trying to eat each other - in 7 hrs they didnt go to the loo or a stretch, just chewing away.

We’re heading over the center of Australia, Uluru, brick red desert ( base chakra colour) and extremely hot looking - only four hours now to Auckland.

After a 23.5 hour plane journey- you’ll never guess what ? its throwing it down in Auckland at midnight, serious rain. It was pouring down as I got out of the cab from the airport as my lovely new flight bag fell upsidedown in the flowing gutter and was washing the contents down the storm drain. The cab couldnt move because all the “stuff” had fallen around the wheels, the Indian cab drive wasn’t at all helpful as we’d had a bit of an altercation earlier on.

It was 1am and it had been a fairly long couple of days. He’d got 4 women in the cab on the premise he was leaving straight away, we waited ages and ages as he wanted to fill his 7 seater. I offered to get out and find another cab, the next thing I nearly lost my fingers as he shut the heavy cab door really fast to prevent us leaving. So I wasnt his flavour of the moment and had difficulty stopping him driving over my things, but as I hadnt paid the fare he had no choice.

And so to bed at the Quaker Meeting House

Good night it’s so fabulous to be back in NZ