I took my blog on a roadtrip - 375km south from Auckland to my family in Taranaki, New Zealand. It took flipping HOURS but it was a lovely way to spend a day.

If you decide to take your blog with you on a trip, drop your web address in the comments - I'd love to see your journey.

Now: my journey, in reverse chronological order and dodgy phone connectivity.

6:00pm

THE FARM!

5:26pm

Have i ever taken so long to do this trip?

Top of Mt Messenger - spent a lot of time puking up here but not these days. The winding road is miles better - hard to believe we used to navigate this unforgiving mountain on dirt tracks.

30 mins to go.

4:56pm

Mokau Beach and my phone is dying. Seems it likes blogging but it uses all its power to channel Merlin Mann's Back to Work podcast.

So the beach is awesome. Full of awe for the sea and then some.

Windy as flip though - tried to do a video but after seeing myself in the viewfinder can safely know that no one noticed my maladjusted fly earlier as i was too fascinatingly unkempt for them to care.

ONWARDS!

4:15pm

Okay now - humungous wet boulder, in the side of the road, slippery with moss and red berries- climbing up to its summit (yes it was big enough to have a summit) to stand looking staight down a couple of hundred feet to get a poor picture of an unknown river.

This is what i do for you.

3:34pm

Fat Pigeon cafe in Pio Pio has the most delectable display of their fare. I could not resist the raspberry and white chocolate muffin - but the maccadamia brittle sure did give it a run for its money.

3:07pm

Here i am in good old Te Kuiti . A wee town I lived in for a year or so. A country town where i gave birth for the first time. My oldest, Simon, was born in this foggy valley.

Stopping to use the Roro Street Public Toulets which are about half way to my destination. It's times like these I wonder how long the fly of my jeans has been down. Has it worked its way open with all my jumping in and out of the car? or has it just been gaping open all day?

2:29pm

Otorohanga turnoff - man the Waikato (countyside I've been driving through) is so green. The cloud breaks the sunlight into great shafts of light and the fields take on this really vivid hue - almost unbelievable in their saturation of colour.

Next stop - The Fat Pigeon in Pio Pio for a cup of coffee.

Okay so it takes me a while to actually get going but now I'm on the road. Traffic is moderate on the motorway - even though it looks kinda empty in the picture.

And then the rain blew in.

Again. Just as well I took all that extra time getting three loads of washing on the line before I left, hey?

10:20am

I'm packing my car - with far too much gear but hells, it's not like I don't have the room - and about to head off on the 375km trip to North Taranaki and a few days at The Farm.

Because the SquareSpace app is so awesome, and I have a couple of gig of data I'll be a) listening to NPR's All Songs Considered via their iPhone app in the car* and b) blogging photos** along the way.

So if you're at work and want to see how 'freelancers' get around, check back over the next four hours and you'll find out.

*without a band-expander for the radio I can only get ZB Talkback and sure as flip I don't want to be listening to *that* for any length of time.

** just occured to me I might try posting a video from the app too :)