kiwiwahine's VirtualTourist Home Page

I was born the second child to "half caste" parents in 1967. My older brother had been born 11 months earlier and my sister would greet the world a year later in the forestry town of Maungakino. Apart from a couple of years in my infancy I spent my entire childhood and early adult years living in the same suburb of South Auckland, New Zealand. Mangere, where I was raised, is famous for being the location of the Auckland International Airport and the Regional Sewerage Plant. It was the first suburb in New Zealand to have underground power cabling and the birth place of NZ reggae group "Herbs".
Fortunately my parents ensured that we got to see more of New Zealand than our own backyard. Our school holidays were spent travelling the North Island either staying with extended family or camping.
Since those early holidays I have travelled the length and breadth of New Zealand. I even spent three months driving the coast roads North and South taking a flight to Stewart Island but still didn't manage to see everything I wanted to.

I had reached thirty and was unsure about where I was in life. I had taken a three month sabbatical from work and travelled the coast of NZ but still couldn't get rid of that stuck in a rut feeling.
So,I made a decision.........I handed in my notice. I had worked for the company in Auckland for nine years and in the Industry for thirteen. I put my house on the market and sold it within the same month. I then packed up the few things I wanted to keep and sold the rest. I paid off all my debts and booked myself on a Dragoman Tour from Kathmandu to the UK.

It was the start of a love affair with travel, an addiction. I have since travelled half way around the world and still have a long way to go. I have travelled Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the Middle East , Europe, the UK and the top half of Africa. My next big trip looks to be South America but you can never tell with me as I tend to change my mind fifty or so times before committing to a plan.

In July of 2001 I became an Australian and hold dual citizenship and passports. I have a permanent room at my parents home in Bowen, North Queensland but still prefer to spend time on the road.
In between overseas travel I work on the seasonal circuit. I have worked on a variety of crops in various States but always end up in Bowen either stringing or picking tomatoes.Having recently returned from four months in London I tried to settle in Canberra (boring) and then Sydney (fun but expensive).

From Sydney I took the road North and landed a job on Lizard Island, the closest resort to the famous diving spot "The Cod Hole", exclusive and expensive it has attracted the likes of Tiger Woods and Russell & Danielle Crowe. However as lovely as it was I got itchy feet again, actually it was the minimal wage and exhorbitant price of beer and left to persue a life in Cairns. Well I lucked out again and have just recently started work with The Coral Sea Diving Co, a dive charter company based in Cairns. We do two liveaboard trips a week out to Holmes Reef, 260kms out from Cairns the highlight of which is a shark feeding dive.
Am I not the luckiest person in the world?

Having planned to move to Ireland, I met a Dubliner in Cairns and decided to stay here, have been toiling away for Flight Centre for the last year whilst awaiting Stephens migration to be approved. Now its all done, we're married and moved back to Bowen for a quieter lifestyle beside the sea..