Australia...48 hours 'til I jet

Australia...
No Starbucks.
The lack of diversity here is almost unsettling. It’s like someone turned out the lights. This alone would make Australia a hard place to live.
Working, clean restrooms everywhere...(I'm down to 43 Diet Cokes a day). They operate on the "common urinal" system here, so you piss elbow-to-elbow with the next man. ("Nice root you got there, mate.”) ; )
No homeless people, no panhandling, no tweakers.
No agresssive driving (camera-issued speeding tickets everywhere -- great system).
Forced breathalyzer stops. ("Count one-to-five for me into the device, mate.")
No sunscreen under SPF 30, period. Skin cancer clinics everywhere. Ozone hole. "No worries, mate." Yeah....right.
I'm glad I got the full insurance plan on my Toyota, b/c some jackass American tourist (me) was driving down the wrong side of a country road and almost ran into an Ozzie. At the last moment, I veered left across the road, jumped a curb, bent the rim, cracked the faring, and lost a hubcap. It's not that hard to drive on the left, except when you are the only car on a country road, and then you instinctively float to the right.
I fly back to Auckland on Friday, and I'm starting to plan. There are well over fifty "tracks" in the 3-6 day range on the islands, covering every type of environment imaginable. There is a shitload of admin to take care of: permit lotteries, permission to pass from Maori landowners, hut reservations, bla bla bla. Thankfully, there is a dedicated office in Auckland that helps "trampers' with these details.