The End

I was reminded recently, by an avid reader of my blog (hello Oma!), that my New Zealand story lacked an ending – so here to correct that, before I go on to tell you all about England and Canada, is my round up of NZ:

I spent a year living like a hippy in a campervan with a gorgeous man; going where we pleased, settling down for a while when we liked a spot, moving on where we didn't. The van was cool as bro, and we worked nice casual jobs, none too taxing, taking advantage of everything New Zealand had to offer. We black water rafted, we Zorbed, we kayaked, we street luged, we tramped, we jet boated, we snowboarded indoors and out, we quad biked, we flying foxed, we hot pooled, we WWOOFed, we fished rivers and ocean and we sheared sheep. We saw hot boiling mud and sulphurous pools, we drove spectacular coastline, we saw beautiful mountains and amazing beaches. We saw old friends, and we met new ones. We had an incredibly hot summer when it should have been winter, and a fairly chilly winter when it should have been summer; we had a BBQ on Christmas Day and snowboarded on my birthday. We spent time lazing by rivers listening to Harry Potter audio books, watched power boat & off-roading competitions, tore down and cut up trees, blagged a whole campsite to ourselves and watched 4WD DVDs and movies a-plenty on my laptop. We saw kiwi birds, eels, wekas, wetas, penguins, albatross and glow-worms. We ate fish and chips on the beach. We were verbally abused by an old French man. We visited my first lap dancing club.

We learnt how to pick different varieties of apple, and learnt that we never ever wanted to do that again. We learnt how grapes were harvested for wine and what happens to them next. We learnt how to run a ski resort without computers, and how to do the banking for the whole mountain. We learnt that I hate sea-bound boats. We learnt that Isaac can't drink with the big boys. We learnt what an earthquake feels like. We learnt that mince & cheese is a surprisingly good pie filling. We learnt that the Kiwis don't know how to insulate or heat their houses. We learnt how to turn a campervan into a mobile disco.

We learnt what camping long-term entails and exactly what you need to survive comfortably. We hope we made things easier for the people we sold the van to, and we hope they're enjoying her as much as we did. We discovered that we were well-suited to living in a confined space together, and realised that other people might not make such good living companions. We found out what we missed when we were away from home and we planned what we were going to do in the future.

So all in all, our time in New Zealand was exactly what we hoped it would be. The country is spectacularly beautiful, as we hoped it would be, and the people are lovely. It is laid-back and remote; fun and exciting; friendly and relaxing. But would I live there?

The short answer has to be no. There were a whole heap of little things, insignificant on their own, which combine to tell me that I would be frustrated if I lived in New Zealand. It's very very far away, for one. I mean, Australia is big and brash enough that it can cope with being so far from everything else, but gentle little New Zealand feels very isolated, like no one else knows you're there, and if they do, they don't care about what happens to you. This is the very thing that makes it an appealing destination for many, but I don't think it's for me. Everything, especially food and electronics, seems very expensive over there – strange considering its proximity to Asia – and it wasn't easy to live on minimum wage and still pay for rent and groceries every week, let alone the odd treat. Television was largely rubbish and the internet is, as previously discussed many times, very expensive and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w which makes keeping in contact with home a frustrating experience. The houses, on the whole, are poorly insulated and very few have central heating, relying instead on plug-in oil radiators and the like which aren't always terribly effective and can bump up the electric bills to ridiculous proportions – I worked with a girl whose previous job was for the electric company, calling customers when their bills reached $1000 for the month to warn them, not an uncommon occurrence. Anyway, enough of the negatives.

That said, I wouldn't change anything about the last year – it was truly awesome. I couldn't have wished for a better travelling companion than Isaac, a better van than Jaffa, and for more amazing friends to visit and stay with; a huge thank you to Jude & Glynn, Big John Redcorn, Ben & Colanne, Sally, Ian & Debbie, all the Heaphys, Josie & Becky, Boz & Wendy, Justine & Barry, Jemma & Ron.