Down to the wire...

We managed to pack everything up and say a very sad farewell to our lovely flat in Wanaka. We spent a couple of weeks travelling north towards Auckland. We stopped along the way at Christchurch - visiting my friend Boz who worked with me at Cardrona and his girlfriend Wendy - then up to Kaikoura, where we stayed once more with Justine & Barry on their sheep farm. It was lambing time recently and they had an unprecedented amount of triplets, so Justine had 11 lambs she was hand-rearing; they were adorable. They also had 3 calves, Trevor, Bolt, and BJ. BJ, incidentally, got her name because, as a premature calf, she had a habit of suckling on anything she could find - and the thing she could find most often was Trevor's...*ahem* appendage.

Then it was up to Picton to meet up with Josie once more, and we took the ferry over to Wellington. Campsites are few and far between in Wellington so we ended up staying in a cheap hostel which was a bit on the grotty side, and went out for a spectacular Thai meal in the evening. The following day, after a wander round Wellington and a visit to the Te Papa museum, we headed to Palmerston North, which was really just a convenient stopping point - there's nothing to speak of in Palmerston North, it's really just a student town and reminded me rather of Slough. The next day we arrived in Okahune and met up with our friend Andrew, who I lived with in Banff, who had been working at the local ski hill up there as a freestyle coach, and who'd had a chance to come and ride with us down at Cardrona on a couple of occasions and was now heading back to Banff again. From Okahune we drove to Rotarua - a.k.a. Rotavegas - to introduce Josie to street luge and Zorbing. Okay, just to do it again ourselves really, since it was such fun the first time, and that was AAAAGES ago. Everyso often I like to remind us that we're here to enjoy ourselves.

So now we're back here in Auckland. We've been staying here with the lovely Jude & Glynn, who are putting up with us littering their home with our belongings very well indeed I must say. We've had a couple of tasks to complete while we were here, the first and most important of which was selling Jaffa.

I've loved that van since the first moment I saw her. She's been our transport, our home and our most identifying feature for our whole trip and the thought of selling her was awful. Still, it had to be done (we'd considered shipping her back to Canada - but the cost was astronomical!) so we put the sales pitch in motion. We'd sent Jaffa 'for sale' promos ahead for Jude to put up in the hospital where she and Glynn work, and we'd had a few nibbles, even someone who came to see it when we first arrived in Auckland, though as an older couple I wasn't sure it was going to be their kinda thing. We decided to take it down to the Ellerslie Car Market on Sunday morning and in the meantime I put her details on every backpacker message boards I could think of. We got her stripped down and cleaned every little bit, inside and out. We washed the seats, brushed down the carpet and oiled her creaky joints. We reorganised the inside and made her look as lovely as possible. I got some new material and made two new curtains - front and back - since these were the only ones I hadn't replaced in when we were Nelson. She looked lovely. On Sunday morning we got up early, as entrance for sellers opened at 8am, and the market opened at 9am. We arrived around 8.25am and the very moment we parked up, before we'd had a chance to complete our seller's paperwork, we had a couple of people wander over. They were followed by 2 or 3 others, and an American couple who almost immediately asked if they could take it for a test drive. So, only minutes after we'd pulled in, we pulled out again while I took Charlie, a very excited guy from Oregon, through the finer points of the console gear shift. They clearly liked it enormously, and kept going on about how much nicer it was than the other van they'd looked at. We got back and they asked how much we'd take for it. We'd listed her at $4000 - we paid $3500 if you remember orginally - and the couple offered us $3500. I said we'd need to talk about it but yet another couple came up to look round. I gave them the spiele, but the American couple stood nearby looking nervous the whole time. Eventually Isaac took me aside to discuss their offer. Considering the amount of interest we were already generating - and a quick glance around at the competition seemed to explain why, since no one else had bothered to make their vans look nice and presentable so Jaffa stood out a shiny mile - we could have held out for $4000 for sure. However, I wanted to take a price that made us feel good, and also made the other couple as though they'd got a bargain. So I said if they'd give us $3750 now, we'd sell it to them, or they could wait until the end of the market and if it still wasn't sold, we'd sell it to them for $3500. Instantly they went for the $3750 - even foregoing having a mechanical check done because they trusted us! The fools...haha. SOLD...all by 8.45am, 15 mins before the market even opened! We took them into Auckland CBD to get the money out and ended up parking, quite by coincidence, outside the Base hostel where we'd been staying when we met Jaffa for the first time - in the exact same place. Weird. The money was handed over and we drove the couple to the posh suburb of Ponsonby in order to practice driving her. We took 'goodbye' pictures and walked away with tears in our eyes... End of an era.

We had a walk down to the Karangahape Road, whose name is so unpronounceable it's known colloquially as the K' Road, as I had a treat booked for the afternoon. For ages now I've wanted to do a photoshoot, something a little on the risque side, just so one day I can look back and say 'I had an alright body once!' I'd come across an advert for Miss T Pinups a while back and thought it looked just the ticket - particularly since they promise to photoshop you to buggery haha - so I'd booked it up. I arrived at the studio and had my hair and make up done. I won't say too much about it (just in case they're awful!), but I should get them in the next week or so, so I'll post them then for your perusal.

My final task in Auckland was to have a medical done. I need one for Canadian immigration, and it's much cheaper to do it here than to do it in the UK (around £110 over £350) and as long as it was with a Canadian Immigration Designated Medical Practitioner, it was all good. So I had that and it went very well indeed so that's another thing down towards my Permanent Residency application...phew.

So now we've packed out things, put together another box to send back to Canada and we're just knocking around with Jude & Glynn enjoying the start of summer, before we head back to 4 weeks of drizzle followed by several months of snow. Good news is, we've got season passes for our local ski hill, Mount St Louis Moonstone, so the plan for ski bumming is still going ahead!

Still oop north

After New Year's we went back down to Rotorua to meet up with Ben & Coleanne once more. We had planned to do the Tongariro Crossing together, one of the most famous one day hikes (or 'tramps' as they call them here) in NZ. It is an estimated 7-8 hours of walking and crosses a series of volcanoes, incidentally used as the location for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings. We parked one of our cars at the end point, drove the other to the start and, armed with the one ring to rule them all, oh, sorry, I meant our lunch and plenty of water, we set out to hike our socks off.

I'll be honest, I thought I was fairly fit, but it seems age has certainly taken its toll on me. The first half of the walk is all uphill, and I wasn't doing too badly here at all. The weather was perfect, sun with a smattering of cloud giving excellent visibility across the whole region, nice cool breeze blowing, and although we all had to take the occasional breather, we were alright. When we had almost completed the ascent, we were given the option to climb up to the mouth of a volcano, which would have added a couple of hours on to the walk and looked practically vertical so we thought sod that and carried on. Just as we got past the summit and saw down the other side I literally gasped as i glimpsed the incredible colour of the Emerald Lakes. Our descent began and I thought it was all going to be a piece of cake from here - how wrong I was. I've had a dodgy left knee for a while now, maybe a couple of years, and whilst I've noticed that if I kneel or squat it stiffens up when I get back up again, I hadn't really paid it too much attention. Trying to walk down the pretty steep side of a mountain however took its toll and while Ben & Coleanne raced ahead, Isaac - gawd bless 'im - remained with me getting ever slower. There were big steps down on the path, a couple of feet deep each, placed every hundred feet or so, which after a while I just couldn't get down. Isaac had to either hold my hand as I stepped or literally pick me up and lift me down. I was getting exhausted and at one point I thought I saw the car park which was our end goal. When I realised that I was imagining it I thought 'Oh blimey, I'm not in a good way if I'm seeing mirages'. In fact when eventually Isaac called from up ahead to say 'We're here!' and I could barely bring myself to believe him. We collapsed into the car where Ben & Coleanne were waiting for us and realised that we'd done the walk in 6hrs 15m, despite my stupid knee, which was pretty good we reckoned. Although we had brought stuff to make dinner we just couldn't be bothered to cook so we went to the campsite restaurant. Ben barely made it through dinner before he crashed at 8.30pm; we blamed sunstroke as he was red as a tomato.

The next morning Ben & Coleanne headed back to Rotorua while we went on to Napier, which was destroyed in the 30s by an earthquake and was therefore rebuilt all in the Art Deco style. We pinpointed a campsite that said it was brand new and had free internet - virtually unheard of over here - so we headed there even though it was a bit out of the way. It took a while to find it, but we kept going past another campsite on the same road, so we called them and they said that that WAS the campsite, that there'd been a misprint in the book. We pulled in to find a tiny and wholey univiting place that looked more like a cramped car park than a campsite. The 'office' was a caravan on site with some unsavoury looking people sat on deckchairs out front. We paid our $20 and asked about the internet - oh no, it wasn't free, another misprint, it was $1 per 15 mins. If you could get it that is. It actually belonged to the backpackers next door. I checked and it was actually $2 per 15 mins and when I tried to get it from the van there was no chance. "I'm not staying here" I told Isaac, and went to get our money back. "Well, that's not really how it's done," she told me "I'll get in to trouble if I give you your money back". "I've only been here for 5 mins" I said firmly "and I'll have that $20 back please." She relented and we raced off with relief.

After a night spent at a decent enough campsite in town we headed into Napier but given that we had to get down to Wellington that evening we didn't spend much time there. We were back on the road in no time and taking the winding Highway 2 down to Windy Welly.

One of the girls I trained with, Sally, lives in Wellington and she very kindly offered to lend us her flat for the few days we were there, going off to stay with her boyfriend. She even lent us her car! We felt like proper people again *sigh*. We went out for dinner with Sally & Tom the first evening - Isaac was turned away from the bar we went to for not presenting valid ID haha* - and the following evening Isaac took me to my first strip club, Mermaids. They have a big tank the girls dive into! I thought it was great.

We visited Wellington Zoo, which was excellent. They had a sun bear, which I'd never seen or heard of before, which was a funny looking thing. We wandered around eating ice creams (of course) and we while we were looking at the chimps, a keeper came over to stand next to us with a dingo on a harness. They were still young, only around 5 months old, and were being acclimatised to the zoo**. The chimps went mad and started screaming at the sight of the dingo; one of them ran to the front, pulled up a big clump of earth and hurled it at us! We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and Isaac says he knows what he wants his next pet to be now: a red panda. I've pointed out it's probably illegal but he's determined.

The next evening Sally came round with a friend and asked if we wanted to come with them to visit some other friends of theirs. Only when we got there did it click that everyone there was either gay or a lesbian - I took Isaac aside to mention it to him, just in case he hadn't realised, as it's not really the kind of crowd he's used to back home! Still, he soon settled into it and within a few beers he was nattering away - it was a bit of an education I think. The following evening we went with Sally & Tom to a BBQ at another friend's and found ourselves surrounded by semi-famous musicians and the director of the fabulous Kiwi film Eagle Vs. Shark. I told him I loved the film and he seemed genuinely touched.

All too soon we had to leave Wellington at the crack of dawn to take the ferry over to Picton on the South Island...

*it was perfectly valid, just Canadian. They seem to think that you should bring your passport with you everywhere over here unless you have a NZ driving licence. Even though Isaac had two pieces of photo ID with his date of birth showing he was 19 and several other pieces of ID, including his birth certificate, to prove it was him, the manageress threw a Parkie on us and ordered him out.
**Hello Lorenzo! Hello Lorenzo! (I don't expect anyone but my sisters to get this comment)

Hot Christmas and ker-razy New Year

Jude & Glynn had invited us for Christmas and we decided that we would like to spend it with nice people rather than on our own, so we took them up on their offer. We headed back to South Auckland on a very un-Christmassy Christmas Eve (too hot!) and spent the evening with them and their Japanese friend Mayuko having Thai curry and watching The Muppets Christmas Carol, which did help us get in the mood a bit. The next morning the sky was purest blue and it was hot as a bastard, so we had a leisurely start and a big breakfast with bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns. Eventually we opened presents – we had two presents that my sister Jenny had put in my suitcase before I left and it turns out they were two brilliant t-shirts (mine says ‘Vote Clarkson’ and Isaac’s ‘DCI Hunt: I’m ‘aving hoops’) and from Jude & Glynn we got a camp shower (trying to make up for the one that they had snatched from beneath my metaphorical fingers at a garage sale we’d been to together) and a set of badminton racquets. We spent the day playing badminton in the back garden and lounging in their hammock before heading off to a BBQ at Jude’s friend Liz’s. It was a family affair but they were so welcoming to us and we ate some fabulous food. There was a dip made from refried beans, guacamole, salsa, sour cream which was heavenly. We met a guy called Mike who offered to come the next day and, for the price of a few beers, he would help us try to fix the oil leak that we’d developed on the van. It was a lovely Christmas and we were so glad we decided to spend it with Jude & Glynn.

On Boxing Day we went to the sales but only picked up some icepacks and some new boxers* for Isaac, since he came to NZ with only 5 pairs that he’s been juggling ever since. A lazy day ensued. The next day however, we got up (relatively) early and headed north to Snowplanet, the indoor ski hill, to catch some fresh pow. Well, some hard packed man-made snow at least. I rented some dodgy skis, Isaac rented a dodgy snowboard, and we hit the slopes. Sorry, slope. After so long away from snow we were grateful to have anything to ride on and we spent the next 7 hours hitting the park (that is to say, Isaac was hitting the park, and I was just trying to do one jump and one box without falling over). We got so used to wearing big coats and feeling the cold air on our faces, every time we went outside for a break we were amazed to remember it was in fact swelteringly hot.

Next day we said our sad goodbyes to Jude & Glynn, because we knew we wouldn’t be seeing them again for a long while, and drove to the Coromandel Peninsula. The drive up to Colville, just north of Coromandel Town, was the nicest we’ve had the whole time we’ve been in NZ – it was right on the coast with the bluest water you’ve ever seen, and the pohutekawa trees, which I’ve finally learnt how to pronounce, were in full bloom. We treated ourselves to a fantastic posh meal in Coromandel (still only worked out to £27 so didn’t feel too guilty!) As we approached Colville the sun began to set and the most spectacular reds, golds and pinks streaked across the sky. We stopped in a beautiful bay to watch the sun go down before we reached our campsite.

The campsite owner had said he didn’t mind when we checked out so we took advantage of the leisurely morning (most campsites have a 10am checkout) and headed over to Whitianga on the east coast, where the weather turned rainy again and Isaac complained constantly about getting drenched when I dragged him out into town. The following day however it was back to boiling hot sun, so we drove to Hahei and took the 45 min coastal path to Cathedral Cove, which was well worth the walk. There’s a huge hollowed out arch in the rock from one beach to another and two freestanding rocks in the sea. There’s even a toilet on the beach, up on a platform, which has a huge window overlooking the sea – a proper loo with a view! We found a spot on a campsite at Hot Water Beach which, like the beach we went to in Kawhia, has a hot spring running under the sand so you can dig yourself a spa bath to sit in. We took a spade and wandered down to the beach but found this one was very very different to our experience in Kawhia, where we were one of only about 8 people on the whole beach. This time it was PACKED to the gills, and because the area where you could dig was relatively small, they were all crammed together. After a short time trying to find a place to dig, we gave up on the hoards and took ourselves off up the beach to sit and watch surfers instead. Isaac dug a hole with his spade, which I stood in, and he then buried me up to my ribs, so I looked like one of those knitted dolls you put over loo rolls. I managed to escape but was covered in sand, so went down to the water to try to rinse it off. The water was a bit chilly but Isaac & I managed to get in up to our waists before we spotted a couple of jellyfish nearby and got scared and ran out. Shortly afterwards I realised my left thigh was stinging and burning, and Isaac found the same on his feet. At first we thought we were imagining it, but red marks showed that we weren’t – we’d been stung by jellyfish! Not particularly dangerous ones at least but enough to hurt. We hobbled back to the campsite and went into the showers – as luck would have it, the only place we’ve been to where they had communal as well as single gender ones – and…well, it was all in the name of stopping the jellyfish sting hurting you understand, not for sexual kicks…Isaac passed urine on me and then on his own feet. I couldn’t stop giggling. Not sure it worked but kept us amused.

Following day we had a stop in Whangamata, which was a really nice town and a fantastic beach, though we got approached by young Christians who asked if we wanted to take part in a ‘survey’. Not realising there was a religious agenda we said yes and spent the best part of the next half an hour looking at a stack of pictures they had and talking to them about our non-belief in God. I think they quickly got the idea that we were lost causes, and happy to be so. Fortunately they had no debating skills whatsoever so it was easy to blast their arguments out of the water haha. We had a very delicious Soul Burger (bit like Gourmet Burger Kitchen) before carrying on to a place we’d pretty much picked out of a hat, Mount Maunganui…or at least that was the plan. It was New Year’s Eve and on our approach into town we discovered the traffic was solid. We phoned a couple of campsites and they were all fully booked, so we looked a bit further out of town and found one in Papamoa, just down the road, that had a spot, though the campsite owner warned us there was a group of 500 young people camping out the back and that we might not want to use the facilities if we didn’t need to. We didn’t want to be stuck without accommodation on New Years so we took our chances. The campsite owner also told us there was a bus going into Mount Maunganui at 9pm that night which cost $10, did we want tickets? Isaac & I discussed it – he’s never really celebrated New Years so wasn’t bothered either way, but I thought that we shouldn’t spend another night in the van watching DVDs while everyone else was out partying, so we bought 2 tickets.

At 9pm we got on the bus, along with a hoard of teenagers. Now, I’ve nothing against teenagers – I mean, I’m going out with one so how can I? – but a large number of very drunk teenagers crammed into a confined space for half an hour was, I have to admit, a horrific experience. Isaac moved me to the inside seat in order to protect me** but I’ve never heard so much screaming – not just the occasional yelp or a bit of loud excitable talking but total, solid SCREAMING in my life. In order to give us something else to concentrate on we put bets on the first person to be sick – I won my bet when the guy a few seats away vomited on himself. Cue more screaming. Someone at the back was sick too, and passed out. Someone threw something at the bus and smashed one of the windows at the back. The passed out guy had managed to cut himself on something, no idea how, and by the time we arrived at Mt Maunganui the floor of the bus was running with sick and blood. Tons of blood. The passed out guy was carried out of the bus by his friends and met by an ambulance and 5 policemen. We got off as soon as we can and as soon as we were clear of the bus I burst into tears with sheer relief. Isaac took me over to the beach and held me while I sobbed. Once I’d calmed down we walked up the road, passed several road blocks which ensured that the beach front was an alcohol-free zone, and discovered that pretty much the entire population of New Zealand was here celebrating New Year. There was a fairground, two stages and an outdoor club. We walked up and down the strip a couple of times before settling down on a hill overlooking the club and the beach, where we knew there was going to be fireworks at midnight. We people watched for a while – and boy! was there good fodder – and come midnight we watched the fireworks go off. Then we booked it down the road, me in bare feet*** because I’d made the mistake of putting on my heels, not realising we’d do so much walking and had blisters on both my little toes, in order to catch the first bus home because we couldn’t bear the thought of being caught in that furore again. The journey home was still packed but much calmer and I got talking to a young English lad who was next to us, who emigrated here a few months ago. “So how did you find out this was the place that everyone in New Zealand comes to party at New Year?” he asked us. “Erm…we didn’t, it was pure chance we came here” I replied. To be honest, if we’d known it was that big a party town, we probably wouldn’t have gone there but hey ho, it was an interesting night nonetheless.

We drove to Whakatane**** the next day, which was pretty much all closed for New Year’s Day and paid for 2 nights in a campsite there, so we could have a lie-in the next morning. This never actually materialised however, as we had some idiots camping next to us who decided to play death metal at a ridiculous volume early the next day as they dismantled their tents. We debated going on over and just switching it off, but fortunately another camper went ballistic at them and they soon drove off in a huff. We wandered into town and saw a camping shop. We went in, as we always do, as we’ve been looking for a plug in coolbox for the whole time we’ve been here, so we can keep our beer, sorry, food cold. We’ve found a couple but they’ve usually been tiny and cigarette lighter powered only (not suitable for us when we’re parked for a few days obviously), or ridiculously big and expensive. We had begun to lose hope that such a thing as we were looking for existed, but as soon as we walked into this store there it was, right there near the door. We fell instantly in love with all 28 litre capacity, AC plug or DC cigarette lighter, not too bigness of it. We bought it and ran – literally ran – back to the campervan to get it going, then went to the supermarket to stock up on things that we couldn’t have bought before unless we knew we were going to eat them straight away. Bacon, milk, chicken: all ours for the taking. Isaac even has somewhere to keep his beer cold. We’re very excited. The new fridge and Percy the power cable are getting married and providing us with edible grandchildren. And the icing on the cake? Isaac’s parent’s have offered to give us the money for it as our Christmas present/Isaac’s birthday present. Thank you lovely Weinerts!

*well what else do you buy on Boxing Day?
**Awwwwwwww he’s sooooo adorable
*** which is very Kiwi – you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t wear shoes here
****pronounced Fuck-a-tanee, which we try to say with as much emphasis on the fuck as possible, naturally

Next installment

After a one night stay in Auckland with Jude & Glynn – always a pleasure, never a chore – we headed up to the Bay of Islands for a mini-cruise on The Rock. The night before the cruise we found a campsite that overlooked a waterfall, Haruru Falls, and picked a prime spot on the waterfront. We sat outside the van and made a delicious stir fry for dinner; we thought we were in heaven. Around 9pm I went back inside the van to get things ready for the night and I noticed one or two mosquitoes. I told Isaac to shut the van door, and it was only once he’d done so that I realised that the problem was far worse than I thought. I shone the torch around and discovered to my horror that the van was filled with mosquitoes. Hundreds of them. I called Isaac in panic and asked him what he thought we should do. “Well, our first option would be to light a mosquito coil” he said. “Which we don’t have” I pointed out. “So” continued Isaac, “our only other option is to kill them all.” We looked at each other for a moment while we contemplated the task ahead of us.

The carnage which ensued is not suitable for those a delicate constitution, but suffice to say roughly one hour later, we had managed to squash, mangle and flatten almost all of the little buggers. The van was littered with corpses and when we went to bed we counted 55 dead mozzies just in the one panel above our heads.

The following day at 5pm we waited on the jetty in Paihia to be collected by Climax, the tender to The Rock. There were around 35 other people waiting and I looked around to see who might be potential friends. Over the next 22 hours we met a few people we didn’t particularly click with, like a couple of English nurses – Charlie (male) & Charlie (female) – who were disappointingly dull, and a few people with whom we became firm friends: a Scottish couple called Toni & Kenny who were on their honeymoon and were hilarious, an English girl called Jo who was travelling by herself and one of the crew, Chris. We had a shooting competition (which Kenny won) off the back of the boat, aiming at a floating duck which bobbed about as we motored along to our destination, got our rods out and fished (but no one caught anything but a few small bait fish), ate a feast of lamb, sausage, steak & salad, went night kayaking after dark with Chris, looked up at the infinite stars and watched as our paddles made the incredible phosphorescence (glowing algae) in the water twinkle before diving in to the water and swimming around in it too, stayed up late around the fire chewing the fat with Alice (an 18yr old English girl over here travelling by herself), Chris & Jose, another crew member who was from Chile. Eventually it was time to go to bed and I was very proud to be the last one on the whole boat to make it to my (top bunk) bed. Next day we had breakfast and went to Motorua island to hike, snorkel, kayak & sunbathe before eventually heading back to the mainland. All in all it was an amazing trip and we had a ball.

We had two more stops on the way back down to Auckland to spend Christmas with Jude & Glynn. First of these was Whananaki, a proper one-horse town. When we arrived at the campsite, we asked the owner where she recommended we go for lunch – she looked at us blankly and said “Well the shop is right next door…” turns out ‘the shop’ was the town, being a grocers, takeaway food, post office and petrol station rolled into one. We had a (slightly rubbish) lunch and went to see the only attraction in the area, the Southern Hemisphere’s longest footbridge. It was very long and lead absolutely nowhere.

Next we went to Waipu Cove, where the weather took a turn for the worse and we drove to the famous Waipu Caves. The Rough Guide said ‘wear old clothes and good footwear, take a couple of good torches each and explore’. We arrived in the pouring rain so we sat and waited for a bit until it slowed, during which time we fell asleep. Waking up after an hour or so we found several other cars had arrived. Everyone else seemed to be kitting up big time - backpacks, rain jackets and hiking shoes - and we felt horribly unprepared in our normal clothes. Then we read on in the Rough Guide: ‘The cave…is impenetrable after heavy rain’ and decided to give it a miss. Still, nice place for a nap we decided, and there’s even a loo for when you wake up bursting for a wee.

On our way back to Auckland for Christmas, we went past Sheep World - we liked the logo so much we decided to stop. It was brilliant, we got to feed lambs, watch sheep dog trials, have a go at sheep shearing, feed eels (nope, no idea what that has to do with sheep) and ended up staying there for hours.

Central North Island

Rotorua was good to us - we found a lovely campsite where we had a spot right next to the river and we stayed for nearly a week. Everyday we woke up, looked at the gorgeous view from Jaffa (our van, now so named) and decided to stay for another night. During our week there we went Zorbing (which was hilarious, you get tossed and bounced all over each other) visited Wai-O-Tapu (which was hot, steamy and smelly but amazing to see) went for a long walk in the redwood forest (I chose the 3.5hr trail and I think Isaac had almost forgiven me by the end), fed numerous ducks (but didn't feed many more, as our campsite was rife with them), went kayaking (there were free ones at the campsite) and got splashed by Maori kids jumping in from a bridge, and went out on the town with Ben & Coleanne. An English couple came to stay at the campsite, Nick & Lynn, and we got chatting to them, mainly about fishing because that was Nick's over-riding passion. On Monday we were all leaving, but he was going out on a guided trout fishing tour that morning at 5am and said that if he caught two fish, he'd give one to us. He came back at 9am having caught only the one - but he gave that to us anyway, gawd bless 'im (clearly recognised poor hungry travellers when he saw them). We took it over to the smoker that was round the back on the campsite but couldn't work out what we were supposed to do with it, so we asked the handyman who was always around doing a spot of this or that if he could explain to us how to use it. Well. He took to the job with gusto, chopping wood, filleting our fish for us and showing me how to cover it in salt & sugar, revealing that he had in fact built the smoker himself out of an old fridge; we vowed to do the same when we get back to Canada. Only an hour after the fish had been caught we had some beautiful smoked trout, which we took over to Ben & Coleanne's to share for lunch, along with some of her homemade soup. Quite the most delicious meal we've had out here. Thanks Nick!

We headed to Taupo, where we wanted to go jet boating. We arrived early evening and went to the nearest campsite so we had somewhere to stay; the one we found was alright but uninspiring. We checked out the Rough Guide and it suggested a free campsite which was 3km out of town which we thought we'd have a look at the following day, to see if it was an option. It was amazing, right on the banks of the most incredibly blue - and fast moving - river and, although there were a couple of other vans and tents around, we felt like we had the place pretty much to ourselves - we even had long drop toilets (mmmm) available to us. We ended up staying 2 nights, moving to a more secluded spot the second night, and on the second day we went jet boating with Rapids Jet. The ride was amazing - at first I found the combination of the wind in my face from the ridiculous speeds, the exhilaration and (I'll be honest) the fear, meant I had tears streaming down my face but you quickly got used to the feeling and then it was just fun fun fun!

So now we've decided to head up to the Bay of Islands - via a quick stop at Jude & Glynn's in Auckland, hence the decent internet access for a change* - and tomorrow we're doing an overnight cruise which includes fishing, night kayaking, snorkelling etc., so I suspect we'll be incommunicado for a little while again but will hopefully have lots to tell at next blog. Still not sure what we're doing for Christmas, but Jude & Glynn have offered us a spot on their driveway campsite so we might well take them up on that!

*just to give you an example, the internet costs somewhere in the region of $8 per hour here, and that's when you CAN find somewhere to get online, and when it doesn't kick you off every 2 minutes. Hostels & campsites do not provide free internet as they would do in most other countries these days. Most frustrating, as I'd prefer to blog much more frequently and get a bit more detail in - I always feel like I'm cramming it in when I do get online - but sadly you're just going to have to bear with me on this one...

Activity central

We made it to Waitomo Caves the other day and did the Blackwater Rafting I'd booked as a surprise for Isaac, which was just as good as I hoped. The abseil down was amazing. Floating down a stream on a big rubber tube in pitch darkness save for a million glow-worms was incredible. We even went to the very cave where they filmed the bits on glow-worms on Planet Earth - every Canadian teenage boys' favourite ever programme - Isaac was stoked. We squeezed through small holes in the rocks and tickled an eel. We even had hot ribena and chocolate sitting down there on the rocks. More photos are on Isaac's facebook here.

The next day we headed to Rotorua and met up with Ben, who was our friend and the IT guy at Sunshine, and his girlfriend Coleanne. We went out for Nando's (so happy they have them here - Isaac had never had Nando's before and is now a convert, of course) and the following day they took us Street Luging, which was huge fun even though, as Ben told us, safety is about seventh on their list of priorities. To ably demonstrate the point, on our fourth run of five, Ben managed to burn out his brakes, take a corner way too fast, go wide and bank off-track, then flip himself over, ripping open both elbows and his right knee, as well as his jacket. We'd have felt sorry for the guy but we just couldn't stop laughing...

Gooooood days

The other day we arrived in Raglan, the ultimate NZ surfer town, went to the campsite which is situated on a sandy spit and is reached by footbridge from the town. After a ker-razy night on the town (the Yot Club bar, along with about 4 other people), which did at least result in our finding a rugby ball floating in the harbour, we dragged our sorry arses out of bed the next day and wondered over to the Tongue & Groove cafe for brunch. Isaac had scrambled eggs on toast, I had the most fabulous Caesar salad I've ever had (with little crispy bacon bits and a poached egg on top). Isaac bought me a cushion - a squishy one with an Orla Kiely type design which I love - and we wondered down to the shore to meet with our sea kayaking guide, Steve.

Steve is awesome - he has one of those looks that says he knows something you don't know...and it's goooooood - and we took off in a tandem sea kayak to explore the shoreline and the famous pancake rocks. They're ancient sea bed, made of limestone,
which has weathered and had the softer layers eroded, giving them an amazing, almost unreal effect. We happily pottered in and out of the caves and narrow paths in our kayak - Steve was impressed we did it without arguing once, which apparently most couples do in a tandem - and got ourselves wedged a couple of times. Then we stopped on a beach for freshly-made stove top lattes, danishes, biscuits and fresh pineapple. Yum. I went for a wander in the water and watched as a stingray floated gracefully past me. Great trip and Steve couldn't have been more hospitable or responsive to all our various needs, gawd bless 'im.

Next we popped into the grocery shop in town and found the most amazing bargain - a 10ft telescopic fishing rod AND reel for only $56 - most of the ones we'd looked at started at around $115 - so Isaac was made up. We left town happy and headed south towards our next stop of Kawhia, which took us past the Bridal Veil Falls, so that warranted a stop. Amazing, well worth the effort. Further up the road Isaac achieved a lifelong dream when we rounded a corner to find our way blocked with sheep. Around
600 of them, being herded by 2 dogs and a friendly sort of chap on a quad bike, who was obviously a bit lonely and wanted to chat. Onwards to Kawhia where our hosts at the new campsite, Snow & Bronwyn, were hilarious. He called me honey and they were at each other's throats constantly. Ha ha. The bathroom block at the site was brand new and we were practically the only ones there again, so that was nice. As soon as we arrived, we headed down to Ocean Beach, known for it's thermal springs so around 2 hours either side of low tide you can dig yourself a small pool on the beach and sit in the boiling hot water. We were dubious. When we arrived it was rather windy and cold, and the sea water was damn chilly too - what the hell? We got chatting to an English couple nearby who gave us some tips about how to find the hot stuff and soon we had ourselves a lovely hot pool. Fabulous. We even stopped to chew the fat with some great local Maori boys on our way back, but I'm sure it was Isaac's presence, not mine, that made them so friendly towards us - they recognised a fellow gansta, clearly.

It was nippy and getting late when we were heading back to the campsite so we stopped in town at the only bar/restaurant we could see to see if there was any food available. A small dog, sitting in the middle of the road, took a liking to us and followed us there. They'd closed the kitchen but the two lovely ladies there opened it up again to cook us a bowl of huge green-lipped mussels and delicious chips. We went to bed feeling we'd had a very very good day, all in all.

However, we've saved the best till last. We drove from Kawhia to Otorahanga the next day on the way towards Waitomo Caves, where we are currently (and where we will be blackwater rafting in a few hours - can't wait!) Now, one thing our van lacks is a power cable - when most new flashy campervans pull up to a campsite, they can plug their van into a special box, with a special plug, which gives them mains power. We had bought a heavy duty extension cord and 4 way splitter for this but didn't realised it needed a special, round pinned plug. We've looked and asked everywhere to see if we could buy one but it seems it's a no go, as it has to be specially fitted by experts. So in Otorahanga we were asking around, as usual, without much
hope. A tractor repair shop (it was that kind of town) said if we walked through their workshop and turned right we could find an electrical shop which might be able to help us. We found it and asked and not only did they not look at us blankly like everyone else, they said they had one! Cut a long story short, they took our heavy duty extension cord and replaced the male plug with the kind we need - fully certified and everything. They were so lovely and one of the women in the office even wanted to buy the van from us when we'd finished our trip! Isaac & I can't stop looking at our lovely lovely cable and we feel like proud new parents.

Latest pics here.

On the road at last

So having finally got our van up and running we, well, got up and ran. Mission Bay first, a favourite Aucklander's haunt not far from the city, where we ate ice creams (Hokey Pokey, a NZ special which consists of vanilla ice cream with bits of crunchie in it - very very tasty) and paddled along the very picturesque beach - Isaac had apparently never heard of paddling before. Next we found ourselves heading to the North Shore of Auckland to see John Bedford, a kiwi guy we met at Sunshine Village. John took us to Piha beach on the west coast, a famous surfing haunt. We did the kiwi thing and went into the sea for a swim despite the less-than-inviting temperature of the water - I'm glad I hung back a bit because when John asked Isaac if he'd heard of rugby, Isaac really should have known this was a pre-cursor to being heavily tackled and
taken under. We thought the waves were huge and pretty strong, though John later dismissed them as pussy waves, and when I saw Isaac disappear under them I had a sudden panic that I hadn't told him I loved him before he'd gone in! We had fush and chups on the beach, along with a few beers - yes, even me* - that John had brought. Home to John's where we headed into the hot tub, a bowl of our new favourite Hokey Pokey ice cream, and an early night sleeping in the van parked up in his driveway.

Early the next morning we got up to go and watch the rugby. Now, neither Isaac nor I are interested in team sports, but the chance to watch England vs. All Blacks in a Kiwi house was too good to pass up (the offer of free breakfast helped) and much to our surprise we both really enjoyed the game. Shame England were trounced, but it seemed to keep our hosts happy and I wasn't that bothered so no complaints. Afterwards, armed with plenty of maps and leaflets courtesy of our hosts, we headed to Takapuna, a small town on the east coast north of Auckland. Here we found a lovely campsite, a decent set of shops to explore, a cinema, where we saw Quantum of Solace**, and a very nice Belgian restaurant, where we had Jamaican curry of all things, which was absolutely delicious.

We took our van in the next day to South Auckland to a mechanic who put 2 new tyres on her, changed her oil and filters and adjusted her brakes, pronouncing them 'mint'. Thereafter we began our trip south, properly out of Auckland for the first time, stopping at our current location in Port Waikato, at a campsite which we appear to have to ourselves pretty much. After our walk on the immense sand dune formation nearby this afternoon we arrived back to see one other campervan - another Toyota Hiace - had arrived, which made us a bit cross, but otherwise we have the tv room, the very clean and well equipped kitchen, and the very clean bathrooms to ourselves.

So, to recap, so far sleeping in the van has been going very well indeed. I've slept like a baby every night, Isaac less so but who cares about that? Oops, sorry Pixie. The campsites are nice, friendly and, so far, very clean. And it's lovely to think that we can up sticks and leave for the next place anytime we want. So pretty happy all round with the whole buying a van business.

I'll upload some pics to this post when I have a moment (they're still on my camera which is in the van, I'm in an 'internet room' at the campsite, my laptop is nearly out of battery and I'm paying through the nose for the use of the internet, which is pretty much de rigeur over here it seems). In the meantime did I mention that I saw Christopher Ecclestone in a bookshop in LA while we were there? Thought not, thought I would.

*well I managed half a bottle, which I thought was pretty good for me
**disappointing, mainly because I still have absolutely NO idea what the bleeding hell was happening at any point

Made it here...

Firstly, many apologies for the gap in blogging. As you could probably imagine, the last few days before I left were a little on the manic side but the things you need to know are a) to my immense relief I let my flat to a lovely couple who move in on December 1st (or at least I bloody hope they do!) b) I had a leaving do in Richmond and it was lovely to see Ellie, Zoe, Adam, Jenny & Neilon there, so thanks guys and c) Isaac & I successfully met up in LAX airport, had one crazy night/day in LA (and believe me, LA does crazy very very well indeed) and flew on to NZ a week ago. Now having recovered from the jetlag I feel up to giving you a quick update.

So far, to be honest, we've seen very little of NZ. Auckland has been lovely - even Isaac liked it and he hates cities - and we have bought our campervan, a bright orange Toyota Hiace that has yet to be properly christened, in every sense of the word. Any suggestions for names? Isaac suggested Bull because of the old Toyota logo, so I thought Taurus (tour-us) was a good play on words but he just looked at me like I was mad so it seems that's been vetoed. Rusty Griswald has been bandied about but nothing settled yet. The guys before us called it The Phoenix, but we don't want to call it anything they did, because they were, as it turns out, arseholes. They upped the price by $500 hours before we picked it up (I managed to knock $60 off that but boy was I furious) and they took the cigarette lighter plug adaptor that was going to be so useful out of the van before they sold it to us and INSISTED that it was still there and we hadn't looked hard enough when we asked about it. All that and he still said 'So when you're back this way next year and looking to sell, give me a call and I'd be happy to buy it back from you'. Isaac swears he'd rather drive it through his front door. The poor idiot must have forgotten the van came with a set of nunchucks, which Isaac is planning to be proficient with by the time we come back this way...

A few days ago, the day we picked up the van, we drove down to South Auckland - the NZ equivilent of LA's South Central haha - to visit my friend Jude, who I went to Heathside with for a year back when we were 12 and haven't seen since then. Good ol' facebook. She emigrated to NZ a year or so ago with her husband Glynn and we stopped in for dinner - we're still here 3 days later! We've been getting on like a house on fire, they've given us heaps of tips on travelling around the country and free things to see and do, taken us to see Hanua Falls which was beautiful, and it's been a great place to get the van up to scratch. We've been able to sort through every box, drawer, nook and cranny (and that sodding plug adaptor is definitely not there), wash blankets, buy new sheets (because using someone else's, especially blokes' = bleugh), buy power cables (grumble grumble), get our mosquito nets properly set up, fix the heating and generally make it feel like home. Which it now definitely does! Tonight we're planning to do a dry run: we're going to sleep in the van but in Jude & Glynn's driveway, just so we can come in if we have any problems, then tomorrow it's all on for real. We're heading back up north of Auckland to visit our friend John, who worked in rentals at Sunshine Village, for a catch up with him. Then down towards Rotarua, to catch up with another old Sunshine work colleague - IT Benny! Can't wait. In the meantime, being Jude & Glynn has been a real pleasure and we were lucky enough to be here when they became grandparents - their preying mantis, Harold*, gave birth** to baby Charlie. It was a very emotional moment.

*who is technically a girl
**okay, hatched from an egg sack