Roadtrippin' again

A couple of weeks or so ago, we finished our grape harvest work and headed off around the South Island to do a bit more travelling. We hadn't saved up as much money as we'd hoped...actually that's an understatement, we hadn't saved up anything like as much money as we'd expected, but hey ho, we are not going to let it stop us. We left Nelson, with some trepidation; we felt like we'd become slightly institutionalised - Nelsonised if you like - by staying in one spot for so long. We headed east towards Blenheim and visited the excellent Aviation Heritage Centre, which has been revamped by the Weta Workshop, who did the special effects for Lord of the Rings. Basically it's just a bunch of old war planes which, in any other setting, I probably wouldn't find that interesting, however the Weta Workshop have put so much attention in the detail that they have really brought the planes to life. I found the stories of friends and family loved and lost very moving and particularly liked tableau, based on actual photos and film footage, of the Australian regiment's discovery of the legendary Red Baron's plane after he was finally shot down.

We spent one night in Blenheim and visted Montana's winery the next day for a tour. You'd think we might be a bit over the whole grape thing but in fact it was really interesting to see what happens when the grapes we pick leave the vineyard. We did some wine tasting - yes, even me. No, I didn't like it, still tastes like pretty horrible stuff to me, but I could smell the blackcurrant in the Pinot Noir and the peach in the Sauvignon Blanc so that's a start, eh? Isaac rather liked it and decided he should start drinking more wine but since we can't afford alcohol he'll have to wait until we get back to Canada.

Downwards to Kaikoura - stopping only to watch the seal pups playing on the rocks - and a visit to my friend Justine, who was my first mentor during my midwifery training. She moved to NZ in 2001 and got married in January to a sheep farmer called Barry. Barry's family has been sheep farming in Kaikoura since the 1850s, so he tells me he's almost a local now. They have 600+ acres at the foothills of Mount Fyffe, with some damn spectacular views down to the town and coastline; on a very clear day up at the top you can see the North Island apparently. Justine had clearly settled into sheep farmer's wife mode very comfortably indeed. She gets up ridiculously early (when I told her I normally woke around 8.30/9am, which I think is pretty good, she just laughed) and helps Barry with sheepy things until it's time for her to go to work, then when she's not working she bakes cakes and biscuits and produces perfect, stodgy, farm-type food. We got the chance to help (read: watch) Barry with the dagging, which is when you cut the wool off from around the sheep's bottoms to prevent it getting all clogged with poo - nice - and troughing, which is where you get them to walk through some stuff to remove infection from their feet. We also got to ride his quad bike up and over the hills, through the paddocks and fields, and check out those views.

The first night we were there, we went to reverse Jaffa back towards the garage so we could hook up to power. As I did so, there was a horrible, crunching, grinding noise - I kept checking the handbrake to see if I'd left it on but no. I pulled into place and turned her off, whereby Isaac & I looked at each other with concern. We decided that if we didn't talk about it too much then it probably didn't happen - a strategy that usually works for a bit at least - and then headed back inside. A couple of days later we decided to visit the town and got back into Jaffa for the journey. She started off just fine but as soon as we got down to the main road the grinding, crunching noise started again. I stopped immediately and we took a moment to consider our options.We lifted the front seats to look at the engine, which is located underneath and both stared at it. For quite some time. Suddenly, I spotted something! I reached down gingerly into the engine and pulled out...a travel adaptor. Wedged in amongst the abundance of pipes and metalwork. Not one we'd brought, I hasten to add, so presumably wedged there for some time. I reached in and pulled it out, but to be honest, even I didn't expect it to help. "So what do you think we should do?" I asked Isaac. "Well, if I was back home I'd call Hale* to come and see what was wrong" he replied, hopefully. "Ah, the thing is, Hale is in Canada, so we might have to try to deal with it ourselves" I reminded him. Thank goodness we had decided to take out an AA** policy way back at the beginning of our trip for just such an eventuality. I did hope that he might find our handbrake was sticking and he could fix it by the side of the road, but in my heart of hearts I knew that this was just a pipe dream. Sure enough, a tow truck came along and, after listening to our story, he said immediately "Yeah, your gearbox is buggered. I'll tow you into a garage to get a new one". Damn.

The garage we got towed too seemed nice. Murray the mechanic started draining the oil out of the sump and showed us that it had that tell-tale sheen caused by metal filiments from a disintegrating gearbox, along with some lumps of metal that - and remember here that I'm NOT a mechanic - didn't seem good news to me. He seemed eager to help us as quickly and inexpensively as possible but a new gearbox doesn't come cheap. He managed to source a second-hand one from Christchurch, which he had sent up immediately, and told us he could fit it first thing in the morning. Justine was kind enough to come and collect us later from town and took us back to stay at her house - thank goodness for friends! Next morning at around 11.30am I called Murray to see what the latest was and he told me it was all fixed and ready to be picked up. Not only had they put a new gearbox in, but they'd also replaced our sump plug, which was the cause of our (still slowly dripping) oil leak and he'd even repaired the heating for us, which in perfectly typical fashion had broken down just as the weather turned cool. All in it cost $750, which I guess wasn't bad, but when you're on as tight a budget as we are, it was one hell of a blow. Still, we are now warm, have a gearbox that works AND a new travel adaptor!

We felt we'd taken advantage of Justine and Barry's hospitality long enough so we said our goodbyes and drove down the coast towards Hanmer Springs, where our friends Ben & Coleanne are staying for the winter. We stopped one night in a town called Waiau (no idea how to pronounce that without sounding like an idiot) which had a very OVER enthusiastic campsite owner who insisted we call him 'Hutch'. I'm sure he felt it lent him kudos. The campsite was great though, with a well equipped kitchen and not one but TWO television rooms, neither of which we frequented of course, preferring to stay in the van and watch films on my laptop. We're SO anti-social. We didn't even use the kitchen because we walked down to the shop (one of two in town, but the only one open after 5pm) and got fish and chips. The following morning we headed off again towards Hanmer Springs and met up with Ben & Coleanne at the lovely house they're renting. Hanmer is a tiny town in the middle of some mountains, so we could see why these two Banff residents had stopped a-while there. It's famous for its hot springs and Coleanne, as a massage therapist, was working at the springs Spa, while Ben had a job in a local bar. This meant of course that they didn't see each other for most of the week, as Ben went to work before Coleanne came home, so I think they were happy to have some company for a few days!

We spent a very pleasant few days hanging out there, playing monopoly, visiting the hot springs (where we got ourselves a private thermal pool for half an hour), going through an Indiana Jones-inspired maze (which was very lame), playing mini-golf/crazy golf and cooking food that we never get to make in the van (because we don't have an oven!) like my famously good corned beef hash, which went down very well with Ben & Coleanne (Ben just before he went to work, Coleanne just after she came back).

Eventually, a couple of days ago, we moved on once again, driving down to Christchurch, which I've long been told is very like England. Well yesterday we spent most of the day walking around the town in the pouring rain, so I guess that reminded me somewhat of home, but I don't think we've quite 'got' Christchurch yet. We'll stay a few more days and see what we think.

*Matt Hale, Isaac's best friend, who is an apprentice mechanic
**Automobile Association, for the non-UK, non-Kiwis amongst you. It's a breakdown service.

Having some fun again

Other than spending our days picking grapes - we're onto the proper harvesting now - we have also spent the last couple of weekends trying to remind ourselves that we're here to travel and have fun.

The weekend before last we went to the Havelock Mussel Festival with Debbie, her mum and Nicola, her brother's girlfriend. Now, I think mussels are okay, but I was a bit shocked that it cost us $20 EACH to get in to what was, frankly, less exciting than the Oatlands County Fair back home. There were plenty of food stands and few stalls selling crafty-type stuff, but nowhere near enough free stuff to justify such an extortionate entrance fee. There was a mussel opening competition going on and a big stage where the highlight was the Topp Twins, who appear to be New Zealand's lesbian equivilent of a cross between French and Saunders and the Beverley Sisters. They yodel. And do comedy. But not at the same time. Fairly soon Isaac & I got bored and went to the nearby marina to look at big boats, which was way more fun and much cheaper. Then we headed off - throwing away the religious pamphletry that had been put under Jaffa's windscreen wiper - and went via Blenheim to St Arnaud and Lake Rotoiti, where the Power Boat Nationals were being held that weekend. We arrived in time to see the last race of the first day and Isaac warned me that I might be shocked as to how loud it would be. Yeah yeah. Then the boats started up and I nearly fell over! Never heard anything so loud in my life. After the race we left to look for a campsite for the night. As we went round the lake we spotted a Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite that appeared to be totally empty. It even had power, which is very unusual for the DOC campsites, which are usually pretty basic. We parked up and tested the power, which was still on! The loo block had showers, but they were cold, and we couldn't work out where to pay, so we decided to drive up a bit further to see if we could find anything more. Sure enough, a bit further up the road was a second half of the campsite, which was packed. The showers here were hot, so we each had a quick shower* and got back in the van. I'd spotted a sign saying that there was a fish and chip shop** open only on Fridays & Saturdays till 8pm so we went down to the town (one shop) and for $8.50 bought a feast for us to eat, then headed back to the uninhabited campsite, reasoning that if they wanted us to pay they'd come round and find us.

Sure enough around 7.30pm a woman arrived to tell us that this campsite was supposed to be closed, and that we could go up to the other one if we liked. I said we'd been up there but that it was very busy and could we not stay here? She looked around and then said "Yes alright, you weren't to know it was closed, we obviously forgot to chain it off, so you can stay here." So that is how, for $16 for a powered site, we got a whole campsite to ourselves. The next day we spent the day watching ridiculously fast and noisy boats race around the lake. We were sat right by one team's headquarters - Annhilator team - who did exactly what it says on the tin and annhilated the competition. They had money behind them alright, they even had their own crane to lift the boats in and out of the water, which was very cool to watch.

Then last weekend I decided to say to hell with the cost (that's what credit cards are for!) and took Isaac to Happy Valley to go quad bike trekking. We bluffed our way onto the 'Blue Hills Special' which is for experienced riders only, and had three hours racing up and down logging trails and in and out of mud holes. We got covered in mud, which is always the sign of a good day out. I'd paid extra to do the Skywire, a zipline or flying fox as they call them here, which is 1.6 kilometres long and reaches speeds of up to 100kph. It runs over a valley, the views are stunning and you normally get to ride it once forwards and once backwards, only we were trekking with someone who was friendly with the guide so we got to do it all twice! Well worth the money.

And this weekend? Well as I write, I am alone for the first time this in months. Isaac has left me. For a pig. Literally.

Ever since we got to Nelson and he found out that Debbie's dad and brothers are into pig hunting, he's been wanting to go along. Since it's been summer it's been too hot but as the mornings have cooled down, Debbie's brother Daniel has been true to his word and taken Isaac out, picking him up at 6am this morning. I have no idea how the day is going or if they've managed to catch anything, but he's been sent out with my camera so if there's anything to report, gentle reader, I shall of course do so.


Oh and I made new curtains for the van! A bargain at $2 a metre...





*When you're travelling you never know where your next shower is coming from, so you grab them while you can!
**Isaac's new addiction is fish and chips. They are oh-so-good and very abundant over here

French revolution

The annoying thing about not being able to blog very often is that by the time you do, the big news you have to tell is usually a bit stale and you've forgotten half the details. Still, I'll give it my best shot.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I wrote my last proper blog post in fact, we found ourselves staying at the vineyard we'd been picking at, the one with the manager called Atilla. We'd seen that they had a loo and a shower, as well as the kitchen we'd all been using for lunch, so we asked if it were possible to park our van there, just for the night and the German girls we were working with asked the same thing. Atilla said it was fine with him, but that we should check with the owner, Andy, who was also picking with us. I asked Andy, and he said he didn't have a problem with it as long as Atilla thought it would be fine. We went back to Atilla to double check and he said we were welcome to. He said that there was a French couple who worked on the vineyard and lived there, but that they were away on holiday with their parents. They were due back to work the next day however, so he assumed they'd be back at some point, but thought it would be fine. The German girls, Simone and Marie, went to the supermarket and bought us a feast - schnizel, potatoes and veggies - since we had a proper kitchen to use for once! So come 8.30pm, we were all in the kitchen preparing the food with plans to sit and watch a dvd on my laptop afterwards, when the French couple arrived back.

They walked into the kitchen and looked at us with shock. We all smiled and said hello - they did not return the smiles or the greetings - and I immediately explained that we'd been working there that day and were only staying for the one night. They asked us who had said we could stay and we said that Atilla and Andy had both agreed to it. They muttered a few words together in French (which I couldn't hear) and walked out, only to come back in looking confused and sour-faced a few minutes later. They asked, in very broken English, how long we'd be preparing food. We said we'd be done in around 20 minutes. They left again. We all sat around looking at each other, saying 'ooh, they don't seem to like us much do they?!' and decided that since the owner and manager had agreed to us being there, we had done nothing wrong and refused to feel bad about it. We finished making our food and sat at the table to eat. As we were just finishing, we were suddenly startled by the appearance of an older gentlemen - who I took to be the father of one of the French couple - at the window ,who immediately began screaming "SCHNELL SCHNELL! WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU!" And when I say screaming, I mean SCREAMING. We were all so shocked we had no idea what to do. At first, I'll admit, I thought it was a joke, but it quickly became apparent that it was not. He burst into the kitchen and carried on his tirade, in extremely broken English and German, shouting that this was their HOME and that we must LEAVE and so on, before he ran out again. A minute or so later, he returned with his wife and the French couple.

Now, I'm no longer a youngster, like the people I was with, and I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour towards me, particularly when it is completely unwarranted. I stood up and began to explain, calmly, that we were entitled to be there and that we had assumed that they were waiting for us to finish using the hob, so they could begin cooking their food, not that they were waiting for us to vacate the kitchen entirely. The older man began screaming again and...well I'll save you the verbal tennis* but it descended somewhat into a shouting match. From our side, however, the German girls remained silent and Isaac and I only raised our voices to be heard over the increasingly hysterical French contingent. The couple appeared to be trying to be fairly reasonable, the woman did say that it was not our fault and I agreed, saying that I thought that the behaviour of her father was completely unacceptable seeing as how we had done nothing wrong. When the father began screaming again - boy he liked to scream! - I turned to him with as fierce a look as I could muster and said 'YOU must stop speaking now as you are being very rude indeed!' He blustered for a moment and said "Why should I?" to which Isaac countered "Because you are ESCALATING this situation". He paused and turned to me, saying "You will not afraid me!" I fixed him with a furious glare and said "You will not afraid me either". For the rest of the conversation, when he tried to butt in, Isaac gave him the 'YOU. SHUT IT' signals with his hands, and the man did what he was told. Ha ha.

Eventually it was agreed that the French couple would take it up with Atilla and Andy in the morning - they were under the obviously erroneous impression that the facilities were theirs and theirs alone to use and were horrified that all the workers had been using 'their' kitchen at lunchtime. They said that they'd been there for three months- I said "So, in the last three months, no one else has stayed here?" No, they said, to which I replied "Well lucky you then, you only get us for one night!" They failed to see the funny side. Simone, Marie, Isaac and I decided we wanted no more to do with it, so (having already had our showers and eaten our food) we left, slightly afraid for what the crazy older man might do to us in the middle of the night if we did not...

*okay, it being a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember it word for word

gnikrow t'nsi sihT

Okay, firstly my computer is doing some thing REALLY weird just now. I've been trying to write this and it keeps putting everything I'm typing - get this - BACKWARDS. No idea why. I'm having to write this on another programme and cut and paste it over in order for the letters to be in the right order. Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

Secondly, I have lots to tell you, I really do, mostly good and one little thing bad. But as, once again, we're rushing our internet time, it'll have to wait a little bit longer (The other day I uploaded pictures to Isaac's facebook and it took over 2 hours because it kept failing and cost us SIXTEEN DOLLARS in internet time. This bloody backwards country!) In the meantime I thought I'd just post a link to this, written by the ever-brilliant Clive James, because it amused me so greatly.

Apples vs. Grapes: The Showdown

As soon as we quit the apple picking, I texted my friend Debbie to let her know and to tell her we weren't sure what our plan B was. We talked about just starting our South Island tour a month or two ahead of schedule, putting it on the credit cards and arriving early in Wanaka and getting jobs ahead of the ski season to pay it back. Wasn't ideal but we had to think fast. However, the following day Debbie texted me to say that her mother had been talking to a friend of hers, Margaret, who wondered if she knew of anyone who wanted a few weeks work on a vineyard? We got in touch with Margaret and arranged to start work on the Monday, in two days time. Sorted!

We had no idea what we'd be doing on the vineyard, but we knew we'd be getting $13 per hour, so we'd be earning a heck of a lot more than we were getting at the orchard. We hoped the work wouldn't be as back breaking, or as depressing, as the apples but thought we'd give it a go anyway and if we could stick it out for 4 weeks, we'd at least have some money to travel with. When we arrived bright and early at 7.30am on the Monday we were set to work: leaf plucking. This involves pulling leaves off the vine around the grapes so the thinning and harvesting is easier. You have to work quickly, so no time for thoroughness, just grab handfuls of leaves, pull down, drop them and carry on moving. We literally laughed - we couldn't believe we were being paid more to do this than the nightmare that is apple picking! It was literally the easiest work I've ever done - boring, yes, but we chatted or listened to our iPods which made the day pass quickly. Come 10am it was down tools (well, not that we had tools,, save our hands) for morning tea and 12.30pm signalled lunch. No afternoon break so we finished at 3.45pm. On Thursday we turned up only to see Debbie arriving - she was doing a couple of weeks work with us while she waited for the hospital to get their act together and get her job sorted! It was nice to work with her and have a good natter. Finally on Friday we finished the leaf plucking (across two vineyards) and were handed our big boys toys: our snippers. We had been upgraded to thinning and we actually really enjoyed the going through and finding rotten or unripe grapes which we dropped on the floor. It involved your brain a bit (a BIT), so it was more fun than the leaf plucking and we chatted to all of the older ladies who did this year in year out while we went along. In order to remember the things we were looking for to chop off I kept chanting them to myself: bot; second set; pinky wings. Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard of them too. Bot is a mould that grows on the grape due to dampness. Second set is the second growth of grapes that will never ripen in time. Pinky wings are little wings of second set grapes that spring off the main grape stem. Aha! Now you know, in case you ever decide to go into winemaking.

Come Monday, after a very relaxing weekend at our favourite freecamping spot at the Aniseed Valley (where we had the place almost completely to ourselves the whole weekend so we lay in to our hearts content - lovely) we went to yet another vineyard* to do some harvesting of Chardonnay grapes, plus some Pinot Noir to combine with the Chardonnay to make a rose. Our tractor driver (and, I think, manager) was called Atilla, which is quite the coolest name ever, and was a thorougly lovely guy. Originally from Austria but has lived here for 52 years now - still has an Austrian accent! Anyway, the work has been reasonably enjoyable, the people lovely, the money far better and the thought that we never have to pick apples again has made us very happy campers indeed. The early morning starts are a bit of a bugger it's true, and we don't have accommodation so we're doing a combination of freecamping and paying for campsites as our need for showers and laundry facilities dictate.

*the people we're working for are contractors so we move around a bit

Can you hear the sound of apples being shoved up arses?

Quick news flash: we quit the apple picking yesterday. We got our paychecks in the morning and, despite having worked really really hard the past week, we made a measly $282 each. That's £108 in case you're interested. And that's for 40 hours work. So that's £2.70 per hour. For the hardest work I've ever done. Bugger that. They even had the cheek to take $45 off us for 'picker damage', despite having told us every single day our bins were perfect. I got very cross. Then very upset. I talked to the bosses and decided we could do without that kind of crap in our lives so told them - as nicely as I could - to shove it.

We'll let you know what we decide to do next!

People of the World: Stop Eating Apples

After the relative luxury of the WWOOFing, where we did work hard but for only 4 hours a day, had dinner cooked for us and lived in our own cabin with bathroom, we always knew that the apple picking would be an adjustment. We're back to living in the van, which is lovely actually, but sharing cooking and bathroom facilities again which is a bit of pain (2 loos, 2 showers, 1 sink, 22 people). No internet of course. And then there's the actual picking.

Picking apples is hard. HARD. You have a bag strapped to your front into which you have to place each apple you pick - place, not drop, because otherwise they bruise. When they are full they weigh between 15 and 20kg, which means that your back and shoulders ache like hell by the end of the day. A full bag contains around 100 apples, which takes around 5-15 mins to fill, depending on how fast you go and how easy the apples are to reach and pick. It takes around 20 bags to fill a bin, and we get paid $30 per bin we fill. Every bin you pick has 25 apples taken from it at random, which are examined for 'picker damage', bruising, stem breaks, stem punctures, fingernail marks. A dollar is taken off your bin for every apple found to be damaged. Many of the apples you pick have insects living in and around them - spiders, earwigs, wasps - so you often find an unwelcome passenger as you put the apples in your bag. I find it's best not to look too hard. Each new variety* requires a different technique - e.g. twisting to remove or looping up and over the branch - and takes some getting used to before you're back up to speed. The trees are tall, so you need a ladder to reach the top half and you often find yourself teetering on tippy toes up at the very top of the ladder, holding on to a branch (hoping it doesn't break) and straining to reach all the apples you can. If you don't reach them all, you get bollocked - I got told 'You pick them ALL' by the tractor driver the other day, who threw my ladder against the tree and dismissed my protests that I couldn't reach them. 'Well I can reach them' he said, 'Oh great,' I replied 'well can you get them down for me then? It's just I'm not 6ft 3...' He then threw the apples at Isaac and myself stroppily. My arms are covered in scratches from reaching into the trees. The first bag I was given had a had plastic case which was a little too big for me, so it pressed on my thighs and made walking and climbing ladders both difficult and painful. I have a colourful array of bruises** to show for it, not including those I get whenever I accidentally kick or slip down the ladder. Fortunately, the bosses heard my complaints about how bruised I was and they bought me a new bag, brand new, which has a soft surround and is smaller, and therefore shorter, so it no longer hurts my legs. Now it just puts more strain on my shoulders instead. Hurray! Isaac and I did the maths on our first week's picking. If it takes 100 apples to fill a bag, and 20 bags to fill a bin, that's 2000 apples per bin. We picked 4 bins the first day, 5 bins the next two days and 6 bins per day for the last two. This means we picked 52,000 apples in our first week. It bloody feels like it too. My only hope now is to try to persuade the people of the world to stop eating apples, so demand will go down and we can get laid off with severance pay. Please tell all your friends.

But I guess it's not all bad. We get to be outside in the open air, now the fierce heat of summer has dissipated into a more pleasant warmth, and because we're working a fairly physical job it's even quite nice when it rains (lightly at least). We finish at 4.30pm, which gives us the rest of the afternoon and evening to relax, something we sorely need by then. We've made friends with some of the other pickers, most particularly with a Kiwi couple called Stu and Holly, who have done a fair bit of fruit picking in their time and know all the tips and tricks. They come over to our aisle at break time in the morning with a flask of coffee, and we sit on the grass and drink it feeling, for all of 10 minutes, like kings, and in the evening we often hang out with them in their cabin and chat. The bugs aren't too bad here. We get weekends off to lie in and explore the area - this weekend we went to a car show in Nelson where we watched people drive round in circles until their tyres blew up (I'm told by Isaac that this is what they're supposed to do, and that it's very cool, though I think it's a bit of a waste myself). And anytime in the rest of my life if someone tells me "You've never done a hard day's work in your whole life, have you?" I'll sure as hell have my answer ready for them...

*we've done Cox's Orange Pippins and Royal Gala so far - moving onto pears next week which is totally different and much harder, or so I'm led to believe by the people who know these things
** par for the course for me of course. Poor Isaac. He's never even SEEN me without being covered in bruises from skiing, climbing trees, carrying logs etc. He must think purple is the normal skin colour for English people.

Getting up to date

Right. I promised, here it is. I'll try to be a better blogger from now on.

So after the wedding*, Suzie, Simon & Joey were planning to take their big motorhome (that they'd borrowed from our mutual friends Jemma & Ron, who emigrated to NZ last year and now live in Wanaka) up to Golden Bay and the Abel Tasman, which is a big National Park just a little north of here. We decided, having really nothing better to do, we decided to tag along and spend a few days exploring the area. We went to Totaranui to do the walk to Anapai Beach, which is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It's a 45 minute walk (not 20 mins, as we were led to believe), but it's definitely worth it, we pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves and it was incredible. Should you choose to visit however, be aware that the sandflies are abundant, the sand is very rough on the feet and the resident Oystercatchers, when nesting, can be liable to attack!

The following day was January 20th, Isaac's 20th birthday - hurray! - and we had booked to go on a Farewell Spit Eco Tour, which meant an early start. Farewell Spit is the longest sandspit in New Zealand - well I'd been to Spurn Point so I thought I'd better check out its Antipodean and somewhat longer rival - and the plan was to drive along the beach in a big 4x4 bus to visit the lighthouse at the end of the spit. We saw lots of fur seals lounging around in the beach and, during one of our stops, Isaac got a little bit close for my comfort to one of them. They are pretty big but can move fast if they want to! We passed by some huge sand dunes and stopped so we could play - apologies once more to Suzie for accidentally kicking sand in her face - and we ran up and down in the sand for ages. Eventually we headed back, but not before we'd stopped at the most northern tip of the South Island and watched more fur seals swimming lazily about in the beautifully clear water.

On the way back into Nelson we stopped at Pupu Springs**, said to be the clearest water in the world with a horizontal visibility of 63 metres and then, while Suzie, Simon & Joey headed back into town, Isaac & I drove to Mapua Leisure Park - a 'clothes optional' campsite*** - to set up camp for the night. We walked along the beach to the Smokehouse Cafe, which had been recommended to us by the Heaphys, and had a fantastic meal (I had the soup of the day and the smoked salmon, Isaac had seafood chowder and the peppered fillet steak). I told Isaac I was going to the loo but sneaked off to speak to the waitress, so shortly after she brought us ice cream with a candle in to celebrate Isaac's birthday. It wasn't the most exciting birthday ever, I have to admit, but at least we had a damn good feed (many thanks to Isaac's mum, Mary Lynn for that) and a very pleasant day.

We went back to the Heaphy's the next day but resolved to find work. We had decided that we fancied having a go at fruit picking, which is a typical Kiwi summer job, and as luck would have it, apple picking in Nelson begins in February. I did some research and found a few orchards advertising for pickers and did a ring around. The first couple I called were full but finally I spoke to someone from Dobbie's farm****who was happy to take us on, though it turns out the season wasn't due to begin until 25th Feb, so we needed to find something to do - and somewhere to stay, since we couldn't impose much longer on the Heaphy's - till then. A chance meeting with the girlfriend of the assistant manager of Kathmandu, an outdoor clothing and camping chain, led to us spending one day helping them with their stock take. It was easy work and a good bunch of people, and we (eventually) got $150 for our trouble, so that was nice. We didn't want to travel around too much because we were running pretty low on funds - the whole point of us stopping here to earn money was to make enough to afford to travel the South Island properly - so our next plan was to try WWOOFing. Willing Workers On Organic Farms is a scheme where you pay $40 per person or couple to join and receive a booklet, which details hundreds - nay thousands - of farms, smallholdings and households who hold an organic philosophy and take in travellers who are willing to give around 4 hrs work per day in return for a bed and food. The kind of work varies, it can be anything from weeding, building, working in a shop to babysitting, and it is usually detailed in the book the kind of thing you can expect. It seemed a good way to save money and try something a bit different so we paid our subs and went through the book to find our preferred places, based on their description. Isaac wanted to do some sort of bush work if possible, so we started with places with lots of land, and not anyone who said they were vegetarian, because as carnivores we thought we might prefer to be with our 'own kind'. We started calling a few places, but all of our first choices were full, so eventually I decided it would be easier (and cheaper) for me to fire off a few emails. This I did, giving our mobile number and within an hour I received a call back from a chap called Michael Keylock, who sounded English, who asked if Isaac was strong and if he knew how to use a chainsaw. "He's Canadian - of course he does!" was my reply and we arranged for us to come and stay from the following week until we started apple picking, as long as we all got on of course.

We had to leave the Heaphys by the weekend, since they had their other son, his wife and their two kids coming to stay and things were going to get crowded, so we a little north of Nelson to the Aniseed Valley to spend a few days free camping. We'd found the place a few days before while exploring with Debbie and it seemed a perfect spot to stay - it was right next to a beautiful river, had flushing toilets and running water on site, free BBQs, picnic tables and, though technically it said no camping on the entrance, we figured we weren't really camping since we didn't have a tent and anyway we had found a little hidden away part to park where we probably wouldn't be spotted if anyone came to look. Can you spot Jaffa? We spent four happy days here and every morning we went into the river to wash. Certainly the most picturesque bathroom I've ever had.

Finally it was time to go the the Keylock's house to begin our WWOOFing. We were both nervous about staying with strangers and doing as yet unknown work, but we had to give it a go. Fortunately Michael & Judy seemed nice enough - Mike was English and Judy grew up in Zambia but her mother, Katherine, who lives in her own house next door to Mike & Judy, was originally a Kiwi before moving to South Africa as a child. They had a daughter called Chloe who was moving to Wellington a couple of days after we arrived, which would mean we could move into the sleepout/cabin/bunky next to Mike's workshop. They had all emigrated to NZ four years ago from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. They live in an adobe mud brick house with grass on the roof, a nice big vegetable garden and three acres of land, including bush going up a steep hill behind the house, three sheep (which still have their long tails, which freaked Isaac out a bit as he'd never seen sheep with tails before and had no idea they were usually docked), a chicken that actually lives next door but has adopted them, and tried to live, grow and buy as organically as possible. They were also vegetarians. Damn!

The next day we were set to work. Unusually for Nelson it was raining hard and we set to work weeding the vegetable garden, which was, I have to admit, a bit miserable. It's back-breaking work and, given that we are not gardeners ourselves, I was a bit paranoid that I might pull up something vital. As my mind wandered during the mindless task, I began to come up with rules for rookie weeders: if it sits with its peers, it's probably supposed to be there. If you pull up something that looks like a vegetable, don't pull up any others. If it looks a bit like a vegetable you are familiar with, it probably is one. It seemed to get us through without too much damage and we ate our (admittedly delicious) vegetarian dinner with much gusto that evening.

As we were eating dinner we heard via a phone call that there was a bush fire going on in Nelson. Some friends of Mike & Judy's were having to evacuate their home so were coming out to stay at the house. We chatted to them about where the fire was and were horrified to discover that it was right where Ian & Debbie were staying with Debbie's brother Daniel. We had no mobile phone reception at the Keylocks so we decided to hop in the car, drive down to see what we could see of the fire and call them to check they were okay. This we did, and while we watched the fire raging on the hill, we spoke to Debbie who said they were fine, that the helicopters dumping water on the fire seemed to have it under control, and they were preparing to evacuate if necessary but thought they'd be okay. We hung up and watched for a while as the helicopters flew back and forth. Then, suddenly, they all disappeared and the fire started raging bigger than ever. Debbie called me back and sounded panicked as she said the firemen were leaving for the night, but that the fire was closer than ever and could we come and help them? Of course we rushed round and discovered that the fire department were indeed leaving, with a promise that the rural/volunteer fire department would take over. They told Daniel to hose down their garden and to call them again if the fire reached their house! We frantically hosed down the garden, house, deck and flooded the gutters while they prepared the house for evacuation and gave their dogs to family to look after. All the while we could see the fire raging just over the hill from the house, sometimes dying down a bit, sometimes flaring up again. Finally, we took a walk up the hill to see how far it had come. It was pretty close, and still raging, but it seemed the rural fire department had arrived and were tackling the fire at the source, and having more luck than the 'paid' fire department. Within the next hour or so they had put the upper part of the fire out, so the danger for Ian & Debbie had passed. We went home to bed, glad to know they were all safe and sound.

We've now been here at the Keylocks for nearly 3 weeks. During this time we have had a variety of tasks to do - we've built a new raised veg bed for their paddock; composted, mulched and dug over a whole heap of raised beds; planted out leeks and onions grown from seed in four of the beds; transplanted a heap of salvia, roses & irises; tied garlic into bunches; named the chicken Mrs Warburton and Isaac built her a makeshift coop; helped move stones and gravel from around the back of the house in readiness for their new deck being laid; helped build the frame for the deck; baked bread and prepared some meals. But the task we've enjoyed the most, and spent most time on, is one that Mike didn't initially think we'd get done. The bushland going up the hill was thick with bramble and gorse, so it was impenetrable. Mike said he eventually wanted to make a wide path going up the centre, drop a bunch of the eucalyptus trees, and get back to native bush. We managed to create a big clearing in only a few short days, hacking away at the bramble and gorse and bringing it back to dirt. Mike dropped 6 trees and we limbed them, cut them up, stacked them and Isaac split a pile into firewood. We also went up to the very top of the hill, which involved following the sheep's path, and crawling on hands and knees under gorse bushes, to clear it and make it accessible for future WWOOFers to continue our work. I have learnt to use a machete, an axe and a chainsaw, and found to my immense surprise that I loved using them; I have found the work on the bush enormously satisfying. I'll be sorry to leave here, not least of all because we have had our own little space (and bathroom!), but also because I feel like we've become part of the family. I've learnt so much being here and shall miss rolling out of bed to check my emails (thank god for internet access while we've been here!), having a shower in our own bathroom and then going over to the main house to make a cup of tea and toast, then heading out to put in some hard manual labour. Mike is always laughing and Judy has made a point of finding out things we liked and going out and buying them for us (Hokey Pokey and Boysenberry Ripple ice cream, Lurpack butter, blue cheese, chocolate, cookies). Katherine makes the best meringues in the world and today she taught me how to make them, and we feasted on them for dessert, with ice cream naturally after the home made pizza we had in the outdoor adobe mud brick pizza oven. I'm even going to miss Judy's strange, random stories which have no beginning, middle or end, and her habit of always asking "What's your favourite...[insert, well, anything you can think of - meal your mother used to make, thing to do outdoors, type of movie]?" I crocheted a hat each for Judy & Mike as a thank you present, which they seemed to like very much!

So tomorrow we leave for the orchard which will, all being well, become our home for the next couple of months. I'm nervous about changing again, going back to sharing facilities and living in the van, and whether or not we'll take to the work. Everyone we talk to has an opinion - because it's a big industry here everyone has done it, or knows someone who has, and either loved it or hated it. I reckon that after the kind of manual labour we've been doing here, we'll find it perfectly manageable physically, if a bit dull. Personally, I don't mind mindless repetitive manual tasks but we'll see whether that still stands after 10 weeks! My main concern is trying to get Isaac out of bed in the morning; we've been starting later and later here...not sure what time we'll have to start apple picking in the mornings but if we have to get up early, then I'm sure we will. Hear that Isaac?!

I doubt we'll have internet access there but I'll try to keep on top of the blogging this time, mainly so Jude won't have cause to nag me... ;-)

*which is the title of one of my favourite films incidentally.
**okay, YOU try to say that without laughing. It's beyond me.
***during the months of Feb & March only of course, and this was still January remember
****which, given we've spent much of the past month or two listening to the audio books of Harry Potter (read by the unsurpassed Stephen Fry), seemed like fate to me

A journey south and a wedding

So finally I have a chance to catch up a bit. Sorry about that.

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton on 11th Jan (which, I've just realised, is over a month ago, so that makes me feel very ashamed I've not blogged about it yet) at the crack of dawn. A slight lack of preparation on my part (which is unlike me) meant that we got a bit lost finding the ferry terminal and ended up driving about 5km past where we needed to be, but arrived at the ferry with whole minutes to spare. I knew from good ol' facebook that my friend Denise, quite by coincidence, was booked on the same ferry as us so I kept my eyes peeled for her as soon as we arrived on board and parked Jaffa up among the much larger and flasher motorhomes, amid the smell of diesel. The journey takes around 3 hrs and the boat was very similar, if a little smaller, than the one we used to take over to Denmark on holiday. It has a bar, a cafe, a 'posh' restaurant, even a cinema! But we didn't want to waste our time sat in the dark when we knew we were arriving on the South Island past the Marlborough Sounds, famous for their beauty. After indulging in a huge breakfast, we headed to the stern of the boat to find Denise sitting in the bar with some people she knew from the coach tour she'd been on. It was great to catch up, though Isaac took some time out to see the sights while we nattered on.

Eventually we arrived in Picton, where Ian & Debbie had come to pick Denise up. After a nice lunch and a lovely catch up with them, they headed straight back to Nelson while we took the scenic route - and in NZ this tends to be very scenic - on the Queen Charlotte's Track around the Marlborough Sounds. We drove up as far as Okiwi Bay, where we stopped at a campsite for the night, before winding our way leisurely into Nelson the following day.

We liked Nelson immediately, which was just as well, seeing as we'd planned to make it our home for the next few months! It's not a huge town but big enough, and seems to have everything you might need. We went to the home of some of Debbie & Ian's friends, Debbie & Brian Heaphy, who had offered to let us park our van in the driveway of their parents' farm for a while. They are a lovely family who have around 50 sheep, 20 chickens, a handful of ducks and ducklings, a pig (they had had two pigs till Christmas ahem) and a gorgeous dog. I'm not usually fond of dogs at all, but she was a real sweetie, very well trained, which was probably due to the fact that she was there to help with the sheep, though Brian & Debbie's kids, Connor & Luke seemed to be very well trained too, so maybe it was just the way of things in that family...

A few days later - during which time I'd been ill with some sort of viral infection - we went on a fishing trip with Ian as a pre-cursor to his stag do. As is so often the case, I was rather outnumbered by men (including Brian Heaphy and Simon, my friend Suzie's ex-husband, who was out there for the wedding with Suzie and their son Joey*) but I had been really looking forward to doing some sea fishing and hoped that we'd have more luck than when we went on The Rock cruise. A huge quantity of beer had been brought aboard and Isaac got stuck in along with all the other blokes. Once we got out to the Marlborough Sounds, up around French Pass, we found each grabbed a rod and tried out luck using squid as bait. Almost immediately the first fish was caught, to huge acclaim, and one by one each of the gang raised their rods to find one or two blue cod sitting on there....all except Isaac and I that is. We were fishing in the same spot as the others, using the same rods, the same bait and the same technique, but for some reason the buggers just avoided our rods like the plague! A couple of hours went by, the boat moving on to 3 different spots, and we still hadn't caught a thing, despite Simon next to us having caught around 17 fish by now. Isaac wasn't speaking to anyone and I threatened to disembowel the next person who asked me if I had definitely let out enough line, or if I knew how to strike when I felt a bite. Then, finally, around 3 hours in to the trip, joy! Finally Isaac raised his line to find a blue cod and shortly thereafter, so did I. Our dry spell was broken and during the rest of the day we each caught, if not anything like as many as old 'crack bait' Simon, a respectable haul nonetheless. Phew!

Of course by now, Isaac had had plenty of beers to make up for the ridiculously hot weather. I did try to tell him to pace himself a bit, given that he'd started at 8am, that the sun was beating down and he still had the stag do to attend that night, but boys know best, don't they? The other lads on the trip had a few years, and thus a few drinking years, on Isaac, who is rather slight of frame and light of weight, but he seemed determined to try to keep up. Nevertheless, as I predicted, when we began our journey back to shore, Isaac decided to take a little, ahem, nap.


We arrived back at the Heaphy's, which was where the stag party was starting proceedings. I was getting ready for the hen do but not feeling too good by this point, on which I blamed a combination of mild sunstroke and the left over of my virus. I left Isaac telling me he was going to have a bit of a nap before the stag do started and drove with Debbie Heaphy to the hen do around 10 mins up the road. After an hour or two I decided that I was not really feeling up to the high jinks involved so I decided a refreshing walk home and early to bed would be in order.

When I got back to the Heaphy's, I suddenly panicked. Brian had told Debbie that under no circumstances should the hen party crash the stag do and I worried that if he saw me, he'd think that I was there to spy on them, or that I'd brought all the girls with me, and get angry. However, I was also worried that if I just sneaked into the van, that if Debbie Heaphy spoke to Brian or came home saying I'd left early, that Isaac would worry that I'd not made it back, so I did the only thing I could do and hid in a bush in the garden, trying to spot Isaac and call him over. Eventually, after around 10 mins and feeling not a little bit silly, I spotted Isaac wondering on the periphery. "Isaac!" I tried to both shout and whisper at the same time. He saw me and came over, looking puzzled. I explained the situation and that I was planning to go to bed in the van, and he looked relieved. As it turns out he'd drunk nothing but water since returning home from fishing, and had been throwing up at regular intervals behind the van. I blamed the sunstroke ;-) We both sneaked away from the stag do, who were all preparing to go into town to visit a few bars and a rather dodgy-looking strip club, and cuddled up together in bed with a ton of drugs instead.

Two days later we found ourselves getting dolled up (traveller stylee, which basically means fairly casual but not jeans) and waiting with Brian, Debbie & their two boys for a big red (ex-London) double decker bus to pick us up for the wedding. Suzie, Simon, Joey & Denise were already on board. Isaac, of course, had never been on a double decker before, so was as excited as the kids, but I was more excited to see all the old Travelcard and Vodaphone advertising billboards inside! The weather was overcast but dry, but all the talk was of the rain predicted. Nelson, famous for having the most sun hours in NZ, had had no rain for over 2 months by now, so we were sure it would be fine for the wedding. We arrived at The Gardens of the World along with everyone and waited for Debbie to arrive, looking gorgeous in her hourglass dress. As she and her parents walked down the, for want of a better word, aisle, her mother, clearly relieved, made a remark about the lack of rain - BIG mistake. Naturally, as soon as the ceremony started it begin bucketing down and, though Isaac & I stood, silently getting drenched and pretending not to have noticed, we eventually turned round to find that everyone else had legged it under the trees, seeking some sort of shelter. Though the ceremony continued under the cover of a couple of huge umbrellas, eventually the celebrant and the bride & groom retreated to a small gazebo, where the promised readings were abandoned with promises to read them at the reception, and the required parts of the ceremony were completed out of earshot of us. Ian & Debbie had been together for 18 years and planning the wedding for the past six, but Sod's Law says she had to choose the one day in 'Sunny' Nelson it pissed down! Such a shame, but made a good story at least. The bus took us back early to the reception where a much anticipated feast awaited us; everything on the table, wild boar, venison, ham, paua, whitebait patties, crayfish and steamed hoki fish, had been caught or harvested by Debbie's family. We were on a table with Debbie & Brian, their friends Dan & Sarah who we'd met and liked enormously, and Emma (one of my former midwifery colleagues from Queen Charlotte's) and her husband Mick. We had a good night - I got one of Ian's aunts to approach Isaac and offer him work as a male stripper, which he almost bought - and headed home, now dried off, shortly after midnight.

Hope that makes up somewhat for my blogging slovenliness, and I shall try to bring us completely up to date as soon as possible, I promise.

*yes, ex-husband. She has a boyfriend back home, also conveniently called Simon, but was travelling with (old) Simon so he could spend time with Joey. They are definitely contenders for the title of most odd, new-age family unit, but it works for them, which is all that matters...

Lumps and bumps

Before I catch up with everything we've been up to - which is extensive by the way* - I have a small rant I wish to slot in.

I didn't think I'd ever find any living creature I hated as much as mosquitoes. Sadly, I was mistaken. In fact I have even begun to think of mosquitoes fondly. What could possibly have prompted this startling turn around? Sandflies.

They are small - small enough to be difficult to spot and easy to overlook. They bite you by burying their whole head into your skin and you don't even really feel the bite happening at the time, giving you little opportunity to swat them away, and what's more, the bite itself is impossible to spot initially. Only after a good few hours can you see a small pink spot where they got you, but it does not itch at this stage, nor is there any discernible bump. Oh no, it lulls you into a false sense of security; you think you've got away with it and relax, but you would be foolish to do so.

Around 12-24 hours after the bite, the itching begins. It is virtually impossible to ignore and once you start scratching you can find it drives you insane; it's easy to scratch until you bleed...and then keep on going, agony & ecstasy going hand in hand. Scratching of course causes the hive to swell and in some cases, the whole of the bite area too. My friend Simon scratched the ones on his ankles and ended up with ankles the size of elephants. The hive - and the concomitant itch - lasts for ages. And I mean ages. I find with mozzie bites that if I am able to ignore them for a day or two, they will disappear. I have had one or two mozzie bites recently that lay testament to this. However, I still have sandfly bites that are on-going which I got FOUR SODDING WEEKS AGO. Not so itchy, it's true, but still very much visible and irritating. My friend Debbie has scars from sandfly bites received several years ago.

I have now begun to wage a serious war on the little buggers. I had bought some 'natural' insect repellent, which worked okay I suppose, but was a pain to put on. It was an oily spray and, what with the slathering of suntan lotion I need to put on every day to combat the vicious UV rays, I tended to feel like a basted turkey. So now I have bought a special suntan lotion with insect repellent built in for days in the sun, plus a 'tropical strength' spray for evenings or rainy days (when they are out in force).

There are only a couple of good things that could be said about sandflies. They are immensely stupid. They don't seem to target human beings in the way that mozzies do, they seem to just fly around bumping into things and occasionally get lucky by finding something that they can bury their head into. This does make them fairly easy to kill, because they wander about slowly while they work out whether they've struck it lucky, giving you plenty of time to squish them if you happen to spot them. They are attracted by light, so in the evening if you put a lamp on pointing at a wall, you'll find them gathering in the glow and you can kill them in bulk. And they are generally only around during the day, so night time is fairly safe. Still, they're horrible horrible things and I hate them. HATE THEM.

*and therefore the reason I've got so behind in blogging, in addition to the issue of erratic internet access, is that once you've got behind you feel like you can't do anything until you've caught up, but the idea is so overwhelming you don't get round to it. That and the fact that when I DO sit down to blog, Isaac starts jumping around and desperately vying for attention like a small puppy, and I get nothing done. He erroneously claims this is untrue. I think it's sweet.

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)

Just a few reasons why Isaac is the perfect travelling companion (and boyfriend)

• He’s always eager to help. If he hasn’t done something before or doesn’t know how to do it, he’ll watch me do it and help in any way he can, following instructions to the letter. Next time round he’ll offer to do it, remember exactly what I said and do it perfectly.
• If I cook, he’ll insist on washing up. In fact, he won’t even insist, he’ll just get on and do it without any fuss.
• He washes up to a high standard. If I’ve used a knife to cut bacon for example, you know that the serrated edge of the knife will be clean because he’ll have scrubbed it properly, then checked to make sure it is completely clean. The other day we used a pot to cook with on the gas burner and the bottom was black. He scrubbed and scrubbed it before asking me “How clean do you want it?”
• In company he is always polite when he should be, friendly when that’s required and quiet when someone else likes to talk. He always gets it spot on.
• He never assumes there’s anything I should do, like cooking or anything, or anything I can’t do, like fixing stuff. He is equal in all things.
• He appreciates everything I do, even when I think it’s no big deal.
• He actually listens to what I say and remembers it, even weeks after.
• He gets excited about the same things I do, like our power cable and our new fridge.
• If I ask him to make me a cup of tea while I do something else, he’ll do it without question…and gets the chocolate biscuits out too because he knows that I’ll want them to go with it.
• He has common sense in abundance and uses it: I asked him recently while we were at Jude & Glynn’s if he would pop out to the van to get my toiletry bag so I could take my make up off. He did so and came back with the hairband that I use to keep my hair off my face while I take my make up off as well, even though I hadn’t asked him for it and it wasn’t even kept next to my bag. He just thought about what I’d need and made sure he brought it.
• He compliments my driving often.
• He knows how to say sorry.
  

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