We are setteling in to our home. There is plenty of room and privacy. It is very peacful and close to the beach. The gardener is clearing the jungle out back so we can keep up with it ourselves. The rug cleaner came earlier to get rid of the old lady, cat smell. We have the placed decked out in the finest second hand furniture. We are keeping it simple because whatever we buy we will have to sell when we leave next year. We have all the esentials to living. We even have a washer and hang our clothes on the line like every other kiwi. We have a bore in the yard, free well water for garden, we are made to recycle everything. NZ is trying to stop the use of plastic bags in stores. All the outlets can be shut off when not in use to save power. This country is very green.
It has been a hot summer so far and the young boys are acting up. Every day there is another stabbing in the news. The other night a 13 yr old boy got stabbed by a man for tagging his fence with spay paint. It is a huge unstoppable issue.Every morning towns wake up have to paint over graffiti again . I don't get it.
On my birthday in Taupo a young Scottish backpacker who was walking home from a bar died from a blow to the head. They still don't know who did it. Two other couples in that same week were badly beaten by a gang of kids with bats. After that crazy week I had enough of camping out on the North Island. Things are different than the South were everyone is a hard working streight laced farmer. These kids unfurtanatley are immitated American gangs they watch.
Matt is at school and loving it.He has been going for about 4 days and there is only one other girl in his class. They scuba and survey beaches. I'm a bit jelouse I must admit. Matt will be traveling to islands to explore. He is required to collect all the species of seaweed to press and 100 kinds of shells. I love shells so I will be using them for still lives as well. He is still thinking about were he wants to go to do his thesis on.
It is still sunny and hot here. All you have to do is go for a stroll and you need another shower. I am still hunting for work. I thought I had a job at a gallery but someone with more retail and less art experience got it. I have been doing watercolors in my spare time. We have one car to share so on the days I drop Matt off I am able to go to Papmoa hills , a nearby Maori Pa sit. It is very steep and a great work out. Check out the pics. I'm getting use to driving on the left, who knew!
We finally had the internet guy come out and hook up broadband. It is still slow but no more internet cafe! We still don't have a tv. We tune in to the news at 6 on our wind up radio and then there is a talk radio talk show that's on for a few hours. We do rent DVDs and watch them sometimes on my laptop.
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Lauren's BIRTHDAY!!
Hello All - It's Matt, and in honor of the Princesses' birthday I will be posting today's blog!
It is a beautiful sunny day here in NZ, and we are celebrating L's 30th birthday!!(Her favorite holiday) She is having a good day so far, as she awoke to her breakfast already prepared (by yours truly), then we went to explore some of the F1 race car action at the track here in town (they have a big race here this weekend), then we went to WATCH some fools bungy jump (L didn't want to jump to celebrate her big day!), spent a relaxing afternoon at the beach along the lake complete with picnic lunch, now a quick stop at the internet cafe before we clean up to go out to dinner (Thai food).
We having been staying the week here in Taupo before we move into out new house tomorrow afternoon. They have some nice mountain bike trails that we have been testing ourselves on for the past week, but now we are ready to settle down after our long travels around the country!
It is a beautiful sunny day here in NZ, and we are celebrating L's 30th birthday!!(Her favorite holiday) She is having a good day so far, as she awoke to her breakfast already prepared (by yours truly), then we went to explore some of the F1 race car action at the track here in town (they have a big race here this weekend), then we went to WATCH some fools bungy jump (L didn't want to jump to celebrate her big day!), spent a relaxing afternoon at the beach along the lake complete with picnic lunch, now a quick stop at the internet cafe before we clean up to go out to dinner (Thai food).
We having been staying the week here in Taupo before we move into out new house tomorrow afternoon. They have some nice mountain bike trails that we have been testing ourselves on for the past week, but now we are ready to settle down after our long travels around the country!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
We thought that people would get a kick from some of the everyday lingo:
- Oy - hey
- Hiya - hi
- cheers - thanks goodbye
- seeyas - bye
- ta - bye
- corker - spectacular
- choice - awesome
- dear - more in price
- good as gold - done
- partner - husband or wife non homosexual
- reckon - think
- nappies - diapers
- handle- pint
- panel beater - body shop
- boot- trunk
- bonnet- hood
- arvo - afternoon
- tea - dinner
- bute - beautiful
- trolley -shopping cart
- docket - receipt
- Que - line
- Bach - beach house
- wicked -awesome
- lovely -great
Friday, January 11, 2008
Waiting to move in
One more week till we have a roof over our heads. It seems like it's been forever. We have been without a home since our closing in September. We now appreciate the little things like walls and a ceiling above. No more tarp shelters or tent building.
We are camped out at Reeds farm in Taupo. This is our standby that's a cross roads for all other travelers on the North Island. There are plenty of spots to camp near the river and long drops all over. The youth are fascinated with off road driving and fire. They are referred to here as boy racers as funny as that sounds. Someone had abandoned a car near our camp. The first day they broke a window and opened the hood, next day smashed windshield and finally torched it. The flames burnt all the trees around. There are some places we dare not go for fear of getting our tent torched!
Other than the random fire all else is uneventful. This is the lull before the storm. We are spending my birthday here so we can ride the Mountain bike trails for the week. This has been our favorite thing to do.
Sorry about the appearance of the blog. We are slapping pics on wherever we can. I'm still not traveling with my laptop.It's also good to hear that some people are interested in visiting. Cheers!
We are camped out at Reeds farm in Taupo. This is our standby that's a cross roads for all other travelers on the North Island. There are plenty of spots to camp near the river and long drops all over. The youth are fascinated with off road driving and fire. They are referred to here as boy racers as funny as that sounds. Someone had abandoned a car near our camp. The first day they broke a window and opened the hood, next day smashed windshield and finally torched it. The flames burnt all the trees around. There are some places we dare not go for fear of getting our tent torched!
Other than the random fire all else is uneventful. This is the lull before the storm. We are spending my birthday here so we can ride the Mountain bike trails for the week. This has been our favorite thing to do.
Sorry about the appearance of the blog. We are slapping pics on wherever we can. I'm still not traveling with my laptop.It's also good to hear that some people are interested in visiting. Cheers!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
We did it!
Happy 2008 to everyone. Sorry we haven't kept you undated but we were literally in the middle of no were. We managed to see all of the North and South Island. It took allot of miles and searching every night for a perfect campsite. The 4 wheel drive came in handy on the gravely unpaved roads. The scenery is amazing and so diverse. We have seen glaciers,waterfalls, valleys, mountains, rainforests, rapids, beaches, forests etc. all in the size of the state of Calorado. We have been in the country for 3 months about. We are now ready to settle down.
We spent Christmas Eve camped at a site next to the ocean on the top of the South Island. It was sunny and Matt went for a dip. We exchanged presents sitting on our fold out travel chairs and a bottle of bubbly. We bought a crank radio for tunes but no Christmas music or any other signs of the season here. Christmas is being fazed out and the next day Boxing Day is the big deal. I bought Matt a Maori tiki, some t-shirts, fillet knife for diving and other odds and ends picked up on our travels. It's kind of hard hiding a present living together out of a van. He bought me a sarong with fern print a hand weaved backpack, a leather bracelet and some other hand made crafts. It was a unique experience. I had planned on finding a tree to decorate with the Pua shells we dove for at a beach but there wasn't a tree.
. We drove onto the ferry Christmas afternoon as planned with no troubles just a bit of rain. We sat in the front of the boat in reclining seats as we navigated through islands. We drove off the ferry 3 hrs later in Wellington on the North and started having engine trouble. The beast was on it's last leg and we knew we had to get to a camp fast. We tried to get up a hill but it died in the middle of the highway. There we were on Christmas in the rain in a foreign country with a dog and most our possessions with us. We had no time to get down we had to act fast. We each grabbed a pack and filled it with survival gear and important documents. We next called the Police who had trouble understanding were we were. Finally we got a tow # and he was able to come out for a fee and tow us. We had no were to go so we pleaded with a hotel nearby to let us stay with our dog. The van got dumped outside the hotel door and there it stayed for 3 nights while we had to wait out the holiday. The kiwis all go on a month holiday at the same time. Everything is closed while they go set up camp on the beach. Luckily Matthew is a trooper and got on his bike in driving rain and a hail storm to find the info center, bank and finally a car dealer to buy us our new Toyota 4 runner. We were so glad to get out of there on our way.
We were having a stretch of bad luck. Our camera broke at the most scenic lake at Mt. Cook , Matts surf board snapped in half before he got to the good beaches and then the car. The other day Matt misplaced his wallet at the library. For once I stayed calm and ran back to beg the librarian to open up. I knew our luck couldn't get worse...
We got the wallet back, got a new camera and today found a house to rent a street away from the most amazing beach. It has it's own private garden with fruit trees, lavender, hydrangeas, roses a shed, a garage for me to transform into a studio, a enclosed patio for entertaining and two beds. A young couple just bought it as an investment and we got along so they said it's a go in 2 weeks!
New years we saw Rhythm and Vines, a concert held on a vineyard in Gisborne. This is one of the towns that was days earlier struck by an earthquake. We haven't felt anything yet but we do sit on a fault line. It keeps us on our toes. We were by far the oldest at the concert. We didn't know any of the bands but were just glad to hear live music. We have been without tv or a radio for so long. They had fire breathers , acrobats, people on stilts and firwork show at midnight. We were able to set up a tent during the show in one of the fields.I'll post pics.
I posted only a few of the pictures we've collected.I am working on a slide show with it's own soundtrack. Hopefully I can burn everyone a copy and you can print out the pictures you each like. I can't wait enlarge a bunch of them. I kept two small journals too. One for North one for South. Keep reading the blog. We will change out the pictures in a few days.
We spent Christmas Eve camped at a site next to the ocean on the top of the South Island. It was sunny and Matt went for a dip. We exchanged presents sitting on our fold out travel chairs and a bottle of bubbly. We bought a crank radio for tunes but no Christmas music or any other signs of the season here. Christmas is being fazed out and the next day Boxing Day is the big deal. I bought Matt a Maori tiki, some t-shirts, fillet knife for diving and other odds and ends picked up on our travels. It's kind of hard hiding a present living together out of a van. He bought me a sarong with fern print a hand weaved backpack, a leather bracelet and some other hand made crafts. It was a unique experience. I had planned on finding a tree to decorate with the Pua shells we dove for at a beach but there wasn't a tree.
. We drove onto the ferry Christmas afternoon as planned with no troubles just a bit of rain. We sat in the front of the boat in reclining seats as we navigated through islands. We drove off the ferry 3 hrs later in Wellington on the North and started having engine trouble. The beast was on it's last leg and we knew we had to get to a camp fast. We tried to get up a hill but it died in the middle of the highway. There we were on Christmas in the rain in a foreign country with a dog and most our possessions with us. We had no time to get down we had to act fast. We each grabbed a pack and filled it with survival gear and important documents. We next called the Police who had trouble understanding were we were. Finally we got a tow # and he was able to come out for a fee and tow us. We had no were to go so we pleaded with a hotel nearby to let us stay with our dog. The van got dumped outside the hotel door and there it stayed for 3 nights while we had to wait out the holiday. The kiwis all go on a month holiday at the same time. Everything is closed while they go set up camp on the beach. Luckily Matthew is a trooper and got on his bike in driving rain and a hail storm to find the info center, bank and finally a car dealer to buy us our new Toyota 4 runner. We were so glad to get out of there on our way.
We were having a stretch of bad luck. Our camera broke at the most scenic lake at Mt. Cook , Matts surf board snapped in half before he got to the good beaches and then the car. The other day Matt misplaced his wallet at the library. For once I stayed calm and ran back to beg the librarian to open up. I knew our luck couldn't get worse...
We got the wallet back, got a new camera and today found a house to rent a street away from the most amazing beach. It has it's own private garden with fruit trees, lavender, hydrangeas, roses a shed, a garage for me to transform into a studio, a enclosed patio for entertaining and two beds. A young couple just bought it as an investment and we got along so they said it's a go in 2 weeks!
New years we saw Rhythm and Vines, a concert held on a vineyard in Gisborne. This is one of the towns that was days earlier struck by an earthquake. We haven't felt anything yet but we do sit on a fault line. It keeps us on our toes. We were by far the oldest at the concert. We didn't know any of the bands but were just glad to hear live music. We have been without tv or a radio for so long. They had fire breathers , acrobats, people on stilts and firwork show at midnight. We were able to set up a tent during the show in one of the fields.I'll post pics.
I posted only a few of the pictures we've collected.I am working on a slide show with it's own soundtrack. Hopefully I can burn everyone a copy and you can print out the pictures you each like. I can't wait enlarge a bunch of them. I kept two small journals too. One for North one for South. Keep reading the blog. We will change out the pictures in a few days.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
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